Shadi Hamid, Brookings Senior Fellow and Director of Research at the Doha Center, suggests that the sour outlook on the economic fallout from Egypt is completely warranted--and there's only one thing that will make it better.
Up until recently, Egypt was hailed as a success story by international financial institutions. In 2008, the World Bank's Doing Business report named Egypt the world's top reformer. The technocratic government of Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif oversaw annual GDP growth of 5% to 7%. By shutting out any opposition, the Egyptian regime promised political stability and delivered impressive growth. Uncertainty is the enemy of markets, and the Arab authoritarian order seemed, if nothing else, to offer a certain reliability. The past few days, that certainty has proven illusory. Egypt will not go back to what it was. In the coming weeks, the country's economic situation will deteriorate further. On Thursday, the main index of the Egyptian stock market dropped 10.5%. Meanwhile, tourists are fleeing Egypt, and they're not likely to come back anytime soon.
Laura Rozen at Politico is reporting that a number of think tankers are sitting at the White House to help the administration think through its policy toward Egypt. CFR's Elliott Abrams and Brookings' Shibley Telhami are reportedly sitting out.
George Washington University Middle East expert and Foreign Policy.com Middle East channel editor Marc Lynch; the National Security Network's Joel Rubin, a former State Department Egypt desk officer; the Brookings Institution's Robert Kagan and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace's Michele Dunne, a former NSC and State Department Policy Planning and Egypt embassy official; (Kagan and Dunne co-chair a bipartisan working group on Egypt; the Council on Foreign Relations's Egypt expert Steve Cook.
Marwan Muasher, former foreign minister and deputy prime minister of Jordan, is vice president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace writes in the Guardian that it's time for Arab leaders to learn the lessons of Tunisia and Egypt--three, in particular.
The first is that it is easy to point the finger at high prices and unemployment as the principal reasons for the protests, but it's not that simple. Several countries are already taking short-term steps, including subsidies for basic staples and better salaries, but this won't work for ever. Real solutions need to improve democratic and political rights, fight corruption, and defend the rule of law.
The second point that everyone needs to realise is that no country is safe – all Arab countries are under threat. There's a tendency among Arab leaders and their advisers to take comfort in the differences that their countries have with Tunisia and to assume that kneejerk handouts can easily deal with economic grievances. But this is a false sense of safety and obviously doesn't hold with the unfolding events in Egypt.
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And the last lesson is that old arguments rationalising tight controls on politics to keep Islamists from gaining power are fundamentally undermined. Governments use the fear of Islam to justify closed political systems that clamp down on all forms of discontent.
Accompanied by an instructional video for children, CNAS' Andrew Exum offered his own advice to the Egyptian protesters: stop throwing rocks like girls.
Because our freedom-loving government has apparently been supporting the Sadat/Mubarak regime for the past 30+ years (honestly, who knew?), it is with great hesitation that I write to you on behalf of my countrymen with a little constructive criticism. But over the past few days, we Americans have been watching your street protests with much wonder and a little concern. It's not like we are the greatest baseball players on Earth -- no, that would be the Japanese -- but because of our national sport, we Americans all learn how to throw a baseball at an early age. Judging from your rock-throwing, we think you could get an extra 20-30 yards/meters on each throw if you stop throwing like a girl use some techniques we Americans have developed through the years...
And not all found this too funny, including commenters on the post and some folks on Twitter.
Before appearing on Meet the Press on Sunday (video below), Brookings VP and Director of Foreign Policy Martin Indyk gamed out Obama's scenarios on the show's website.
But here's the horrible dilemma that President Obama now finds himself in. If he distances the United States from Mubarak, he risks toppling a critically important Arab ally which could generate a tsunami of instability that could shake the foundations of all of America's autocratic Arab allies across the region. Yet if he does not distance the U.S. from the Egyptian pharaoh, he risks alienating the Egyptian people, helping to open the way to a theocratic regime that would be fundamentally anti-American.
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At this point, facing by far the biggest foreign policy crisis of his presidency, Obama cannot afford to backtrack. Yesterday, he came out publicly on the side of the Egyptian people, insisting that Mubarak undertake significant reforms. But it is surely clear by now that the people will settle for nothing less than the removal of Mubarak. So Obama's options are narrowing. He will soon have to decide whether to tell Mubarak that the United States no longer supports him and that it's time for him to go.
Fortunately, Mubarak's appointment of Omar Suleiman, the head of Military Intelligence, as his vice president and successor, has made it more possible for Obama to pursue this option with less fear of the potential destabilizing consequences. The United States has a good deal of leverage on the Egyptian military because we have trained, equipped and paid for their armaments. They now hold the key to a positive resolution of this crisis. Mubarak may have appointed Suleiman to shore up military support for his presidency, but he is now dependent on the same military for his survival and they may be willing to abandon him to ensure their own.
That's the door on which Obama now needs to push. Suleiman needs to be encouraged to take over as Egypt's new president, order the military to prevent looting but not harm the demonstrators, and announce that he will only serve for six months until free and fair elections allow for a legitimate president to form a new government. If he can put this understanding in place, Obama then needs to call Mubarak and tell him gently but firmly that for the good of his country it's time for him to go.
AEI's Newt Gingrich writes at Human Events that another Democratic president has been inspired by (or plagiarized) his ideas.
Well, it certainly felt like “déjà vu all over again” this weekend when people started emailing me asking how I felt about the President picking the theme “winning the future” for his State of the Union address.
I wrote a book in 2005 called Winning the Future: A 21st Century Contract with America.
Was President Obama setting the stage to adopt elements of my 21st Century Contract with America, just as President Clinton embraced the original Contract with America?
What we heard last night did echo some themes from Winning the Future.
The basic plot was expressed – the need to compete with China and India, reform our tax code, stand up for human rights across the globe, defeat the terrorists, solve the challenge of illegal immigration, and improve math and science learning.
But it was clear that when it came down to hard policy proposals (with a few exceptions), the President’s vision was still big government dressed up in moderate clothing.
The question is: Is this a case of reaching across the aisle or coopting dissent? Or is it all just a coincidence?
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