A lot of things will grow out of the Egyptian protests that we cannot predict, but at this point, very few have begun yet. What has begun is what one colleague called the “Blameobamathon.” Aluf Benn, writing in Ha’aretz, says that Obama will be remembered as the President who “lost Egypt.” This is obvious nonsense, of course. What’s happened in Egypt and Tunisia, as well as what is simmering in Jordan and Yemen, is connected to the US only insofar as the dictators in those countries are “our guys.” That is a policy that has endured for a long time with most of these regimes since the early days of the Reagan Administration or even the days of Jimmy Carter. And the policy has stayed the same, with only minor changes, no matter who is in the White House. It’s just Obama’s fortune that it bubbled over now. What this view shows, more than anything else, is the arrogance of America, shared by Israel, that everything that happens in the world can and should be controlled, prevented or created by the USA. Egypt and Tunisia are demonstrations that this is simply untrue…
An Egyptian government led by Mohammed ElBaradei is probably the best case scenario for US concerns in the region, but it would still be a big shift away from Mubarak. ElBaradei is a seasoned veteran of the international arena, having once headed the International Atomic Energy Agency, spent many years in the Egyptian foreign ministry and worked in the UN. He also was a professor at Yale for a number of years, so he knows the United States very well. He is about as moderate a leader as one could ever imagine coming out of this turmoil, in both the real sense of that word as well as the American meaning, which is that he will cooperate with our program. But that latter sense will only go so far, as ElBaradei will have to work within a very new Egyptian framework where the Muslim Brotherhood will be a very influential force and where the Egyptian populace’s views will be much more of a concern. That will mean a general encouragement of getting along with the US, but not when it conflicts with the popular sentiment in Egypt. This means, among other things, an end to helping Israel sustain its blockade of Gaza and an end in general to cooperating with the occupation. But I doubt that will necessarily lead to open hostility to Israel, unless the Israeli and American response to the new Egypt is particularly provocative or insulting….