More from Rubin:
Remember the most important sentence of the crisis: When Mubarak said that Obama doesn’t understand Egyptian (Arab) culture. Mubarak believes that you don’t yield ground or they cut your head off. You show you are tough and they back down.
That is the mentality we are seeing. There may be an outbreak of violence right now. But don’t think the army didn’t know that and must have some plan to deal with it. Because this was the equivalent of Gary Cooper, Charles Bronson, or Clint Eastwood saying, “You want it? Come and get it!”
Before this is over, there’s going to be a lot of blood in the streets of Cairo.
update:
It’s now clear how the Obama Administration is spinning it: They won, Mubarak has left office for all practical purposes even though he remains president.
This shows another big miscalculation about the Middle East. Everyone in the region will have the following analysis:
The regime won. Since it controls the “reform process” it will do whatever it wants and end up with the real power. The opposition is boiling with anger. And since Obama is claiming credit for this situation—which they and others will see as a “trick”—it will increase anti-Americanism. The word will be: Obama saved the regime and stole democracy from the Egyptians.
In Washington they are gloating, not realizing what the impact of their “clever maneuver” will be. I wouldn’t be surprised if before this is over there will be attacks on American facilities and people in Egypt.
Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan). The GLORIA Center’s site is http://www.gloria-center.org and of his blog, Rubin Reports, http://www.rubinreports.blogspot.com.
RE Mark in Merryland.
Rumsfeld said it best in his new book. “We had convergent interests: America America could assist Iraq by discouraging other countries from selling arms to Iran, and Iraq could assist America by holding the line against the ascendant radical Islamist and terrorist supporting regime in Iran.”
We weren’t supporting a dictator, we were supporting Lebanon who was being torn apart by these terrorists. .