Obama, Mubarak and Yemen

There is one thing that the diplomatic dispatches published by WikiLeaks was clear on: the value of U.S. diplomacy. The quality of messages and vision tests were true revelations. They contrasted with the cables of the Ambassador of France to Tunisia whose assessments were distressing and who had never bothered to meet with a representative of the opposition.

The events in Egypt and Yemen are a problem far more complicated in the United States and for Barack Obama. Egypt, which receives $1.5 billion in aid from the United States each year, is an essential part of the U.S. strategy to counter Iran. And Yemen, led for over 30 years by Ali Abdullah Saleh, has become one of the bases of al-Qaeda, but at the same time the U.S. has an almost absolute freedom to wage war on al-Qaeda affiliates in the country.

The one-billion dollar question for Barack Obama is simple in its formulation, but almost impossible to solve: How can the U.S. preserve its security with its moral imperatives, as they have been particularly defined at the Cairo speech of June 4, 2009? The foreign policy of Jimmy Carter, who made human rights the main thrust of U.S. foreign policy, proved to be a disaster. Diplomacy cannot oscillate between these two extremes of the spectrum; between gunboat diplomacy and the naïveté of political rights, as laudable as it is. How to counter Iran, contain al-Qaeda and support those who have the courage to oppose despots clinging to power for over three decades?

The ideal for Barack Obama would be a transition like that of Ferdinand Marcos, who was the president of the Philippines in the ‘80s. Unleashed by Ronald Reagan, the transition took place when the U.S. realized that keeping him in power after so many years was threatening the stability of the region and provided weapons to extremists. Obama suggested Friday that the U.S. might reconsider its aid to Egypt, where Mubarak has continued to use the army against the young people who are protesting. The WikiLeaks cables have revealed the efforts of American diplomacy to persuade Mubarak to release dissidents and to undertake necessary reforms. But they were in vain. Instead of making promises of great reform at the 25th hour, Mubarak had better start by putting an end to shutdowns in telephone and Internet communications. It would be a first step.

George W. Bush and his “neo-cons” firmly believed that the fall of Iraq and replacing Saddam Hussein with a democratic regime would result in a large game of dominoes; a democratization of the Middle East. The Iraq war has proved a total disaster. The first shock wave has finally been felt, but from where we did not expect: a small peaceful country. It may be felt beyond Egypt. Barack Obama must now decide on the policy he intends to pursue and make his voice heard clearly. The Muslim world expects it from him.