 Published
February 4th, 2011
The volcanic eruption of popular anger into
sustained massive street protests against the 30-year old
brutal and dictatorial regime of the Egyptian leader,
President Hosni Mubarak, has once again brought into stark
relief the difficulties involved in balancing, as former US
Secretary of States under HW Bush, James Baker, puts it,
“national values and national interests.” In drawing this
distinction Baker lays bare the basic principles
undergirding United States’ foreign policy objectives which
have been passed down from one administration to another
regardless of the party in power.
Baker has by this arbitrary categorization,
however, drawn a stark distinction between national values
and national interests, which are not necessarily
co-terminus. Where they are co-terminus the United States
speaks loud and clear but where they are not she tends to
speak from both sides of the mouth in doublespeak or muffled
voice that tends to question her professed commitment to
democracy globally. However, when she speaks in such muffled
voice as she has indeed been forced to do quite often she is
actually trying to balance both interests without appearing
to abandon either at any time. This is an extremely
difficult if not impossible task particularly in a situation
that calls for a clear and straightforward position from the
acclaimed leader of the free world. And that’s why the
Egyptian protesters have by and large discounted US support
for their single most important demand for the ouster of
their ageing and brutal dictator. Even Muhammed El Baradei,
the former UN Chief Weapons Inspector in Iraq, criticized
the US for speaking from both sides of her mouth; talking
about how important Mubarak has been as an ally and her
support for the right of Egyptians to peaceful protests and
demands for democracy. That is a delicate balancing act
because the United States is trying to hold on to both. The
problem though is that the US cannot protect Mubarak and at
the same time help the protesters meet their demands for his
immediate ouster. Put another way, she cannot hold on to
both national values and national interests at the same time
insofar as she sees a distinction between both that need not
be made.
But what precisely are these national values
and national interests that Baker talked about? US national
values as reeled out by the respected Baker consist of
democracy, freedom and human rights. And while not
explicitly defining US national interests, he was quick to
mention Mubarak’s role in securing peace with the state of
Israel and stability in the region as being in US national
interest. And so also is the fact that although Egypt is not
a major oil supplier to the US like Saudi Arabia, for
example, it has 8% of world trade passing through the Suez
Canal according to Bloomberg Businessweek. And according to
the New York Times about 4.5 barrels of world crude supplies
in addition to 12% of global liquefied natural gas trade
pass through both the Suez Canal and the Sumed Pipeline
located in and controlled by Egypt. There is no question
then that an uncontained crisis in Egypt would severely
adversely affect world trade and stymie the tepid recovery
of the global economy as oil prices have already risen even
as it is for fear of possible disruption of oil supplies to
world markets. That is part of the national interests that
has the US stuttering. But Mubarak’s graceful exit is the
quickest means of securing those critical supply lines by
bringing the crisis to a quick end rather than the other way
around that might prolong it.
Mubarak has also cracked down on Islamic
fundamentalists rooting for an Islamic state fashioned after
Iranian model, particularly the Moslem Brotherhood, which
has been at the receiving end of the Mubarak regime to the
obvious pleasure of the United States. In the light of these
glaring national interests, therefore, he cautioned against
abandoning a strategic ally such as Mubarak and allowing
Egypt to potentially fall into the waiting hands of radical
Islam. He was full of praise for President Barak Obama’s
handling of the situation so far, as indeed other leading
figures, such as Senator Charles Schumer, from the State of
New York. That is in line with precedents, as for instance,
when late Saddam Hussein brutally cracked down on popular
uprising against his rule at a time he was contending with
Iran in the battlefield and supported by the United States.
That crackdown was later to provide the Iranian authorities
with the required evidence of genocide to hang him.
