Forgetting What We Once Knew About The Middle East

"The BBC's Frank Gardner said her comments marked a complete departure for the US, and were "immensely risky".

"She criticised Egypt and Saudi Arabia, where she arrived after leaving Cairo, for cracking down on dissenters.

"She also called on Egypt to ensure its upcoming election was free and fair.

"Our security correspondent says the remarks not only risked alienating Cairo and Riyadh - by making such calls for democracy the US could open the way for more Islamist governments."

These statements were made more than five years ago.  The Bush Administration pushed for open and fair elections in Egypt to be held in September 2005, and President Mubarak promised to hold them.  Unfortunately, that was not what happened.

In December 2005, the Washington Post reported:

"President Hosni Mubarak, who received a new six-year mandate in another unfair election in September, used such fraud last month to take away the parliamentary seat of Egypt's foremost liberal democrat, Ayman Nour, who was the runner-up in the presidential election. This week a Cairo judge known for his closeness to Mr. Mubarak ordered Mr. Nour jailed before a session today of his trial on bogus charges of forgery. Several months ago Mr. Nour's principal accuser recanted in court, saying he had been forced by state security police to fabricate his allegations. Yet there appears to be a good chance that Mr. Nour will be declared guilty -- moving the leader of Mr. Mubarak's secular democratic opposition from parliament to prison."

Now, back to the present situtation.  Michael Medved posted an article at Townhall.com detailing what he considers the two lessons we can learn from the current crisis in Egypt.

Lesson One:  No amount of foreign aid can redeem a deeply dysfunctional society.  Despite receiving large amounts of money (and military equipment) from the United States since 1970 (following the peace treaty with Israel, Egypt got the Sinai and tons of money and equipment, what did Israel get?)  Egypt has voted against the United States at the United Nations 70% of the time.  The United States' foreign aid budget has gotten so totally out of hand (aside from accomplishing little) that some Israelis have said that they will back a reduction in American assistance to the Jewish state if the administration simultaneously eliminates money to Israel's Arab neighbors.  Foreign aid should be given sparingly where there is a humanitarian crisis; otherwise, we have needs at home.

Lesson Two:  Agreements with corrupt, autocratic governments have limited value.  Treaties with leaders that do not reflect the wishes of their people may not be worth the paper they are written on when the leader is ousted.  We saw that in Iran and now in Egypt.

However, the article does say that there may have been some positive results of our actions during the past forty years:

"Embracing the messages from the Egyptian crisis doesn't mean that Hosni Mubarak deserves our contempt, or that the United States would somehow gain from suddenly and cravenly cutting loose our most important Arab ally. To the extent that U.S. aid purchased long-standing cooperation from the most populous nation in the region (one third of all the world's Arabs live in Egypt), that assistance may have constituted a prudent investment, and regardless of the future of the Sinai Accords, the epochal agreement negotiated by Anwar Sadat and Menachem Begin brought thirty years of relative (if frosty) calm to Israeli-Egyptian relations."

I have stated before that I do not believe there is a happy ending to the current crisis in Egypt.  I believe that at the end of this chaos is a an Egyptian government heavily influenced by the Muslim Brotherhood.  The stated goal of the Muslim Brotherhood is to create a world-wide caliphate.  Unfortunately their agenda is not taken seriously by our government, and they have had advisors to American presidents in place since the George W. Bush Administration.  Having them play a major role in the Egyptian government (either openly or behind the scenes) will not be a good thing for the Middle East or for America.