[Peace-discuss] [Fwd: FFF Op-Ed: "U.S. Versus the Egyptian People" by Sheldon Richman]

[E. Wayne Johnson]

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: 	FFF Op-Ed: "U.S. Versus the Egyptian People" by Sheldon Richman
Date: 	Tue, 15 Feb 2011 15:10:42 -0500 (EST)
From: 	The Future of Freedom Foundation <fff at fff.org>
To: 	E. Wayne Johnson <ewj at pigs.ag>



To: The Op-Ed Editor
687 words
Contact: Bart Frazier
The Future of Freedom Foundation
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Fairfax VA 22030
Tel: (703) 934-6101
Tel: (703) 352-8678
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bfrazier at fff.org
U.S. Versus the Egyptian People
by Sheldon Richman
The last thing the U.S. policy elite wants is real democracy in Egypt. 
That country has been a linchpin of American foreign policy for more 
than 30 years precisely because its government has been able to defy the 
will of the Egyptian people. If that should change now, America’s rulers 
and their Israeli partners will be in panic mode, if they aren’t already.
We may discount the insipid kind-of-pro-democracy statements coming from 
President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. They 
wanted the street protesters to go away, and if lip service to human 
rights would help bring that about, then they would engage in it. But 
they were careful not to encourage the throngs in Cairo’s Tahrir 
(Liberation) Square because they don’t trust common people with big 
decisions. Obama and Clinton played a cunning game, but rather ineptly. 
Earlier this month their special envoy, Frank Wisner, publicly said his 
old friend Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak “must stay in office to 
steer” the way toward a “national consensus around the preconditions” 
for reform. Clinton tried to distance herself from Wisner’s too-blunt 
words before essentially saying the same thing later.
But events moved too fast, and now Mubarak is history.
The American policymakers must be frustrated. They need a firm hand in 
Egypt, but Mubarak stayed too long and they were powerless to maneuver 
Vice President Omar Suleiman into power. Suleiman was to be their new 
man. He had been a good servant through the years: When the CIA needed 
to have someone tortured, he was the go-to guy. The people would not 
have accepted him as the successor to Mubarak.
Why did the U.S. government side with authoritarianism in Egypt? To 
update what Franklin Roosevelt is reported to have said about Nicaraguan 
dictator Anastasio Somoza in 1939: Mubarak and Suleiman may have been 
sons of bitches, but they were /our/ sons of bitches. For decades they 
were faithful agents of the American empire, at a cost of well over a $1 
billion a year from American taxpayers. In the eyes of the power elite, 
it was money well spent.
Support for Egyptian dictators was part of a bigger plan. Since World 
War II, when America succeeded Great Britain as the chief imperial power 
in the region, the U.S. government has opposed Arab nationalism and 
independence, and supported any ruler — secular or religious — who would 
toe the U.S. line. When it was necessary to cultivate the Muslim 
Brotherhood in Egypt because it hated secular nationalism and Marxism, 
that was the policy the Americans pursued. (In 1953 Dwight Eisenhower 
hosted a Muslim Brotherhood envoy at the White House, despite its 
reputation for violence.) At other times, it supported autocratic rulers 
who suppressed that organization (which renounced violence more than 50 
years ago). It all depended on who America’s official enemy was and who 
was willing to carry water for the U.S. government — a cynical game, but 
that’s what superpowers do to gain their objectives.
And what were America’s objectives? Control of the vast oil reserves, 
which are seen as essential to U.S. global hegemony, and (mostly for 
domestic political reasons) unconditional support of Israel, including 
its expansion onto Palestinian land and intimidation of its neighbors. 
Any Arab leader willing to advance those goals — no matter how brutal or 
defiant of the people — could be a well paid friend of the United 
States. Otherwise, watch out.
The problem for America’s policy elite is that Arabs like neither 
foreign interference nor the brutal treatment of the Palestinians. 
That’s why they had to be denied a say in their own governance. Look up 
what happened when the “wrong” parties won elections in Algeria and 
Gaza. If the winner in a free Egyptian election is a party that sides 
with the long-suffering Palestinians, don’t expect the U.S. government 
to stand by.
And yet what could it do? Egyptians have experienced people power. They 
know what it’s like to abolish a government. Incredibly, Mubarak is 
gone, and resistance to other dictators is spreading. For America’s 
rulers, the chickens are on their way home. How could they not have 
known this day would come?
/Sheldon Richman is senior fellow at The Future of Freedom Foundation 
(www.fff.org) and editor of *The Freeman* magazine. /
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