“DID YOU SEE WHAT I DID THERE?”

2/10/11

The Egyptian demonstrators are absolutely apoplectic that President Hosni Mubarak did not step down Thursday. The Bush/Obama Administration seems only slightly less incensed, not only because Mubarak has not stepped down but also because, by not doing so, he made the Administration look rather foolish after its intelligence apparatus and its Middle Eastern experts were assuring us all day Thursday that Mubarak’s exit was imminent. While I might be able to understand the disappointment, given that neither street mobs nor U.S. administrations are given to anything more than the veneer of what passes for thought, I’m not convinced that Mr. Mubarak has not given both the Egyptian people and the Bush/Obama most of what they purport to want.

As we have been incessantly reminded these last few days, the Egyptian constitution stipulates that if the president resigns, elections must be held within 60 days. None but the most starry-eyed optimist from an Ivy League faculty, the UN, or the Bush/Obama foreign policy apparatus believes that Egypt is even remotely ready for elections in 60 days. In order to prevent an election which would be a prelude to inevitable chaos, mob rule, or both, President Mubarak must at least nominally remain head of state in order to put off elections until the country is ready for such a still dicey exercise in self-rule in a country that hasn’t experienced anything like representative government in…well, ever. I suspect that is exactly what Mubarak is doing; i.e., remaining nominally in power, little more than a figurehead, while newly appointed Vice-President Omar Suleiman and other prominent figures, including elements of the opposition, in Egypt manage a transition to a point at which elections in Egypt have at least a remote chance of producing anything more than the usual one man, one vote, one time that constitutes “democracy” in much of the Third World. Mubarak has, I suspect, ceded power in all but the formal sense; he is no longer in charge. He will formally resign when those charged with managing the transition determine, rightly or wrongly, that Egypt is ready for elections. To do so earlier would result in only mayhem and misery.

The demonstrators are, understandably, uncomfortable with Mr. Suleiman, who has been a Mubarak henchman most of his adult life, and clearly have a hard time trusting any transition that he might be managing. They want Mubarak out of the country, or hanging on a gallows, and they want it now. But, as I said in my 2/3/11 post, AFTER ALL THESE CENTURIES, THE EGYPTIANS STILL HAVE SOMETHING TO TEACH US, PART II, most of the media, and much of the foreign policy braintrust, in our country tend to confuse the wishes of those with enough time on their hands to demonstrate in the streets with the needs of a nation as a whole. Most Egyptians want stability, bread, and jobs. Mr. Mubarak’s hanging on the end of a rope is not going to provide any of those three, and neither will farcical elections in the name of “democracy.” While the typical Egyptian wants Mubarak out, he is more than willing, perhaps even demanding, that his exit be done in a manner that assures that Mubarak’s exit will effect an enduring change and leave the nation with a chance at the stability, bread, and jobs its people so crave.