The Revolutionary War was paid for in blood by our founding fathers and their armies. Egypt’s democracy will have to be paid for in blood of the people of Egypt. Iraq got a pass from GWBUSH, for reasons, not one of us can truly say, however, our future is in financialy jeopardy, paying for that war and aftermath, what with financing the Iraqi’s bid for a democratic government.
Democracy doesn’t come cheap, and someone’s blood is usually spilled for it, and right now, they haven’t even paid a down payment for the democracy they so desire.
Iraq is what you actually posted, and Iraq is what I was incredulous about. Iraq got a pass?! No, not at all. More Iraqis died in the last 8 years than American soldiers. I wouldn’t call that “getting a pass”.
A thousand years ago there was a president of Syria who looked like a Canadian lumberjack, that nice Mr. Assad ( coincidentally, his son, who looks like a Canadian eye-doctor, is the present president of Syria ). He took a firm but fair attitude to the Muslim Brotherhood, having them dig trenches.
Which they then lay in, and the bulldozers rolled. Something not to be repeated until the First Saddamite War, when US tanks with plow attachments buried some Iraqi soldiers alive. Assad [ Jr. ] claimed the United States could benefit from the Syrian experience in fighting organizations like the Muslim Brotherhood at the Hama Massacre.
*After encountering fierce resistance, Rifaat’s forces ringed the city with artillery and shelled it for three weeks.
* Estimates of casualties vary from an estimated 7,000 to 35,000 people killed, including about 1,000 soldiers.
Since everyone, including the Muslim Brotherhood, seems pretty unspeakable: the only conclusion is that, to Save Democracy, Mr. Mubarak should stock up on bulldozers.
The US aid to Egypt was the price of peace between Egypt and Israel, and after several wars between those countries, peace is not quite as abstract a goal as you make it sound.
And I think the US, as hegemon, is going to be criticized no matter what its policy is toward Egypt. If it actively opposed Mubarak, the US would be criticized for allowing him to strengthen his rule by demonizing the US (e.g., Castro). If it tried to pick someone to support out of the Egyptian opposition, the US would run the risk of picking the wrong person (e.g., Chalabi) or weakening that person by making him look like a US stooge. And if the US tried to just stay hands-off as to Egypt, it would be criticized for disengaging from the Middle East peace process, as has happened a few times.
It’s paradoxical, but when you have the sort of power and influence that the US does, one consequence is that you really just can’t win, no matter what you do.
And people wonder why people are resentful of America. They Egyptian people are probably a little less blase about the whole “Well, we needed to sacrifice their freedom for our political goals” thing.
The thing is, it never works. We’ve done this a million times, and the reality is that you can’t keep your guy in office forever. And then what happens when a country with lingering resentment against America and no democratic tradition is suddenly on its own? Well, either our guy turns on us (like Saddam Hussain) or reactionaries get in power (like Iran.) We are not fixing any problems by micromanaging the world- at best we are putting dealing with the problem off, a “solution” that only fuels anti-American sentiment and lets things fester to the point that they really bad stuff happens.
America needs to muster up the courage to let people rule themselves.
That’s all well and good, but do you really want to see the Camp David Accords collapse and the clocks in the Middle East set back to 1968? Because there’s a good chance of that happening. I’m sorry I can’t be as idealistic about it as you are, but I live here, and I don’t want to die in some pointless battle on some dune in the Sinai.
We did their deeds for them; we got rid of Saddam, we did loads of bloodletting of our own soldiers and never mind the money it cost…of course, Iraqi’s died, so did revolutionaries in every country that ever was. Freedom doesn’t come cheap, never did and never will.
Something has to happen at some point. Of course it won’t be easy, but the Egyptian people (and all people living under foreign-backed dictatorships) will need their independence at some point. We can’t put it off dealing with it forever…it’s been thirty freaking years. At what point are we going to let people have their nation?
And think about how many Egyptians and Israelis died in war with each other during that time, compared to the previous thirty years. Those are human lives that you’re dismissing as “political goals.”
If Israelis believe that the young generation of Egyptians and a new regime in Egypt might be a threat to them, they’d better be thinking about how to get along with their neighbors, on their own mutual terms. The United States played a role in forging a peace there, once upon a time, and you’re welcome, and we backed that with many billions of dollars since, for both sides, and you’re welcome again. But, shit, we have our own problems; that largesse has to end some time. I would have cut off both Egypt and Israel years ago. Frankly, if saving lives were really the goal, there are more cost-effective places to spend it than those countries.
We’ve been trying to get along with them for over 60 years. There is absolutely no reason for us to feel any hostility toward the Egyptian people - all we want to do is trade with them and visit the Sinai beaches. We WANT to be friends with them.