Is It Time to Get Tough with Mubarak?

With Mubarak clinging to power, is there anything the United States can do?

Early yesterday, the cable news channels reported that Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak was relinquishing power and acceding to the demands of the protesters. Then later in the day we learned otherwise: Mubarak stubbornly and wrongly is clinging to power, albeit by transferring his authority to his vice president, Omar Suleiman.

Under the first impression, I had taped, yesterday, a half-hour show, em>Crosstalk<, on Russian television.

Crosstalk is produced by Russia Today, “the first Russian 24/7 English-language news channel,” which promises to articulate “the Russian view on global news.” Because the show was taped with the assumption that Mubarak had resigned, it will not now be broadcast. So much for the experts!

Two of the mistaken experts on the program made a more inexcusable mistake. Because this mistake is so prevalent within academic Middle East studies, it's worth addressing briefly.

Pete Lavelle hosts the show from Moscow. I was one of three guests. One of the experts was Juan Cole, a Middle East history professor at the University of Michigan. The other was Susan Abulhawa, a Palestinian expatriate and author now living in Philadelphia.

Cole and Abulhawa asserted that the Egyptian revolution is all about the Palestinians. Tell that to the Egyptians. Wael Ghonim, for instance, told CNN that the uprising is about the Egyptian youth’s “dream” for a “free society”; it is about “what touches people’s daily life.”

Independent Western journalists on the scene in Tahrir Square report -- and protesters agree -- that the Egyptian people are angry, dissatisfied and disillusioned with the Mubark regime and its manifest failures. They seek greater economic opportunity, more political autonomy and a more responsive government.

“They’re not interested in anti-Americanism. They’re not interested in Islamic fundamentalism. They just simply want the normal life that they’re entitled to, and that this regime is denying them," explains Fouad Ajami, a CNN analyst and a professor at John Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies.

Now with Mubarak clinging to power, what should the United States do? Several things, I think:

First, President Obama should demand, publicly, that Mubarak relinquish power and agree to hold free and fair elections within 90 days.

Private diplomacy hasn’t worked thus far; so it’s time -- nay, it’s way past time -- to initiate public diplomacy. This will help to pressure the Egyptian military to do the right thing, which is to quietly ease Mubarak out of office -- now.

Second, Obama should pledge to suspend all American aid to Egypt if Mubarak does not immediately step down and clear the way for a democratic transition.

Egypt receives billions of dollars in American aid and assistance, including more than $1.3 billion annually in U.S. military assistance. This gives us tremendous leverage over what happens there.

Third, Obama and Secretary of State Clinton should work to isolate Egypt, diplomatically and economically.

The Mubarak regime and its Egyptian enablers must pay for their autocratic intransigence and arrogance; and that price should be levied not just by the United States, but by our allies as well. Again, the regime must be pressured to change and to democratize.

Four, even as we isolate Egypt diplomatically and economically, the United States should closely watch the Egyptian military and work with it behind the scenes.

The military is Egypt’s most important and respected institution. And it will necessarily play an important role in Egypt’s transition to a more representative and democratic government.

But while the military is a force for good in Egyptian society, and a modernizing force, it is not an inherently democratic force -- no military is. Militaries, in fact, are inherently hierarchical and undemocratic.

And although the Egyptian military has generally kept the peace, there are troubling reports from Cairo that the military has been both complicit in, and indifferent to, the murder and kidnapping of protesters.

This is unacceptable. And it results in no small way from insufficient public pressure by President Obama and his administration.

The United States will have to work closely with the Egyptian military to ensure that it stays true to the liberalizing current that is now animating the protesters in Tahrir Square. The Egyptian military, likewise, can help to ensure that radical and Islamist elements do not hijack the revolution.

Five, Obama should underscore American support for the Egyptian people. He should make clear that the United States values its relationship with Egypt, even as we regret our break in relations with the Egyptian regime.

Six, Congress and the Obama administration should pledge a $2.5-billion aid package to Egyptian civil society elements to help initiate the transition toward liberal democracy. The aid should be conditioned upon Mubarak stepping down and contingent upon the establishment, at a date certain, of free and fair elections.

The point of this aid package is not to “impose” democracy on Egypt. The point, instead is to empower the Egyptian people, so that they can chart their own path and select their own rulers. The United States should be unabashedly on the side of liberal democracy; and we absolutely should work to tilt the scales of Egyptian power in that direction.

Seven, keep the spotlight on Egypt. The uprising shows that autocracies cannot long survive the sharp and focused glare of their own people, backed up by the omnipresent care and concern of the international community.

“This is the Internet revolution,” Ghonim explains. “I’ll call it Revolution 2.0.”

Indeed, it is remarkable that the revolution has survived for this long. However, we still have a long ways to go. Mubarak, unfortunately, seems determined to cling to power.

Democratization, moreover, is a long and difficult process, not a quick and easy victory (or election) one time. If we want Egypt to enjoy a stable, long-term democracy, then the best thing all of us can do is to keep talking and writing about Egypt.

And everyone who can should enter the fray. Congress, for instance, should hold a series of public (not private) hearings on American-Egyptian relations -- our military and intelligence ties, our economic and trade relations, et al.

The point of these hearings would be neither to reward nor to punish Egypt necessarily, but rather to keep Egypt in the news, while prodding and pushing the government there toward genuine democratic reform.

Conclusion. There are, of course, no guarantees. Liberty and democracy are inherently fragile, especially in places like the Middle East, which have little to no experience with liberal democracy.

Still, one thing is certain: Without American leadership and involvement, liberal democracy almost certainly will fail in Egypt and the Middle East. But with our active assistance, the liberal and progressive forces there -- and I use the words “liberal” and “progressive” in their classical and literal sense, respectively, not their politicized, American sense -- have more than an even shot of prevailing.

Unfortunately, the Obama administration seems to have taken a quiet, and relatively hands-off approach to the Middle East, and with predictably bad results.

The administration should change course. It should do everything that it can to ensure that this noble, democratic experiment succeeds. Peace and security -- our peace and security as Americans -- truly hang in the balance.

John Guardiano blogs at www.ResoluteCon.Com, and you can follow him on Twitter: @JohnRGuardiano.

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