By Jennifer Rubin
Egypt isn't hopeless, but I fear this administration's approach is. After plenty of good advice over the weekend, a meeting today with outside experts (although the two ablest and most frank invitees could not attend) and appropriate calls for Obama to "seize the moment," the White House appears to have fallen back into nonsensical blather on Egypt and decided against exercising any real influence (such as it is).
Robert Gibbs hid behind a fog of words at the afternoon briefing. "It is not up to us to determine when the grievances of the Egyptian people have been met by the Egyptian government," he said. And on it went into timidity:
"I'm not going to get into a series of hypotheticals," Gibbs says when asked about a government transition. "There have to be meaningful negotiations with a broad cross-section of the Egyptian people, including opposition groups, that go to answering the very core of the freedoms the people desire."Gibbs sidesteps another question about whether Egypt's president, Hosni Mubarak, should run in an election. "The United States government does not determine who is on the ballot," he says. "The question is whether those elections are going to be free and fair."Gibbs is asked to define an "orderly transition" in Egypt, as specified by the White House. He says it's about "actions," not "appointments," and that there should be free elections and constitutional changes that allow for a "more open and democratic process."
I exchanged e-mails with an attendee at this morning's meeting. I asked, "Did you get the sense they realize they are behind the curve?" The attendee said yes. But perhaps that was just for show, in a vain attempt to clamp down on the storm of bipartisan criticism. Today, we see more of the same deer-in-the-headlights behavior from the administration.
Hosni Mubarak won't survive this revolution, but neither will Obama's standing in the region. He may be consumed with domestic issues and/or paralyzed by fear of embodying the left's "imperialist" bogeyman. But he is missing the point and the moment. All he need do is make clear that we, like the Egyptian people, have lost confidence in the aging dictator. Our aid should be suspended, we should call for free elections, and there should be no doubt as to whose side we are on. But that's not Obama's style, it seems. And so, we are now identified with a decrepit despot instead of with the democratic aspirations of the Egyptian people. Some "Muslim Outreach,"huh?
By Jennifer Rubin | January 31, 2011; 5:12 PM ET