Ever the since the Egyptian crisis erupted
and caught Washington flat footed, she has been scrambling
to craft a carefully calibrated response to the crisis; one
that would balance both competing interests of national
values and national interests. In series of frantic
consultations with her European allies the Obama
administration had been signaling that it wanted nothing but
orderly transition in Egypt not a revolution in order not to
rock the boat in the Middle East. And that’s why every
public statement issuing forth from the government, whether
coming from White House Chief Press Secretary, Robert Gibbs,
the US Secretary of State, Hillary Rodham Clinton, or from
the President Obama himself, had been carefully prefaced
with how great an ally Mubarak had been to the United States
and his role in the Middle East peace process, while at the
same time expressing United States’ commitment to freedom of
expression and peaceful protests. But that is not what the
protesters are demanding. They are not demanding freedom of
expression or right to peaceful protests. They already have
those and are in fact expressing them by engaging in the
protests without molestation by the authorities. What they
want is for Mubarak to resign immediately. They are fed up
with him after 30 years in power. One female protester put
it best: “It’s a shame that I’m 33 and I have not enjoyed
the right to choose the leader of my country as in other
countries” or something to that effect. She, like others
want Mubarak out of the way permanently to enable them carry
on with their lives not merely to grant Egyptians freedom of
expression and the right to protest. It looked like
Washington didn’t get it or was acting in denial.
The entire Washington political establishment
is acutely unwilling to have Mubarak disgraced out of office
as was his Tunisian counterpart. In fact, US government
officials have faithfully refrained from using the world
“dictator” to describe Mubarak. The marked difference
between United States and the west’s response to similar
protests in Iran barely a year ago and the Egyptian protests
is underlined and explicable by the Baker distinction
between US national values and US national interests. In
Iran both interests coalesced into one whole and that
explained why the United States and other western powers
were at the forefront in cheering and supporting the
protesters and forcefully demanding that their needs should
be met. Were such protests to erupt in countries like Syria,
Cuba, Venezuela and North Korea the United States and the
west would likewise move decisively in support and if need
be provide both direct and indirect assistance to the
organizers to help them succeed in overthrowing those
regimes. But the story would be different when such protests
are happening in countries like Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Saudi
Arabia and many others that are friendly to the United
States and the west. And you say different strokes for
different folks, which translates to the application of
double standards. Double standards are worse than no
standards at all because they provoke adverse reactions and
elicit charges of inconsistency at best and hypocrisy at
worst in the minds of affected parties.
And that inevitably raises the question as to
whether national interests should be allowed to trump
national values? The answer has been answered in the
affirmative by the US government in its reluctance to see
Mubarak go as demanded by the protesters and thus willing to
have him organize an orderly transition to democratic rule,
citing, as Baker again puts it, the need for “stability”.
Hear Baker again: “Stability should not be a dirty
word…stability is good,” to rub it in, in the NBC Matt Lauer
interview.
And it further raises the question as to
whether national values are part of national interests and
vice versa. If nations are going to draw a clear distinction
between national values and national interests and the
former is to be subordinated to the latter whenever there is
a clash, then it is fair to conclude that national values
are inferior to national interests and could therefore be
sacrificed at a whim. The United States has been in bed with
dictators throughout history in virtually all continents in
countries like Cuba before Castro, Iran before the Ayatollah
and the entire countries in the Middle East that know no
democracy and human rights by willfully sacrificing her
national values on the altar of her national interests that
are at best temporary and shifting. And that has dealt huge
blow to her credibility the world over when she begins to
push for democracy in unfriendly nations. There is virtue in
consistency no matter what. There is virtue in constancy of
principles no matter what.
In the name of stability in the Middle East
and peace with Israel, the United States is ready to have
Mubarak remain in power till the end of his current term in
September and he has promised not to go for re-election. But
where is the guarantee that he will keep to that promise
which, by the way, is not written in stone. How many
dictators have been known to keep their words when the
pressure is off their backs? I know of none in history. That
is not to say that the 82 year old Mubarak will not honor
his word made under extreme pressure in a special public
television broadcast to his 85 million fellow countrymen and
women in the thick of the protest, but to underline the fact
that those words mean nothing in the end if he is let off
the hook. And even if he leaves as age is not on his side,
what is the guarantee that he will be able to preside over
credible election later this year? How could a brutal
dictator like Mubarak be allowed to preside over the conduct
of a credible election?
