The administration of Barack Obama has reacted to the uprising against Hosni Mubarak with the enthusiasm of a man condemned to consume a gallon of plain yoghurt. The president of the United States is not against Egyptian democracy, exactly – but neither is he especially for it.
His administration's pronouncements on events have reflected his dilatory approach: the day of the revolution's inception saw his secretary of state affirming the "stability" of the regime; then there was the infamous Robert Gibbs presser in which confusion and uncertainty were clearly communicated; then, there was the White House's efforts to leak to the press its masterful behind-the-scenes engagement with Egyptian power brokers; and then, there was this past weekend's jaw-dropping declaration by its envoy Frank Wisner that Mubarak ought to stay. Following that was the secretary of state's declaration that the American government's own man in Egypt "does not speak for the American government".
Well. During the 2008 Democratic presidential primaries, Hillary Clinton ran an ad asking whom voters trusted to receive the "3am phone call". At this point, Egyptians and Americans both would be happy if President Obama handled a call at 3pm.
The inability of the United States's foreign policy apparatus to develop a coherent and public response to the Egyptian revolution is not simply a condemnation of the president's management. Nor is it a stumble with limited consequences. As the UAE journalist Habiba Hamid quipped, "Imagine the tremendous outpouring of US support that 60 million Egyptians [sic] would have shown had the US actually supported democracy in Egypt." Indeed, imagine that.
Now, though, the post-Mubarak era is both imminent and inevitable – it was so on 25 January – and when it comes, over 80 million Egyptians will remember not that Obama was nuanced and deliberate, but that the United States of America stood against its advent.
The real tragedy of the president's epic mishandling of Egypt is not merely the sceptical-at-best Egypt that will emerge. It's that Egypt is merely the latest episode in a pattern laid down by Barack Obama in the first two years of his presidency. In just two years, he has faced multiple crises of liberty, democracy and the American national interest abroad – and he has failed each test. Even rhetorical support for those seeking freedom, the bare minimum a president can do, is strikingly absent except under duress.
The plain and pathetic reality is that Barack Obama chooses the existing regime over any alternative, and/or against the American ally, every time. Ask the Hondurans who ejected their Chavista president. Ask the Falkland islanders sold out by the Secretary of State Clinton intoning on the "Malvinas". Ask the east European Nato members stripped of a full American deterrent in the name of a Russia "reset". Ask the Tunisians who received not a word of endorsement as they ejected Ben Ali. Ask the Iranians who fought and died for their freedom in the hot summer of 2009.
And now, ask the Egyptians who gather, once again, in Tahrir Square as you read this.
None of this is to say that there is no legitimate apprehension over the Egyptian revolution. That apprehension is well-founded in a country where a "supermajority" polls in favour of the most brutal criminal sanctions in Islam's name, and where the most organised opposition force, the Muslim Brotherhood, has ideological spinoffs including Hamas and al-Qaida to its credit. The rightful fear of the new Egypt cloaks itself in many justifications, ranging from appeals to Edmund Burke's cautionary doctrine, to insane conspiracy theories of socialism and universal caliphates.
President Obama's lacklustre response to Egypt's liberation reflects none of these concerns: only his profound apathy towards the aspiration for freedom, and his striking disconnect from America's best historic role in the world.
Even if the president did share those concerns, the conduct of the Egyptian revolutionaries to date has been generally exemplary in the face of attack, murder, deprivation and arduous struggle. America's own Declaration of Independence asserts that Egyptians deserve liberty by their very nature as men. Their actions since 25 January only underscore that case. Perhaps they do not deserve American support – but they have earned it. The American people understand that, as shown in the latest Gallup poll revealing 82% public support for Egypt's revolution.
Americans who just celebrated the centenary of President Ronald Reagan may well recall his 1982 address to the British parliament, in which he famously declared that Marxism-Leninism would end up "on the ash-heap of history". But he said something else there that bears repeating as we witness millions of Egyptians seizing their liberties:
"[D]emocracy is not a fragile flower. Still it needs cultivating. If the rest of this century is to witness the gradual growth of freedom and democratic ideals, we must take actions to assist the campaign for democracy."
Reagan knew it then. The American people know it now. The Egyptian people know it now. Why doesn't Barack Obama know it?