Today I awoke to the news that Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak has stepped aside as President and handed over power to the military, this of course was conceding the inevitable after yesterday's bizarre "sort of, but not really" handover to his closely allied Vice President which so enraged everyone further.
And after watching Obama's reaction to the news of Mubarak's demise, I couldn't help but chuckle at his references to people's struggles for freedom and democracy, for he really is the salesman in chief. His reference to 1989 reminded me of Chomsky's quote; "One 1989 comparison has some validity: Romania, where Washington maintained its support for Nicolae Ceausescu, the most vicious of the East European dictators, until the allegiance became untenable. Then Washington hailed his overthrow while the past was erased"
And this is exactly what is happening now, Mubarak is being quickly transformed from our "great friend" to a Hitleresque character.
Obama's inspiring words of Egyptian "moral force" and "this is the power of the human dignity, that can never be denied" would actually mean something if it wasn't the USA that was responsible for that denial of human dignity for the last 30 years!
So where to now for Egypt? With the fall of eastern European communism, and the return of democracy in Latin America, their are plenty of templates available on how to peacefully transition to democracy, and if ever the United Nations has a role to play, it is now. Washington on the other hand will try to pull the strings as best it can, but how far it's willing to push remains to be seen? The political forces to the Right are very strong however, and they still speak completely without irony of their right to impose a government of their liking on Egypt. The Billy McMahon of American politics, Sarah Palin even today said "we should not stand for that", in reference to the Muslim Brotherhood potentially coming to power.
And America still wonders why most people in the Middle East hate them with a passion?
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