Already the man has begun a crackdown on the
protesters by organizing massive counter protests and
thousands are reported to have fled the Cairo’s Tahrir
Square, the epicenter of the protests, and the army has
ordered the protesters to vacate the square telling them
that they had delivered their message and are capable of
bringing stability to Egypt, which is clear signal that it
is feed up with the endless protests and ready to impose
order by force if need be. Yes even as he promised reforms a
brutal crackdown is already underway as I pen these lines
and this bodes ill for the ultimate success of the already
flowering people’s revolution.
In fact, Brian Williams of NBC’s Nightly
News is reporting that there has been a dramatic power
shift in favor of Mubarak literarily overnight. The
narrative has changed and Mubarak seems to have turned the
table on the protesters within 24 hours. And what is more,
the little concessions extracted from the brutal hands of
Mubarak are completely reversible since nothing concrete has
been achieved with the so-called negotiations with the
opposition elements. In fact, the whole protest locomotive
seems to hurtling down the anti-climax lane with this new
twist as the protesters, or those who refused to quit are
now at the receiving end, treated to horsewhips and “Rock
and Molotov cocktails” as reported including gunshots. Some
deaths have even been reported. He reports that for now the
pro-Mubarak forces have gained or at least appear to be
gaining the upper hand.
This clearly indicates that Mubarak has
successfully mobilized counter revolutionary forces to abort
the revolution midstream. And that will be good news for
dictators all around the world. The situation is still fluid
on the ground and everything can change in a moment as we
have seen as everyday bring new developments. But if indeed
the Egyptian revolution winds up a failure the greatest
beneficiaries will be Mubarak and his brother dictators in
the Arab world, all the way from Libya to Syria, all of whom
are US allies excepting Syria’s Assad. And it will a deal
terrible blow to democratic forces throughout the Middle
East who were looking to draw inspiration from Egypt, the
largest and most influential Arab country in the world.
There would have been a huge domino effect if the revolution
had succeeded in Egypt but that prospect is fast receding as
I write this with the latest developments. This is happening
because the United States which has tremendous leverage with
Mubarak has refused to play ball on the side of the
protesters on the principle that the devil you know is
better than the angel you don’t know.
However, such principle is not only self
serving but ultimately defeats the cause of democracy in the
part of the world that badly needs it. And the US will come
out of it damaged in the eyes of democratic forces
throughout the region due to her dubious, non-committal
stance. It would go down in history that when the US was
presented with two choices between a brutal dictator,
Mubarak on the one hand, and the Egyptian people, on the
other hand, she decided to side with the dictator in the
name of national interests and stability in the Middle East.
And that is in tune with Mubarak’s challenge to his people
to choose between stability and chaos. The US is essentially
singing the same tune with Mubarak about stability and
orderly transition. And he has moved to enforce stability.
No one would blame the US for that had she not represented
and presented herself to the world as the global champion of
democratic values and had sought to promote such values in a
rather selective fashion.
And that is putting it mildly. If truth be
told the United States is afraid of democracy coming to
Egypt that could wind up installing unfriendly Islamic
fundamentalists in power that would antagonize Israel. In
fact, Baker voiced that fear in the interview in the NBC’s
Today Show by Matt Lauer, cited earlier. The US is
afraid of empowering them like it happened earlier in
Lebanon with Hezbollah and in the Palestinian territory of
Gaza with Hamas were Hamas was handed landslide victory in a
democratic election. It is to be recalled that the Bush
administration bluntly refused to recognize the Hamas
victory. However, the idea that only friendly regimes are
entitled to govern is utterly ridiculous and does extreme
violence to the very notion of democracy. Whoever emerges as
the clear choice of the people whether friendly or
unfriendly to Washington and the west is entitled to govern
in a democratic dispensation. Why is it impossible or too
difficult to deal with democratically elected governments
that, for the time being, happen to be unfriendly to the
United States? It seems that the west believes in changing
attitudes through adverse process of antagonism rather than
through what Reagan called “constructive engagement” with
difficult regimes. And Reagan was a Republican the last time
I checked, the very party that is opposed to having any form
of engagement with the so-called “Axis of Evil”. Obama
himself had said he was willing to engage with Iran and even
North Korea that clearly hostile regimes. And he has kept
his words. That is the way it should be, not the other way
around.
