I hope that our leaders will be modest enough to see how (and how often) what we have done or left undone in the Middle East has backfired on us. We have spent trillions of dollars and spilled untold blood in a seemingly endless effort to bring democracy, American style, to Iraq and Afghanistan. Yet Egyptians ”” citizens of a nation with more people than Iraq and Afghanistan combined ”” won the right to write their own future in just 18 days and with little to no U.S. help.
These facts alone should humble us.
Yet I also hope that we do not trade hubris for paralysis. In the face of the ironies of Egyptian history, I must confess to being tempted to leave things elsewhere in the hands of fate or providence ”” to say with my Muslim friends, “Inshallah,” or with my Christian friends, “Thy will be done.”
But as Niebuhr reminds us, “we must exercise our power.” We must do so, however, in the absence of the hubris that characterized our past foreign policies….
This would all be lovely if there weren’t fanatics out there waitng to kill every Jew and Christian in the middle east. The thing our leaders need to start paying attention to is the unintended consequences of sitting by quietly and allowing Muslim fundamentalists to surround Israel. Israel has nukes and will use them if we abondon them. That will not be fun for anyone.
This is not over. The Middle East does not have a culture of limited government. The odds are that another strong man or ruling oligarchy will ultimately take power.
Count on it!
The USA has spent billions on the Egyptian Army which is now in control. My best guess is that the new government will be another military dictatorship.