Mona telling it like it is again: “US: Blinking and Backing Down In Egypt”

Here’s [her] contribution to the NYTimes.com Room for Debate panel asking “Is Caution the Right U.S. Strategy?” for Egypt’s revolution.

Mona Eltahawy is an Egyptian-born columnist and public speaker on Arab and Muslim issues based in New York. She is on Twitter as monaeltahawy.

Hosni Mubarak has ruled Egypt for 30 years, keeping the country in a state of emergency for every one of those years, overseeing one forged election after the other and maintaining a security apparatus renowned for its brutality.

Which part of the above sentence shows any regard or concern for the Egyptian constitution?

To buy his argument that — despite a 15-day mass uprising calling for Mubarak’s overthrow — he must remain in office to oversee an “orderly transition” and to prevent constitutional problems created by an immediate ouster is to accept the alternate reality Mubarak occupies, oblivious to the demands of hundreds of thousands of Egyptians. The ever yo-yoing Obama administration has blinked, backed down from its claims to be on the right side of history and joined Mubarak on his parallel universe.

Mubarak’s vice president, Omar Suleiman, who has appointed to the position by Mubarak only after pro-democracy demonstrations began — told an interviewer over the weekend that Egyptians didn’t “understand the culture of democracy.” Does that sound like the man to manage that “orderly transition”?

It is exactly that kind of paternalism that those hundreds of thousands of Egyptians have risen up against. And yet the U.S. — after days of lip service to being on the right side of history — is siding with Suleiman. He did after all aid the U.S. with its rendition program and oversaw torture for it. …

Click here for her entire piece, along with the other responses to this online NY Times panel discussion.