Pharoah, let your people go!

Apropo of Passover, the New Yorker takes a look at the state of tyranny in Egypt. [Subscription required] President Hosni Mubarak is 82 and his health is deteriorating. Mubarak has ruled since 1981, with the aid of a perepetual Emergency Law that allows for unlimited suppression of dissent.

So what has the United States done to support Egypt’s long-suffering democratic opposition? With good reason, the New Yorker criticizes the Bush administration for talking big about democracy promotion then running away from its policy. But I don’t think the article understands why:

In 2005, President George W. Bush, angered by Hosni Mubarak’s opposition to the second Iraq war, demanded that Mubarak hold multiparty Presidential elexctions…That summer, Egyptians witnessed an unprecedented spectacle: their aging leader making stump speeches and shaking hands around the country,having reluctantly allowed other parties to field candidates.

I don’t think I’ve heard any writer suggest before that Bush used democracy promotion as a stick to beat those Arab dictators who opposed the war in Iraq. The usual criticism is that Bush’s ideological blinkers led him to promote democracy in the Middle East regardless of the consequences. But Egypt could have benefitted from more democratic pressure. Mubarak made stump speeches, but still rigged the results in 2005 to give himself 88.6 percent of the vote.

Parliamentary elections were also held in 2005, and one oposition group performed significantly better than expected: the Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist party that supports Sharia law and has engendered such violent offshoots as Egyptian Islamic Jihad. (The Brotherhood renounced violence in 1970.)…

The strong showing of the Islamists was a shock. Since then, the United States has reduced the pressure on Hosni Mubarak for real democratic reforms, in part because it regards him as a reliable ally and guarantor of stability in the Middle East. (Egypt receives almost two billion dollars a year in U.S. military and development aid.) During a January, 2007, visit to Egypt, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice offered nothing but praise for Mubarak. Last August, when Mubarak travelled to Washington with his son to meet President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton, the focus was almost entirely on Iran’s nuclear program and the Middle East peace process.

I again find it peculiar that the New Yorker attributes the Bush administration’s retreat from democracy promotion in Egypt as a response to the Muslim Brotherhood’s strong showing in 2005. It seems pretty well understood among Egypt watchers that the Brotherhood is not a threat. It violent offshoot, Islamic Jihad, broke away in the 1970s.

Some argue that the Bush administration backed away from democracy promotion because of the Hamas victory in the Palestinian elections in early 2006. I don’t know the situation there well enough to say. As I see it, the explosion of violence in Iraq in 2006 took all the wind out of democracy promotion’s sales. In 2005, after the elections in Iraq and Cedar Revolution in Lebanon, democracy promotion looked very smart. On the heels of those events, dictators were on the defensive and responsive to American pressure. When the ethnic cleansing started in Iraq, the Bush administration lost face and found it much harder to exert much pressure.

But the more important question now is about the future. Will Mubarak run again next year? As many expect, will Mubarak attempt to install his son Gamal as his successor? Will the Obama administration do anything to support the democratic opposition? Perhaps it is worth recalling what Obama said in Cairo:

I know — I know there has been controversy about the promotion of democracy in recent years, and much of this controversy is connected to the war in Iraq. So let me be clear: No system of government can or should be imposed by one nation by any other.

That does not lessen my commitment, however, to governments that reflect the will of the people…I do have an unyielding belief that all people yearn for certain things: the ability to speak your mind and have a say in how you are governed; confidence in the rule of law and the equal administration of justice; government that is transparent and doesn’t steal from the people; the freedom to live as you choose. These are not just American ideas; they are human rights. And that is why we will support them everywhere.

That would be nice, but I’m not optimistic. I am friends with a journalist and democratic activist in Egypt. She made the very interesting observation that even though she and her colleagues had little respect for Bush, his pressure had an impact. In contrast, they have warm feelings for Obama but low expectations.