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2008 – The Costs of Relying on Aging Dictators
(Middle-East Quarterly) – Almost as soon as it started, the democratization agenda that the Bush administration hoped would be the lodestar of its post 9-11 foreign policy has been all but shelved. The insurgency and sectarian bloodshed in Iraq, the regional threat posed by an expansionist Iran, and the Palestinian civil war have combined to help resurrect the U.S. embrace of regional stability as a foreign policy priority and have convinced President George W. Bush to reduce his emphasis on transformative diplomacy. Leaders such as Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak and Saudi King Abdullah bin Abd al-‘Aziz, whom many administration officials viewed as embarrassing allies during Bush’s first term, now enjoy a renaissance of U.S. support. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, for example, said little as Mubarak crushed liberal dissidents, and shortly before Bush met the Saudi king, he parried questions after a Saudi court sentenced a 19-year-old rape victim to 200 lashes and six months in jail.
But even as U.S. policy once again organizes around the idea that strongmen bring stability, Washington will soon face the downside of such a strategy: Aging rulers die; replacement leaders are frequently weak, and transitions can be volatile. Instability is a looming threat in four Western-allied dictatorships that many in Washington currently embrace as bulwarks of stability: Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, and Oman.
The leaders of these countries have ruled for a combined total of ninety-nine years. Together, they have presided over significant transformations. But, in recent years, each has struggled to enact economic reforms to accommodate growing populations, to contain Islamism, and to encourage their respective societies to reconcile tradition with constructive political and economic pursuits. Amidst dangerous internal and external challenges, and in the absence of transparent mechanisms of succession that enjoy public approval, the inevitable moment of succession risks provoking crises that will challenge new leaders to the fullest.
>> Obama and Egypt transition scenarios
Egypt transition scenarios, as intelligence chief sworn in as VP
National Security Advisor Tom Donilon convened the inter-agency principals committee meeting on Egypt at 9:30 AM Saturday, White House spokesman Tommy Vietor said.
Vice President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and U.S. Amb. to Egypt Margaret Scobey participated in the two-hour meeting by video conference, while attending the meeting in person were White House chief of staff Bill Daley, CIA chief Leon Panetta, Deputy National Security Advisor Denis McDonough, Deputy Secretary of State Jim Steinberg, Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Bill Burns, Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Michele Flournoy, the NSC’s Ben Rhodes, White House counterterrorism advisor John Brennan, U.S. Amb. to the UN Susan Rice, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen, and Under Secretary of the Treasury for International Affairs Lael Brainard.
Obama will be briefed by his national security staff on further Egypt developments throughout the day, Vietor said.
Ambassador Burns is the author of Economic Aid and American Policy Toward Egypt, 1955-1981
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."
