I’ve been enthralled with watching the demonstrators in Cairo, it’s been amazing. According to most reports and analysis that I’m familiar with, the demonstrators are standing up for their humans rights, for democratic rights, and standing against oppression and corruption. The revolt has been inspired by lack of jobs and by the frustration of an entire generation lacking hope for a better future. The anger of the demonstrators has been focused squarely on President Mubarak, not the military, and not any other country. This is not an example of anti-Americanism fueling a revolution. So, it was with surprise that I read this commentary by Graham Fuller, writing in the Christian Science Monitor, that blames the U.S. for Egypt’s crisis. Well, I guess it didn’t take long for the “blame America” crowd to decide that it’s all our fault.
It occurs to me that had the U.S. pursued a more active democratic reform agenda over the last thirty years of Mubarak’s rule, or sought to impose an agenda – beyond merely advocating for it, encouraging it, applauding the economic reform that grew the Egyptian middle class, not to mention George W. Bush’s freedom agenda – beyond all of that, we would have been accused of imperialist meddling. Sometimes I think that the sad truth of the U.S. role in the world is that no matter what the U.S. does, someone will be quick to find fault in it.
Mubarak had thirty years to secure his legacy and yet his people hate him. Ultimately, his fate has always been in his own hands.
