It’s sort of an update of Jeane Kirkpatrick’s Cold War doctrine that right-wing regimes can evolve for the better in a way left-wing totalitarian ones cannot: The less murderous authoritarian regimes of the Middle East (e.g., Egypt, Jordan, Tunisia) may well totter from popular furor over their incompetence and human-rights violations (and supposedly pro-U.S. stance), while the far more brutal totalitarians in Gaza, Iran, Libya, and Syria so far seem immune from popular unrest.
Could it be that the latter states are more stable because their brutality hardly raises an eyebrow abroad, while at home a demonstration is equivalent to a death sentence, not a CNN camera shot? The Middle East intelligentsia certainly did not rally against Syrian murders in Lebanon or Teheran’s brutal putdown of popular unrest in 2009 the way it has rallied against Mubarak.
We’ve heard a variety of takes on America’s support for the falling regime — we will be worse off, better off, or about the same with the demise of Mubarak; we were too naive, too cynical, too weak, too strong, too something — but what is lost amid this chatter about everyone’s take on America is the American public’s take on everything.
I suspect their take is “A pox on both their houses.” That is, the common denominator shared by the Mubarak regime, with its corruption and coercion, and the Muslim Brotherhood, with its violence and religious intolerance, is the current pathology of the contemporary Middle East — tribalism, religious fundamentalism, gender apartheid, statism, anti-Semitism, etc. The Arab Street rarely addresses this pathology, and it is not within our power to force them to do so. And I don’t think Mubarak could have stolen all the $50 billion or so we have given Egypt over the years, so some of those who now hate us have benefited from our largess.
Americans have problems enough at home — high unemployment, massive debt, inflating gas and food prices — and do not appreciate being slammed by both pro- and anti- Mubarak forces. I suppose our attitude is something like, “Why send any more of our borrowed money to any of those guys? Let them stew in their own juice.”
There is one constant in all this: The Middle East talking head who is loudest in his criticism of U.S. foreign policy is usually the one best kept at an American foundation, institution, or university rather than on the beloved street of his homeland.