One of the most remarkable features of the American response to the Egypt crisis has been its one-sidedness.The longtime, loyal American ally Hosni Mubarak turns out to have virtually no support here, from Capitol Hill -- where just a handful of Republican backbenchers have called on Obama to support him -- to the foreign policy establishment where, after Les Gelb and John Bolton, there have been few voices rallying Obama to his defense. This is partly because cold-eyed, dictator-supporting realism is a very hard sell on the, er, American Street, where peaceful, hopeful protesters have captured the imagination. But it's also partly because the "neocons" won important arguments inside the Republican Party, if not always inside the Bush White House -- and because, in this case, they seem to be putting their money where their mouths are, so to speak. This means breaking, notably, with Israeli leaders -- whom they long backed as a beacon of democracy -- but who have the most to lose in a worst case scenario, and who have been appalled by the speed of Mubarak's fall and of Obama's break with him. The neocons, meanwhile, are pressing Obama to break faster and more fully with the Egyptian president.
Jeffrey Goldberg talked to the former Bush aide Elliott Abrams about why, in his view, the Israelis are wrong:
The Israelis first of all do not believe in the universality of democracy. They believe what many American "experts" did in, say, 1950--democracy was fine for us and Western Europe, but not for Latins (too much Catholic culture) and Asians (too much Confucianism). They believe Arab culture does not permit democracy.
They see a danger in Mubarak's fall, and they are right: we do not know who will take over now or in a year or two from now. But this is at bottom a crazy reaction. What they are afraid of is the Muslim Brotherhood, right? Mubarak has ruled for THIRTY YEARS and leaves us a Brotherhood that is that powerful? Isn't that all the proof we need that dictatorship is not the way to fight the Brotherhood? He crushed the moderate and centrist groups and left the Brothers with an open field. He is to blame for the Brothers' popularity and strength right now. The sooner he goes the better.
