Trust Us to Support Freedom

I have no problem with the idea that we sided against our ally President Mubarak to favor the people of Egypt out in the streets. I don't think this sends a signal that we are an unreliable ally who can't be trusted.  President Obama does that in other ways, of course. But that has nothing to do with Egypt. I think our actions regarding Mubarak send the signal that while we will hold our nose and work with a despot on common issues, a despot isn't really a friend as long as it is a dictatorship and is not making progress to transitioning to democracy.

The Bush administration in the first term made this pretty explicit. Despots thought they had it made after domestic opponents of the Bush freedom agenda compelled a halt to that policy after 2005.

The despots thought they were cementing their immunity when Obama won in 2008 and claimed to want to restore foreign policy realism of dealing with despots who can control their people. The despots thought that Iran in 2009 demonstrated that a despotism could repress at will without provoking us, but Iran was not an ally that posed a moral dilemma over our support. And President Obama was facing rising pressure here to do something until the Iranian mullahs finally ground down their protesters.

But even under a president who wants to cut deals with any anti-American despot, once the people rose up and would not be put down, that explicitly realist president was unable to execute of realist's policy of supporting the friendly dictator. Even President Obama felt compelled to stand with the Egyptian protesters for freedom when the government could not put them down and send them home.

So, yes, to dictators who we have a working relationship with, we'll keep working with you while you maintain control. We're practical and have bigger problems to solve than your petty dictatorship. But don't expect much from us once your people gain the courage to stand up to you and demand freedom. You thought you had it made once our ambassador stopped pestering you about reforms, but all you are getting is a longer leash that in the end will strangle you all the harder because no reforms blunted the growing anger in your population against you.

So there you go, even if we don't pressure you to reform, you'd best start reforming. Because we simply can't support despots against their people.

Is that really a bad lesson to send out?