Again, I don’t claim expertise in this area. For an example of someone who is a scholar in this field and essentially shares this interpretation of the Obama administration’s behavior, see the writings of Barry Rubin (available at PJ Media, among other places on the Web). I assume that you will find that Rubin’s an outlook far different from whatever is an offer in The Arabist.

But now, we have a process that’s unfolded. In the name of democracy. In the name of constitutionalism. That’s what we have to deal with now. Brian may be right about the fate of Egyptian liberals, but meantime, don’t we have an obligation to do what we can to fight against that? And don’t American conservatives have an obligation to stand with those liberals even if they judge their cause to be “premature?” I don’t see why a stance of, “We think you should have hesitated more to totally de-legitimize Mubarak, but we will nonetheless do what little we can to aide you and the cause of constitutionalism now,” would be contradictory. It would have the benefit, for American conservatives, at least, of being a more generous, less doom-ful, and less of a damn-Obama-coming-and-going, stance. It would also face and thus learn about the reality of an Egyptian constitution that really might take hold long-term, and which meantime becomes a primary political battleground there.

The chances that this is happening are zero. Please tell me you know that your hopes are completely in vain.

To me, one of the most disheartening trends in post-Iraq US foreign policy is the complete jettisoning of moral concerns, by all sides. Having grown up on the right late in the Cold War, this is truly heartbreaking. Don’t take my cynicism up above as not caring, or that I’m any sort of isolationist of any sort. This issue is the main reason I can’t be a Paulnut, or tolerate conservative flavors like those on display at AmCon. I want the Arab world’s Walesa, Havel, Sharansky, etc., to know that the US stands with them. I know that the US coddling of Arab dictators sets an awful history, but we’re not even trying to make up for it even now.

Clinton at least had to make noises in 1992 about moral issues–his big foreign policy positions in that election, if you recall, were that Bush I had let Saddam off the hook, and that he hadn’t been forceful enough to the ChiComs after Tienanmen Square. I know Obama’s supporters would claim he has made similar noises, but his record is awful, awful, awful.

Liberal Egyptians are getting, and are going to get, completely steamrolled.

I did not say that we should not try to influence the power transition in Egypt. I think we should have used our influence with the Egyptian military to put in place an acceptable (i.e. non-MB) new government to replace Mubarak. This would not have involved trying to stage manage a transition to democracy – which is a much more difficult proposition. I do not think Egypt is anywhere near being ready for meaningful democracy, regardless of the slogans chanted by the crowds in Tahrir Square. In any event, I don’t think that it’s our job to try to facilitate the installation of nominally democratic governance everywhere a crowd of unrepresentative, 20-something yuppies start demonstrating for it.

I’m completely with you in thinking that the ideal U.S. policy, once it was clear that Mubarak was toast, would have been to try to exert pressure in a way that would put a liberal government, even one less than fully democratic, in place.

Or as you put it, “…some sort of regime, whether or not democratic in any meaningful sense, that would be congruent with our interests in the region, while protecting Egyptian minorities…”

But let me quote you further: “Shouldn’t our unfortunate experiences…have cured us of the inclination to try to stage-manage “transitions to democracy” in cultures vastly different from our own, particularly Islamic cultures?”

There’s a slight contradiction in your wanting us to try to “stage manage” progress towards rule of law government in Egypt and yet warning us big time against “stage-managing” transitions to democracy. But with simply the first sort of “managing” or “influencing” in view, the problem is HOW. You’d think with Egypt receiving more of our financial aid than any other nation we’d have plenty of levers to pull, but in a revolutionary situation, or at least, in a situation of constitutional transition, wherein the authority itself is unclear, I think the Obama administration has been at a loss.

They know they can’t come out and say, “We want a government just like this” and expect Egyptians to fall in line. And I do think their polly-annish rhetorical stance about the Arab Spring and Islamic democracy hasn’t helped the Obama admin in deciding what it wants to push for, and in being taken seriously by the various parities. I also assume the Obama admin has sent back-channel signals to the MB, Morsi, the secularists, and the army, all for the sake of influencing things, that we won’t know about for some time. I certainly hope, for example, that we’ve been telling all parties that, “allow greater persecution of the Christian minority, and your aide is gone,” and likewise with a few demands about Israel and terrorist-harboring/aiding.

And remember, we didn’t ask for the Egyptians to try democracy. They demanded it themselves. So all American players, whether die-hard neo-cons, conservative critics of Iraq II, and even “Bush Lied People Died” Obama Democrats have to roll with that.