Monday, February 7, 2011

U.S. reaction to crisis in Egypt

No attitude, no clear words: The U.S. government has slept through the crisis in Egypt. Far too late they have understood the seriousness of the situation and now is struggling behind the scenes to resolve the conflict. Obama denied it is his foreign policy discredited the long run. That's all just. For hours was the White House on Thursday without e-mail traffic.

The server was in the early morning on the mind. "Verizon is going to solve the problem," communications director Dan Pfeiffer announced - via Twitter, his next-best substitute. Even U.S. President Barack Obama, traveling in Pennsylvania, just staring at a blank Blackberry. "We use this old device called the telephone and call people," one employee told the site "Politico" almost surprised.


A breakdown only, but a symbolic: the electronic pulse of the White House - to be disconnected, since the middle of the biggest foreign policy crisis years. Afternoon worked the e-mail system again. But Obama's long hesitancy, if not helpless in the face of the crisis in Egypt recalled so many disturbed to a telephone line: Hello? Who speaks? Tardiness, missed consideration, simple ignorance: The White House has not been to Egypt at nothing to be proud.

While the world history in Cairo and more rapidly and began operating independently, while the people in the Tahrir Square pride and courage in the face of state violence proved endured in the early hours of Saturday, thousands on the roads, hid in the U.S. government for days behind empty words .

Behind the scenes, was wrestled to the future of Egypt - a diplomatic limbo between Washington and Cairo, which has now probably led to the last most-cited scenario that Vice President Omar Suleiman takes power. At least at the beginning of the crisis, it is heard, it had in the White House had raged hard towards fighting.

Only Mubarak's immovable stance has ensured in Washington for hindsight: The despot had gone. But how? It could hardly be at stake. Egypt is the hub of U.S. Middle East policy. Each step Washington has far-reaching consequences for the whole region - and for the U.S.. The show only the hysterical reaction of the Israeli press, writes Daniel Levy, Middle East director of the New America Foundation, "and cites a headline from Israel:" Obama's betrayal of Mubarak.

" Reluctant tightrope sinks Egypt but in the chaos, would also suffer Washington's image heavy - and Obama's political life was dominated by the long-term impression of failure, such as the Jimmy Carter during the Iranian crisis, even if the comparison is in the historical detail. Come now reached a democratic change, Obama could make his previously questionable claim to the Nobel Peace Prize actually claimed.

At Tahrir Square, not only decides the fate of the Arab world - but probably also to some extent Obama's fate in the U.S. 2012 presidential election. It is a dilemma, to which Shakespeare would have enjoyed: No action option is attractive. Denying the U.S. her ex-boyfriend to support Mubarak, Egypt threatens Although hardly the "chaos" that the prophesied - or at least a power vacuum.

Also an open intervention of the state of Washington in the Middle East would remove only further - loyalty to allies, there is high demand. Let the U.S. give the despot, however, they lose face - not just those who are demonstrating in Cairo for democracy and freedom, values, but the American could not be more.

This dilemma was evident when Obama came on Friday afternoon in Washington before the press. He attended the public high-wire act only reluctantly. But the absolute must - the mandatory press conference after a tête-à-tête with Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper - could now be time no longer cancel.

Obama said not so much that is new. Again he called for a "transitional process that starts now." Again he insisted that this transition process, "respect the universal rights of the Egyptian people" must. The Egyptian president had to "listen to what says the Egyptian people," said Obama.

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