Analysis: Obama tough – not too tough – with Egypt

President Barack Obama tried the impossible: winning the hearts
and minds of Egyptians furious with their autocratic ruler while
assuring a vital ally that the United States has his back.

The four-minute speech Friday evening represented a careful
balancing act for Obama. He had a lot to lose by choosing between
protesters demanding that Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak step
down from a government violently clinging to its three-decade grip
on the country.

“The United States will continue to stand up for the rights of
the Egyptian people and work with their government in pursuit of a
future that is more just, more free and more hopeful,” the
president said.

Yet he offered no ultimatum or specific demand, saying instead
that Mubarak had a “responsibility to give meaning” to his pledges
of better democracy and more economic opportunity.

The U.S. response is challenged by a massive mismatch in the
perception and reality of its power. Despite spending billions in
Egypt to establish a bulwark of American influence in the Middle
East, the U.S. has little capacity to determine whether the
82-year-old Mubarak weathers the protests or is toppled, analysts
and past administration officials say.

In his first television appearance since protests erupted three
days ago, Mubarak said Friday he asked his Cabinet to resign. He
said he would reconstitute it yet outlined no concrete democratic
reform. He also defended the brutal crackdown on protesters, who’ve
faced baton beatings, water cannons, rubber bullets and tear
gas.

Speaking shortly after, Obama didn’t endorse regime change. Nor
did he say that Mubarak’s announcement was insufficient. Instead,
he said he personally told Mubarak to take “concrete steps” to
expand rights.

Does that mean that Mubarak should step down after three decades
in power? Should he announce that he won’t run again for president?
What about constitutional changes? Is it time to scrap emergency
laws in place since 1981?

Administration officials would not say.

Obama’s address was the most forceful of the day, but it stuck
largely to the script already set by Secretary of State Hillary
Rodham Clinton and White House spokesman Robert Gibbs.

“What will eventually happen in Egypt is up to Egyptians,”
Clinton said, noting that the Egypt government could ease tensions
by rapidly introducing democratic reform. “That moment needs to be
seized, and we are hoping that it is.”

“The legitimate grievances that have festered for quite some
time in Egypt have to be addressed,” Gibbs said. “And violence is
not the response.”

The reality is that the United States can do little to control
or direct the anger in the Arab world unleashed two weeks ago when
Tunisia chased its long-time ruler from power. Yet the U.S. can do
severe harm to its own interests by coming out too forcefully for
or against the uprising.

Washington’s perceived ability to pick and choose governments is
limited to a very few places. It does not wield that power in the
Middle East, where Islamic parties completely opposed to the United
States are often the most likely democratic alternatives.

“This is the most serious foreign policy crisis the
administration has faced,” said Aaron David Miller, who worked two
decades at the State Department and is now a scholar at the Woodrow
Wilson Center. “The paradox is, there is little if anything the
administration can do.”

That doesn’t mean it won’t try.

The White House said earlier Friday it would review the $1.5
billion in annual aid to Egypt, an unsubtle warning that it still
has some pull with Cairo.

The State Department issued an unusual warning to Americans to
avoid all but essential travel to Egypt at the height of the winter
tourism season.

“The U.S. doesn’t believe revolutions are the way to go,” said
Robert Danin, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations
and a State Department specialist on the Middle East under
President George W. Bush. “Revolutions are violent. They have
unanticipated outcomes.”

Still, rhetoric matters. After spending billions backing its few
Arab friends, the U.S. has damaged credibility in the Arab world,
leaving a narrow space for Washington policymakers.

Without a bold statement of solidarity, it’s tough to see how
the United States will gain the sympathy of Egyptian protesters
fighting a security apparatus that has worked closely with American
counterparts and may be using U.S. equipment to repress them.

Obama aimed high: “The people of Egypt have rights that are
universal. That includes the right to peaceful assembly and
association, the right to free speech and the ability to determine
their own destiny. These are human rights and the United States
will stand up for them everywhere.”

But he tempered the bold idealism of a world of universal rights
with a strong plea for peaceful protests. And he was clear that
Mubarak’s government still had some U.S. support. “We are committed
to working with the Egyptian government and the Egyptian people,”
Obama said.

The need for balance is obvious. Completely alienating Mubarak
would be a disaster for the U.S. if his government weathers the
storm, possibly harming cooperation in the Mideast peace process or
on counterterrorism.

Scott Carpenter, a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near
East Policy, said the United States will have more options once it
becomes clear which side will prevail. “We cannot dictate
anything,” he said.

Others decried what they deemed a reactive approach to U.S.
foreign policy.

“We don’t side with the regime or the protesters when it
matters,” said Michael Rubin, a scholar at the American Enterprise
Institute. “By being so cautious and cynical, we end up not winning
the hearts and minds of either side.”

___

EDITOR’S NOTE _ Bradley Klapper covers foreign affairs for The
Associated Press.