Liberation from the Former Experts

How Obama discovered the revolution.

Suddenly, everyone is full of praise for Barack Obama’s policy on Egypt: demonstrators in Cairo, opposition parties in the Middle East and even Obama’s opposition in America, the Republicans. The turning point came on Feb. 1. During a telephone call with a stubborn Hosni Mubarak, the president understood that this man could not be allowed to stay in power, not even for a few months. Obama faced the cameras and publicly demanded that Egypt’s change must begin “now.”

The Departments of State and Defense, which feared the risk of reaction from Islamic fundamentalist movements and wanted to stand by Mubarak and the status quo for the time being, were not satisfied. Until now, the understanding had been to insist on reform, not regime change. Prime ministers, autocrats and generals from Jerusalem, Israel to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia complained about Obama’s disloyalty.

Obama, advised by a team consisting of a new generation of experts on foreign affairs, had reached the conclusion that it would be far riskier in the long term to place the United States on the wrong side of history for the sake of supposed stability. “How can we be there for the Egyptian people if people get the impression that we are supporting Mubarak?”* an aide warned.

Obama, like his predecessor, believes that democracy is the best option against Islamic fundamentalists. However, unlike George W. Bush, Obama does not want to spread his “Freedom Agenda” by force. For that reason, instead of aggressive interventionists, there are human rights campaigners on Obama’s team of foreign policy advisors. These campaigners include Samantha Power, a professor at Harvard University, Denis McDonough, deputy national security adviser, and Benjamin Rhodes, who importantly co-wrote Obama’s speech in Cairo in summer 2009. In theory, Hillary Clinton is a part of the team, but she sometimes wavers.

On Tuesday, Clinton announced a program worth millions that will help the Facebook, Twitter and YouTube generation get around Internet blocks that have been set by authoritarian governments. Anne-Marie Slaughter, professor at Princeton University, was until recently the guiding intellectual force of such projects. When she resigned as director of policy planning for the Department of State, she presented a concept that involves the future of civil societies and the meaning of new technology in America’s conduct of foreign policy.

The Department of State is toying with the idea of forming a coalition of democracies — the United States, Great Britain, Germany and, above all, Turkey — that could help the Arab states with reforms. Indonesia is a successful example of a political transformation. It was there that peaceful demonstrators, who were supported by the United States, upturned the Suharto dictatorship in 1998. The biggest Islamic nation in the world emerged as a truly successful democracy. In Obama’s youth, Indonesia was his second home.

*Translator’s Note: This quote, though accurately translated, could not be verified.