Egypt
Is the U.S. positive it wants Egypt to democratize? asked Cécile Hennion in Paris’ Le Monde. The Egyptian opposition groups that are the most pro-democracy are also “the most fervently anti-American.” The umbrella organization called Enough, a coalition of diverse protest groups from the militant Islamists to the secular Marxists, stands for many of the values that President Bush has been promoting in his “Greater Middle East Initiative.” Enough is for human rights, press freedom, and free elections, and on all those grounds it criticizes President Hosni Mubarak. Yet it saves its most passionate denunciations for what it sees as Mubarak’s biggest sin: He is “the ally of the American enemy.” The irony is that Mubarak initially encouraged such anti-Americanism. While he never allowed newspapers to criticize his regime, he encouraged them to channel discontent into rants against the U.S. The blow-back is just now hitting him. But the canny Mubarak isn’t finished yet. He is now denouncing democratic reform as an “American idea.” In rejecting all things American, Egyptians may yet be manipulated into rejecting democracy, too.
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