“US policy is going backwards. If Arabs thought that US policy was bad during Egypt's revolution, it's worse now,” says Shadi Hamid, director of research at Brookings Doha Center in Qatar. “Arabs are not going to forget who was with them and who was against them in their struggle for democracy … If the US is remembered as being on the wrong side of history here, that is going to further damage its influence and credibility in the region.”
A coalition of six youth groups that have become vocal movers in Egypt's revolutionary movement announced on their Facebook page that they had refused an invitation to meet with Clinton based on her negative position from the beginning of the revolution and the position of the US administration in the Middle East. ...
Emad Gad, an analyst at the state-funded Al Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies, calls the US response to the revolution a “black spot” on the record of the Obama administration. “Perhaps this will be the last chance for Hillary Clinton to change the stereotype of the American position toward the revolution,” he says. ...
“Clearly, it's good to be on the right side of history,” says Hamid. “[US] policy on Bahrain, Yemen, and the Gulf appears to show that they haven't learned that lesson.”
Hope and change doesn't apply to Arabs, the region is finding out. That outreached hand displayed in the president's Cairo speech was a stiff-arm move, it is now clear.
At this rate, Arabs are going to openly miss George W. Bush, who at least wanted to help Arabs become free and backed that belief with action.
We should have jumped on the chance to help the rebels without waiting for the international community to bless our actions. But the international community preferred the devil they knew over the unknown rebel future. Khaddafi is the one who passed the "global test."
Even if our humanitarian, covert, and rhetorical help wouldn't have been enough to defeat Khaddafi, we would have showed we would act to help Arabs trying to free themselves from tyrants. And our failure to do so won't earn us any friends in Khaddafi's regime if they end up winning defeating this revolt.
And if we had supported the Libyan rebels from the beginning (when, after a week, they showed they had real support of the people), it would make our tolerance of the Bahrain government's crackdown (because of the importance of our naval base there, fear of Iran's potential influence if the Shia protesters win, and recognition that Saudi Arabia simply would not watch the protesters overthrow the Sunni-minority government) look like an exception rather than the rule, and perhaps dulled the image of our tardy support for Egypt's protesters.
How's that smart diplomacy working out?
