US caught napping

[unhappycamper]

US caught napping
By Victor Kotsev
Feb 8, 2011

"The debate over who 'lost' Egypt seems to have begun," wrote Politico on Friday. On Thursday, the chairwoman of the United States Senate Intelligence Committee, Dianne Feinstein (a democrat from California), voiced "doubts whether the intelligence community lived up to its obligations in this area". She added: "The president, the secretary of state and the congress are making policy decisions on Egypt, and those policymakers deserve timely intelligence analysis."

Obama, however, is hardly off the hook. "This is what happens when you get caught by surprise," said an anonymous American official, quoted by The New York Times. "We've had endless strategy sessions for the past two years on Mideast peace, on containing Iran. And how many of them factored in the possibility that Egypt (and possibly other countries) moves from stability to turmoil? None."

The American administration has shifted its stance and contradicted itself several times since the protests began, creating the impression of fickleness and the inability to find the right approach. Initially, it cautiously backed under pressure President Hosni Mubarak, with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton expressing confidence that the Egyptian government was stable and could address the demands of the people. As the situation escalated, it changed sides, throwing its full support behind the protesters who have been in the streets for two weeks.

Last Tuesday night, shortly after Mubarak's speech announcing that he would not run for re-election in September, Obama dismissed the concession, calling for the transition to start "now" and using various levers to try to push Mubarak out. As recently as Friday, The New York Times reported, American attempts to persuade the Egyptian army to depose Mubarak were running in full gear.

~snip~

It is likely that the United States will attempt to broker some sort of a compromise, hoping to restore some of its image as an apt global leader. However, this will probably not reassure its allies, specifically in the Middle East. This is in part because of Obama's perceived betrayal of a close ally (Mubarak), but also because, at a moment when much of Egypt and the world was looking to him for leadership, the American president failed to come up with a meaningful strategy.

[PoliticAverse]

1. Oh no, we lost Egypt to the people that live there.... n/t

[TheDebbieDee]

2. Oh, the horror! (((shudders)))

[HEyHEY]

3. It's cute how articles like this make it see like the US controls everything

[malaise]

4. Lots of folks even on DU share that view

I find it sickening.

[formercia]

7. Didn't you know we're special?

except when we're in reactive mode.

:hi:

[Fuddnik]

5. It's more like we THINK we control everything.

We're still operating under the delusion that we're a superpower.

[KharmaTrain]

6. A Classic Example of "American Myopia"

...or some may call it "American Exceptionalism"...how the U.S. has to be the center of any and every crisis around the world. It's as though the concept of self determination doesn't exist or can be manipulated through power or bribery or both. It's a mindset that ignores history and culture of a region and attempts to use a one-size fits all scenario that is usually both inacurate and intellectually dishonest.

The U.S. has long known how tenuous the regimes are in the Middle East. Except for Israel there is no history of representative democracy in the region and for the sake of feeding this country's oil addiction the US has climbed in bed with autocrats...a leftover from the cold war. President Obama surely knew about the brewing discontent in Egypt when he spoke at Cairo University a year ago and there's been a steady stream of reports of corruption in that country that this administration was well aware of.

Short of sending troops and playing world policemen the neo-cons and their corporate media toadies are chomping to play the "who lost Egypt" game and use it to whip up all sorts of fear.