Obama to Mubarak: End Crackdown
Washington Post reports:
The White House tiptoed gingerly toward solidarity with protesters thronging the streets of Egypt’s cities on a day of escalating rhetoric that culminated with President Barack Obama making a televised appeal to Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to halt his crackdown and reform the government.
“This moment of volatility has to be turned into a moment of promise, ” Obama said, while calling on Mubarak “to refrain from any violence against peaceful protestors.”
His statement – after a half-hour call with Mubarak in the middle of Egypt’s night – capped the swift progression of the U.S. position as the White House struggled to stay ahead, and on the right side of, the widening protest movement.
Obama stopped short of endorsing the protesters’ calls on Mubarak to step down, citing the American “close partnership” with Egypt. Mubarak himself rejected the call in a speech to Egyptians in which he warned of “chaos” and said he had fired his cabinet.
Obama’s careful formulation – he also called on protestors to keep the peace - embodied an administration struggling to respond to the rapidly changing conditions in Egypt and in a larger sense to reconcile the universalist idealism and foreign policy realism that Obama seeks to simultaneously embody.
Its response to the protests in Egypt shifted markedly in the course of just a few days,, starting with Vice President Joe Biden’s insistence Thursday night that Mubarak is not a “dictator.” First Secretary of State Hillary urged the Egyptian government to “restrain the security forces…allow peaceful protests” and to restore Internet access. Then White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs warned the Egyptian government that continuing the U.S.’s $1.3 billion in military aid will depend on its response to the protests.
While the spreading Egyptian uprising would pose a challenge to any American President - U.S. foreign policy has for decades rested on an alliance with Mubarak who while undemocratic, has backed American goals of regional stability, peace with Israel, and suppression of Islamist militants - Obama finds himself in a particularly delicate spot.
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