Conservatives are used to focusing on the downsides of situations. And there are potential downsides ahead, to be sure. But there is also a huge upside to a sound and admirable outcome in Egypt. American conservatives should remember our commitment, in the words of Federalist 39, to “that honorable determination which animates every votary of freedom, to rest all our political experiments on the capacity of mankind for self-government.”
Egypt turns out to have its votaries of freedom. The Egyptian people want to exercise their capacity for self-government. American conservatives, heirs to our own bold and far-sighted revolutionaries, should help them.
This is right. This doesn't mean they will choose what we would choose. But if we can institute real democracy and not a plebiscite for the next dictator, we can live with them over time.
Everyone seems to admit that it was a mistake to support friendly autocrats without pushing them for reforms. But now that those autocrats are teetering, too many want to support the autocrat out of fear of change.
I understand that fear. It is real. Which means we have to do more than stand for freedom--we must fight for it. We must support the institutions that promote rule of law. We must support the groups in Egypt that want to fight for rule of law. If I thought that the Moslem Brotherhood was poised to seize control and was truly the only alternative to Mubarak, I'd advocate doubling down on Mubarak with no hesitation rather than pine for democrats to emerge. You can't let the perfect be the enemy of the good (or not worst, in this case).
But the whole point of the Long War was that we had to help the Arab Moslem world reform itself so that it would no longer breed the environment that glorifies jihad against the West and leaves people so without hope that dying in the jihad seems like a good alternative to their expected future. Yes, this wave of jihad that we saw here on 9/11 will eventually run out of steam, but without change in the Arab world that leads to rule of law and economic and social progress, the same factors that led to the current wave of Islamism (and many past waves) will lead to another--and then it could be that the technology of nukes, chemical weapons, and bugs have advanced enough to be easily available to sub-state actors.
Lots of Americans died in Iraq against the Shia and Sunni Islamo-fascist invaders to give democracy and rule of law in Iraq a fighting chance. We hoped this would provide an example of real hope to the wider Arab and Persian world against the standard governing templates of secular autocracy or religious dictatorship. The unrest in the Arab world is an opportunity to achieve this goal--for out benefit and for the Arab world.
But if this only means we support yearnings for freedom amongst our enemies like Syria and Iran (well, theoretically, of course--we'll forget about 2009), how can Arabs (or Persians) believe our sincerity? We must not let fear of bad things stay our hand now in doing the right thing. Yes, we could lose this fight in Egypt. But if we don't stand for and fight for democracy in Egypt today, bad things will happen eventually whether Mubarak stands or falls in this crisis. And at least we'd be seen as defenders of freedom. Would that be a bad thing in the long run?
This is a crisis. But I believe it is also an opportunity:
We are facing a crisis in Egypt. It is a crisis because an important ally is on a path that leads to multiple outcomes and we have no idea if Egypt will arrive at their destination and still be an ally.
But we can't ignore the fact that this crisis is an opportunity. If we can help Egypt choose a path that establishes a shaky democracy that we can nurture, we put in place another democracy that offers an alternative to autocracy or Islamism as ways to organize their countries.
If we are to defuse the time bomb of Islamo-fascism by enabling Arabs themselves to resist the siren song of jihad, we must stand here and now on this battlefield. We didn't pick it. But this is it. Fight for freedom in Egypt.
