I mean, if you want to pretend the cables are fake or falsified or Wikileaks made things up, that's certainly your choice. No one says you actually have to live in the real world.
I am saying that these uprisings were spurred by Tunisia's recent upheaval rather than by the blessing of the US.
El Baradei seems like a media creation more than anything else. There has been a constant attempt to put a face to this revolution and nothing fits the narrative better than a moderate former UN official. I highly doubt the guy has any actual pull. On BBC they were interviewing random people on the street and the consistent answer was either Who is this guy? or Isnt he the guy that just travels around Europe all the time? Short answer I doubt he means very much in the grand scheme of things. It just seems like chaos at this point and there's very little indication of where it will all go. I'm skeptical anything will actually happen outside of some token gestures by the government to change things. After all this isnt the first time protests have broken out in Egypt. Last time Mubarak promised democratic parliamentary elections (which he did except parliament has no power so it didnt really matter). Mubarak has been shrewd in placating these types of things with token gestures. I expect the same again.
Say what you will about the President's response. Mr Obama's talk with Mubarak must have had some affect; phones and internet is back.
That's okay, Mathloom. I've been there. There's what he can say publicly and what he can say privately and what the nation can do through other channels. I would bet the mildest of all those is what is available to news outlets.
Very well played by Obama. This timing and approach empowers the people of Egypt, and it positions the US as a supporter of freedom and democracy. I’m sure there was a lot of diplomatic chatter well before his speech, but the message sent by Obama not talking to Mubarak before he gave his speech was that the US is NOT trying to take control of this situation, and that it respects Egypt’s right to self-determination. The message is that the US is no longer being run by the anti-freedom and anti-democracy Bush administration, but instead is being run by an administration that respects Egypt and Egyptians, and that values freedom and democracy. From a content perspective, by taking a position significantly against what Mubarak said Obama is positioning the US on the side of reform in Egypt. Think about that for a minute. Up to this point the US has been the country that supported the dictator and repressed freedom and democracy in Egypt for the sake of its own political manoeuvrings in the Middle East.
That wouldn’t come across as very credible. The US has been supporting Mubarak for years. It can’t very well flip flop overnight and expect to be taken seriously. The credible position is to support a transition, which I think is essentially what he’s done. And given the US’s history of interference in the ME it’s VERY important that it respects Egypt’s right to self-determination in the process.
I don't doubt that he does. The interaction between these strong personalities facinates me. My assumption is that her and Biden were very much in "the mix" on how to respond to this crisis, which could develop into the major foreign policy crisis of the President's first term, depending on events. edit: A pretty amazing graph! (amazing and depressing) Another edit. Here's an astonishing image...
Well that's just odd. What did Mubarak do that made America change sides? This makes no sense at all - the US provides 1.3 billion in aid and weapons to Mubarak annually.
Well to be fair really, America has been suckered into providing that aid to Egypt because Mubarak (and Sadat before him) have been very good at holding the US hostage in terms of Egypt's influence and importance as the central power in the Middle East. Mubarak has basically convinced the US over time that the American agenda would be DOA (Dead On Arrival) if not facilitated through Cairo, or if Egypt is not completely on board. Middle East peace process? Yup, you need Egypt for that. Having a legitimate counterweight to Iran in the region? Yup, you need Egypt for that. Counter-terrorism? Yup, you need Egypt for that. Oh, and you need us to NOT be a major nuisance and constant threat to Israel's security? Oh, guess what? Yup, you still need Egypt for that! So, in short: fork over the money already! America is buying peace and its version of stability in the region, or has at least tried to. Nothing more really.
Well, yeah - they both play the game. But the game was designed and built by the US, for the US. Generally speaking.
I have no idea - but it may be that they simply have no choice, both in supporting Mubarek while he's in power and supporting a revolution. Perhaps they feel that if a rebellion is inevitable, the US needs to develop friends in high places of the new government and avoid it from becoming Islamist. While different than our normal view of stability in the Middle East, if Egypt can develop into a stable true Democracy, it peacefully creates the environment we tried to create in Iraq - the shining beacon of Democracy in the region.
