The secretary’s words suggested that the administration remains dangerously behind the pace of events in the Middle East. It failed to anticipate Tunisia’s revolution; days before President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali was driven from the country Ms. Clinton said the United States was “not taking sides” between the dictator and his protesting people. Last week President Obama called Mr. Mubarak but said nothing about the political situation in Egypt – including the regime’s plan to hold a one-sided presidential “election” this fall that would extend Mr. Mubarak’s mandate for another six years.
Tuesday’s events suggested that the Cairo government is not at all stable. Three people were killed in the occasionally violent demonstrations, and thousands of protesters remained camped in Cairo’s central Tahrir Square overnight. They will not be easily satisfied – because Mr. Mubarak in fact is not trying to “respond to legitimate needs and interests.” Instead the government is seeking to perpetuate itself in power by force, and pave the way for an eventual dynastic succession to power by Mr. Mubarak’s son.
Egypt has been a vital ally of the United States, and a potential change of regime there is frightening to many in Washington, especially given the strength of the country’s Islamist movement. Those concerns are legitimate. But blind U.S. backing for Mr. Mubarak makes a political disaster in Egypt more rather than less likely. Instead of stressing the government’s stability, Ms. Clinton and Mr. Obama need to begin talking about how it must change.
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The Washington Post, editorial
