Kings & Cabbages

Caption: Egypt Protesting at Night.

So, for now the Egyptian popular revolt is up in the air. Over 100 people have by now lost their lives in Cairo, Suez, and Alexandria, the street continues to defy military curfew, and Mubarak sacked his entire government (what a move to encourage loyalty) and appointed new stooges figures in various posts. Judging from the footage, people are still in the streets for Mubarak to resign. BUT some the protests seem to be veering towards chaos. But then, the army and the people are increasingly hanging out together.

(There had been early reports on Press TV that Mubarak was considering exile, and after being rejected by Saudi Arabia, was considering exile to Tel Aviv. I have difficulties seeing him wearing bunny slippers and sipping his evening tea with Tzipi Livni and playing golf with Netanyahu, though. Or maybe it’s not such a stretch of the imagination, after all).

However, Israel has expressed its confidence in the embattled Mubarak (perhaps as a way to forestall an unwelcome houseguest). Yesterday, Time Magazine published an interview with an unnamed Israeli official who admitted that the protests were “an earthquake” but thought that Mubarak would be able to quell it, thanks to that $60 billion US investment in Egyptian security forces (and people wonder why US schools are going down the drain). “I’m not sure the time is right for the Arab region to go through the democratic process,” he said. Yeah.

What ultimately happens is up to anyone’s guess. But mostly, its up to the pulse on the street. Mubarak may be hang onto power through by this teeth and his toenails; he may flee with burning coat tails and be replaced by another client ruler; or even, a genuine change in government towards popular representation. What is interesting, however, is how the discourse is changing. The invisible “angry Arabs” that the fatuous Tom Friedman kept warning his readers about, simmering in resentment for US policies and proxies, now have a face thanks to all footage.

1. In the New York Times, that leather arm chair of all US pundit booths, published an article on growing US irrelevance in the Middle East. (I talked about that point in my last post, if you recall). Even as US officials launched a charm offensive on Al-Jazeera last night, sympathizing with protesters, but experts say that US words are increasingly losing their psychological impact. (Unlike the 90s, when US “peace” initiatives on the Israeli-Palestinian issue were followed with bated breath. Now Michelle Obama’s fashion choices are followed with greater suspense than Barack’s noble prosings).

The chaos unfolding in Egypt is laying bare a stark fact, Middle East experts say: In the Arab world, American words may not matter, because American deeds, whatever the words, have been pretty consistent.

2. Good old Counterpunch. I especially liked this article by Gary Leupp on the significance of Revolution coming from the Middle East (yes, Revolution with a capital “R”, the storied archetype of change previously symbolized by the French and American Revolutions). The million dollar question: Can the Middle East help inspire the moribund student, anti-war, and justice movements in the US?

I love the way he uses “fig leaf” in analyzing Mubarak’s importance to keeping Israel secure.

the U.S. has supported Mubarak because he’s provided an Arab fig leaf for the unequivocal support for Israel that the U.S. has provided for decades.

AND he quotes Langston Hughes’ A Dream Deferred. Good man! And I have to say, I especially liked the ending to the piece.

Demonstrators in Cairo note that tear gas canisters on the street are marked “Made in USA.” What should they to make of that? Who’s really encouraging their dreams? Who’s caused them to defer them, decade upon decade? It’s the same foe that has caused the deferment of dreams here in this country and around the world.

I learned to say shukran in Cairo. To my friends there now, engaged in this fine, fine battle, I say that now.

Shukran, shukran for inspiring the world, showing that another world might be possible.

3. To balance out all the love, let’s include a grapeshot of the “WHO LOST CHINA?” Syndrome from former US Ambassador Marc Ginsberg.

Yes, when China went Red in 1949, US generals and politicians hurled around this accusation like China was an enormous piece of American real-estate whose deed some one lost after one too many martinis. In his Huffpost op-ed, Ginsberg, serves up a bracing dose of political entitlement, Richard Holbrooke-style.

“Just who exactly is jockeying in the wings to outflank the true moderates or autocratic leaders of the Arab world and seize control of the governments of Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, Lebanon in the event sinister forces and/or “people power” (aka the so-called “Arab Street”) sends them packing?

In each case, check either “a relative unknown” or “our worst nightmare.”

Translation: A post-Mubarak government (he’s really focused on Egypt) could feature either ElBaradei or, oh horror, the Muslim Brotherhood.

But this is no time to throw up our hands and walk off the playing field.

Yes, thank you for this throwback to British Sahib-dom.

As events rapidly unfold, no one at Foggy Bottom or the White House can afford to ignore Jimmy Carter’s greatest foreign policy blunder when he abandoned the Shah to the Persian street. Nor should they gloss over Condoleezza Rice’s naïve attempt to promote free Palestinian elections in an aborted effort to promote the Bush administration’s so called freedom agenda in the Middle East.

That gem helped bring extremist Hamas to power.

Publicly commending the demonstrators may actually fuel the protests pushing our allies over the cliff into the waiting hands of unknowns or “our worst nightmares.” And we can then watch American foreign policy interests in the Middle East rapidly go down the drain because what will come to power in their wake may satisfy the Arab Street, but surely not Pennsylvania Avenue.

Simply put, understandable sympathy with the disenfranchised youth of the Arab world does not represent an effective foreign policy strategy.

Translation: Democracy be damned, the Egyptian street be damned, Egypt is too important to leave in the hand of the Egyptians.