Tunesia, Egyt and now Yemen: a domino effect in the Middle East?

I was not commenting on Haiti, Cuba, Japan, the south pacific, or US & allies wars anywhere else. I don’t think it would be particularly useful to side-track this thread into a discussion of the rights & wrongs, wisdom or otherwise, of those US interventions. However, for the record, JTT’s assessments of those events are closer to mine than yours are.

What to say about the Egiptian army's passivity while the Mubarak squads attacked the protestors?
Either or.
Either the military are siding clearly with Mubarak, or they are hoping there is more chaos, so they -and not Mubarak- can reap on it. Offer order to both the Egyptian society and the Western powers. Offer (inside) democracy tomorrow but no democracy today and (outside) elections but with some guarantee the fundamentalists won't take power.

Gibbs, however, said it was the people of Egypt who needed to see concrete steps toward the changes they seek, and that the Obama administration was merely expressing the reality of the situation.

"I think it is clear that what the government has so far put forward has yet to meet the minimum threshold of the people of Egypt," Gibbs said, later adding: "I think if there's some notion on the government side that you can put the genie back in this bottle, I think that's gone a long time ago."

Asked about past warnings that the United States could withhold some or all of the more than $1 billion in annual military aid to Egypt, Gibbs said any decision would be based on the response of the Egyptian government to the demonstrations.

"We are watching quite closely to see what those responses are, and the response of the government will determine what that aid looks like," Gibbs said. He repeated U.S. opposition to any kind of violent crackdown on the protesters, indicating that could be a litmus test for a decision to withhold aid.

JTT's posts, but he is sufficiently monotone to make that unnecessary.

Your unwillingness to address the context in which your frequent moral judgements are made and any comparative analysis to determine the consistency (or lack thereof) of your views is noted.

After speaking with some Middle East scholars who attended a meeting on Egypt as the White House on Tuesday, Laura Rozen of Politico reported that the administration is focused on how far it can push Egypt's new vice president, Omar Suleiman. Ms. Rozen wrote this morning:

"Nobody has any illusions about what Omar Suleiman wants to do," an attendee said. "What is unknown is what Omar Suleiman could be persuaded to do. Can they put in place a process that as it plays out puts Egypt in a different place than it is now."

"One thing that struck me is a certain optimism that you can't put the toothpaste back in tube," he continued. "That Egypt is irrevocably changed from what it was two weeks ago. And that in the long run Egypt is going to move in a positive direction."

Earlier in the day, Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit said in an interview with PBS:

The issue of the emergency law as Vice President Biden stated yesterday, when I read it this morning I was really amazed, because, because right now, as we speak, we have 17,000 prisoners loose in the streets out of jails that have been destroyed. How can you ask me to sort of disband that emergency law while I'm in difficulty? Give me time, allow me to have control to stabilize the nation, to stabilize the state and then we would look into the issue.

Citing the prison breaks as a reason to maintain the state of emergency is unlikely to convince many Egyptians of the government's sincerity, given that prisoners apparently escaped from Egyptian jails only after the country's police appeared to abandon their posts following a failed attempt to use force to end street protests on Jan. 28.

Democracy is not only a matter of the will of the people; it's also a matter of some basic working institutions and an underlying historical culture of participation.

noted

Asked about past warnings that the United States could withhold some or all of the more than $1 billion in annual military aid to Egypt, Gibbs said any decision would be based on the response of the Egyptian government to the demonstrations.

Asked about past warnings that the United States could withhold some or all of the more than $1 billion in annual military aid to Egypt, Gibbs said any decision would be based on the response of the Egyptian government to the demonstrations.

Just what is it that the Egyptian government must do to trigger the withholding of funds.

Or even US funds through intermediaries.

Obama and Egypt: Fear and Loathing:
A fortnight is a long time in politics - and the past two weeks have left US rhetoric playing catch-up with reality. ...<cont>
Robert Grenier