[Peace-discuss] Academics on Egypt

[C. G. Estabrook]

http://www.accuracy.org/an-open-letter-to-president-barack-obama/
An Open Letter to President Barack Obama
January 30, 2011

Dear President Obama:

As political scientists, historians, and researchers in related fields who have 
studied the Middle East and U.S. foreign policy, we the undersigned believe you 
have a chance to move beyond rhetoric to support the democratic movement 
sweeping over Egypt. As citizens, we expect our president to uphold those values.

For thirty years, our government has spent billions of dollars to help build and 
sustain the system the Egyptian people are now trying to dismantle. Tens if not 
hundreds of thousands of demonstrators in Egypt and around the world have 
spoken. We believe their message is bold and clear: Mubarak should resign from 
office and allow Egyptians to establish a new government free of his and his 
family’s influence. It is also clear to us that if you seek, as you said Friday 
“political, social, and economic reforms that meet the aspirations of the 
Egyptian people,” your administration should publicly acknowledge those reforms 
will not be advanced by Mubarak or any of his adjutants.

There is another lesson from this crisis, a lesson not for the Egyptian 
government but for our own. In order for the United States to stand with the 
Egyptian people it must approach Egypt through a framework of shared values and 
hopes, not the prism of geostrategy. On Friday you rightly said that 
“suppressing ideas never succeeds in making them go away.” For that reason we 
urge your administration to seize this chance, turn away from the policies that 
brought us here, and embark on a new course toward peace, democracy and 
prosperity for the people of the Middle East. And we call on you to undertake a 
comprehensive review of US foreign policy on the major grievances voiced by the 
democratic opposition in Egypt and all other societies of the region.

Sincerely,
Jason Brownlee, University of Texas at Austin [contact to sign]
Joshua Stacher, Kent State University
Tamir Moustafa, Simon Fraser University
Arang Keshavarzian, New York University
Clement Henry, University of Texas at Austin
Robert Springborg, Naval Postgraduate School
Jillian Schwedler, University of Massachusetts at Amherst
Noam Chomsky, Massachusetts Institute of Technology... [and many others]