Biden: Mubarak isn't a dictator

Only a dictator has the power and the interest in shutting down the entire nation's internet, Blackberry, and cell-phone service.
 
Virus said:
Egypt has never been ruled by anything but dictators.
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Saad Zaghloul appears to have been legitimately elected and his powers were far from absolute.
 
Typical political maneuver. Biden says the "stupid" stuff to signal to Mubarak specifically that things are good. The president puts the big stick on the table for everyone else to see.
 
DC said:
Who the **** is Biden?
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Foghorn_Leghorn.png
 
Spindrift said:
I just get tired of the US supporting guys like Mubarak because "the opposition would be worse." and "he's our friend". It just seems like at some point these guys all get overthrown and we're stuck with someone worse and a country full of people who hate the USA because we supported the last guy.
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Sure, but that would have happened anyway. In the interim, we had 30 years of stability for American interests in Egypt. Might the next Egyptian regime hate America for supporting Mubarak for 30 years (and Sadat for 10 years before that)? Sure. But from 1970-2010, Egypt didn't go to war against any of its neighbors, the Suez Canal was kept open to international trade, and we had one less extremist nation on our side.

If, let's say, after Sadat was assassinated, America pulled back all support for Mubarak and insisted on free elections in 1981. Chances are that if Mubarak didn't take over, someone else in the military would have. The other likely alternative was that an armed militant group would have taken over. Egypt simply didn't, and in my opinion, still does not, have the political structure in place to support a bona fide democratic system.

So we'd have a military dictatorship or a religious theocracy. Even if America pulled all support, Egypt would have ended up following the model of other military dictatorships in the region, like Libya and Syria, or would have become a religious dictatorship, much like Iran had become at around the same time (but Sunni, rather than Shia).

Iran became a theocracy in the late 1970's and it has not moderated in the 40 years since. Libya became a brutal military dictatorship -- not supported by America -- in 1969 and has not moderated since then. There's no reason to think that if America had withdrawn support from Mubarak in 1981, that we'd see a liberal democracy flourishing in Egypt today. All the evidence, from looking at the behavior of similarly situated nations, is that Egypt would be a repressive regime with or without American aid.

What we got from the last 40 years, however, if an Egypt that did not start wars against its neighbors and that did provide an ally for Western interests. It's not a huge benefit, but it probably is our best-case scenario.

And if Mubarak is replaced by another military dictator or by religious extremists, we're no worse off than we would have been if the same thing happened in 1981 -- on in 1952 when Nasser first instituted a military dictatorship in Egypy, to which Mubarak is simply the successor.

Realpolitik is ugly, and it's messy, and it is unsavory, but it still produces results that are better than isolationism, which is really the only practical alternative here.
 
marksman said:
Sure, but that would have happened anyway. In the interim, we had 30 years of stability for American interests in Egypt.
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Israel's not in Egypt, and that's really what the "American interest" was that led to our propping up (or stabilizing) Egypt for 30 years.
 
dudalb said:
I hold no love for Mubarak,but an Iranian style government in Egypt would be bad,bad,news.
Fact is, nobody knows what will happen if Mubarak goes down.
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Iranian-style government was democratic, until the CIA overthrew it in the 1950's to put the Shah in power.

US support for the Shah against the Iranian people led to the creation of the current theocracy there.

The US should not make the same mistake with Egypt.
 
JoeTheJuggler said:
Israel's not in Egypt, and that's really what the "American interest" was that led to our propping up (or stabilizing) Egypt for 30 years.
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I don't agree. Egypt controls the Suez Canal. Egypt is one of the most populous nation on the Mediterranean. American has a lot of interests in the region beyond Israel and oil, though those two get the most print. Keeping nations along the Red Sea and Mediterranean either stable or contained is an economic interest of the West.

Realpolitik ain't pretty and it isn't monodimensional either.
 
egslim said:
Iranian-style government was democratic, until the CIA overthrew it in the 1950's to put the Shah in power.
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Not particularly, no. Iran was ruled by a series of monarchs for two and a half millennium until a British-Soviet invasion during WWII installed the "Shah" (the son of the last independent Iranian monarch) as a puppet. Iran has had a Parliament since 1905, but that doesn't mean it was a democracy any more than Egypt, which also has a Parliament, can properly be considered a functioning democracy. In each instance, the Parliament served as a rubber stamp for the autocrat in charge.

The Prime Minister overthrown in 1954 was actually the Shah's choice. He appointed him, as a paean to growing anticolonial sentiment in Iran. He surprised even the Shah by nationalizing Western property. The Americans then sought to overthrow him, making the Shah choose between loyalty to his people's desires and his Westernn patrons. He chose the West. But to say the US overturned a democratic-style government is rewriting history.

Sadly, the post-Revolutionary Iran is much more democratic than the Shah's Iran ever was. And Iran had been an autocratic monarchy for 2,500 years by the time the Shah got deposed.

So, no. Iran did not have style of government that was democratic in 1950, any more than Egypt now has a style of government that is democratic. They have the trappings of democracy designed to support the autocratic regime.
 
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