As if one needed further evidence that U.S. conduct in the international arena exudes weakness and indecision, the events in Egypt have shown that President Barack Obama's strategy of "leading from behind" is nothing but a cover for a spineless policy with minimal consistency. The U.S. is being dragged by events, rather than trying to influence them.
Not only did Washington belatedly realize that Mohammed Morsi's regime had lost legitimacy in the eyes of broad sections of the Egyptian populace, but U.S. officials have also reacted with almost complete indifference to the dramatic violence taking place in Cairo over the past week. Of course, any crisis that intrudes on summer golf or yacht outings is an uninvited guest. So one can understand why Obama and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry treated the crisis in Egypt this past weekend as if it was a momentary nuisance that could be struck from the agenda in one breath.
This is not the first time that dramatic events in the Middle East have come to life during hot summer days and U.S. government officials have had to put their sacred vacation plans on hold. In July 1990, then-Iraqi President Saddam Hussein summoned then-U.S. Ambassador to Iraq April Glaspie and essentially gave her advanced warning of his plan to invade Kuwait. Glaspie wasn't able to receive instructions from her superiors in Washington -- then-Defense Secretary Dick Cheney was inaccessible as he was on a hunting trip in the Rocky Mountains -- and in effect gave Hussein a green light to invade Kuwait without fear of an American military response. The rest is history.
A broad look gives the impression that the Obama administration hasn't learned the necessary lessons from the failures of its predecessors in dealing with the revolutionary dynamics of the Middle East in general and Egypt more specifically. For instance, 50 years ago, then-President John F. Kennedy truly believed it was possible to guide Gamal Abdel Nasser's revolutionary regime along a path of modernization, pluralism and moderation via the carrot of generous economic aid (which Kennedy granted to Egypt on a multiyear basis).
Despite the incentives, temptations and gestures showered on Nasser's head by Kennedy, this policy of placation did not have the desired effect. Less than two years after Kennedy entered the White House and instituted the "positive sanctions" policy toward Egypt, all of Kennedy's hopes in Nasser sank in the deserts of Yemen. Not only did Nasser rush to intervene on the Republican side in the inter-tribal war that broke out in Yemen in 1962, but Egypt also used chemical weapons there. The civil war in Yemen brought an early end to the honeymoon between Washington and Cairo.
Now, it appears that another liberal president, Obama, is stuck in a time warp. While there were already signs of the dictatorial and intolerant characteristics of the Muslim Brotherhood regime in Egypt last year, the White House didn't produce a stick to accompany the carrot of economic aid (around $1.3 billion annually). There weren't even any stipulations or warnings. Like Nasser in the Kennedy era, Morsi won generous credit and unconditional political support from Washington, despite the obvious oppressive and authoritarian nature of his regime.
Obama's undoing was his prolonged clinging to the concept that elections with democratic characteristics absolutely guarantee that societies will be democratic and pluralistic. He disabused himself of that illusion much too late. Hopefully, Uncle Sam will now wake up from the world of illusions and finally recognize the large gap between the Western democratic model and the nature of existence in the Middle East.
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