Why, one might ask, should a nation that
preaches democracy prefer to deal with dictatorial regimes
that deny their own people basic freedoms than with
democratically elected governments that happen to be hostile
or unfriendly? Hostility is a relative term and it could be
turned around with certain mutual assurances. I find that
totally hypocritical and absurd. And the distinction
between national interests and national values does not even
begin to address it because there is no genuine reason for
that distinction in the first place. It is wholly
artificial. We cannot be preaching about democracy where the
people are allowed to choose their leaders in a free and
fair election and at the same time appearing to dictate who
their choices should be and if their choices happen to be at
variance with ours proceed to distance ourselves from their
choices even to the extent of not recognizing the clear
choices of the people in an otherwise free and fair
election. We cannot eat our cake and have it back. It’s just
not possible.
In conclusion it’s about time the United
States embarked upon a comprehensive review of her foreign
policy posture under the current president with a view to
totally eliminating the artificial distinction between
national values and national interests. Both should not be
treated as separate categories with one cavalierly
sacrificed for the other at the drop of a hat, but rather
treated as one whole, holistically as one corpus of national
interests. If they must remain separate, however, then on no
account should national interests be allowed to trump
national values, which are more permanent national treasures
to be defended, protected, cherished and projected to the
outside world than interests in oil and the Middle East
peace process, which are neither here nor there. Global
respect for the United States comes not from her interests
in oil. Other nations too have interests in oil shipments
and in the Middle East peace process. Why should those now
more important than her cherished national values?
The United States was not founded on national
interests that were acquired along the way, but on national
values of democracy, liberty, freedom and human rights as
enunciated in the Bill of Rights enshrined in the US
constitution and in the Declaration of Independence. And the
US along with her values was there before the state of
Israel came into being in 1948. She was there before the
crisis in the Middle East came into being and before the
Islamic fundamentalists and terrorism came into being. These
values predated even the founding of the United States
itself and ought to be held sacrosanct and inviolable. It is
a shame that the United States is now in bed with dictators
in the Middle East such as Mubarak to put out the light on
freedom, democracy and human rights, their muffled defense
in the case of Egypt and other friendly dictatorial states
around the world, notwithstanding. It’s time to take a
consistent stand, not straddling between the opposing and
irreconcilable worlds of dictatorship and democracy. A
nation that was forged by the fire of revolution should not
be seen to tamp down the flame of a revolution.
Should that mean abandoning an old ally and
side with those who want him out immediately rather than
later? Well, if that is the price to pay for democracy, so
be it. He should not have been an ally in the first place.
The moral dilemma involved in abandoning an ally is self
inflicted and need not have arisen in the first place if the
United States had been true to her founding ideals and her
constitution. The very notion of the United States being in
bed with brutal dictators is indeed repugnant to many of her
citizens and admirers and a bitter pill to swallow.
Therefore, this crisis should be a turning point in US
relations with the world. The US has no business being in
bed with petty dictators. Cuddling dictators might be an
American tradition not started by Obama, but it should be up
to him, the candidate and president of change to change that
unenviable tradition. The cold war is over and there is
absolutely no reason to be in bed with dictators as a
counterpoise against the Soviets. Over to you, President
Barack Obama! This is your call. Start the process of the
policy review now before another crisis hits in another part
of the world because, sure enough, another will hit in due
course.
From the stable of –Cutting-Edge
Analytics—Where News Meets the Intellect--
Franklin Otorofani is an Attorney and Public
Affairs Analyst.
Contacts:
mudiagaone@yahoo.com,
http://franklinotorofani.wordpress.com/
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