Egypt’s Revolution, Bush’s Victory?

February 11, 2011, 7:43 pm
By TOBIN HARSHAW
The New York Times

The Thread is an in-depth look at how major news and controversies are being debated across the online spectrum.
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democracy, Egypt, George W. Bush

Who is the hero of the Egyptian revolution? Wael Ghonim? Mohamed ElBaradei? Twitter? The ubiquitous Egyptian man (and woman) in the street?

All good nominees, but there’s one more who’s getting increasing support: George W. Bush. Scoff if you will, but the debate is heating up.

It started with the former State Department official Elliott Abrams at The Washington Post on Jan. 29:

In November 2003, President George W. Bush laid out this question: “Are the peoples of the Middle East somehow beyond the reach of liberty? Are millions of men and women and children condemned by history or culture to live in despotism? Are they alone never to know freedom and never even to have a choice in the matter?”

The massive and violent demonstrations underway in Egypt, the smaller ones in Jordan and Yemen, and the recent revolt in Tunisia that inspired those events, have affirmed that the answer is no and are exploding, once and for all, the myth of Arab exceptionalism … All these developments seem to come as a surprise to the Obama administration, which dismissed Bush’s “freedom agenda” as overly ideological and meant essentially to defend the invasion of Iraq. But as Bush’s support for the Cedar Revolution in Lebanon and for a democratic Palestinian state showed, he was defending self-government, not the use of force.

Stephen L. Carter, writing at Newsweek, made the case the Bush and Obama were birds of a feather:

Not long ago, President George W. Bush was considered naive for suggesting that the promotion of democracy in the Arab world should be a staple of American foreign policy. Two years ago, the same charge was whispered against President Barack Obama, when he suggested, in his Cairo address to the Muslim world, that self-government and freedom “are not just American ideas, they are human rights.” True, due to the exigencies of pursuing the nation’s strategic interests, neither man actually pressed very hard for democratization. Still, the more important point is that both were subjected to lectures from experts who insisted that somehow even to speak about democracy and freedom in the Arab lands was to show oneself to be a hopeless romantic, insufficiently hardheaded, out of touch with reality. As of today, that essentially racist assumption is dead.

For Carol A. Taber at American Thinker, Bush’s real soul mate on the issue is Winston Churchill:

President Bush, for all his failings, understood that democracy was about more than institutions. To him, democracy was about human freedom. “The fundamental question,” Bush stated in 2005, “is, do we have the confidence and universal values to help change a troubled part of the world[?] … I believe democracy — the desire to be free — is universal. That’s what I believe. And if you believe that, then you’ve got to act on it. That doesn’t mean militarily. But that means using the influence of the United States to work with others to help — to help freedom spread.”

While Reuel Marc Gerecht, writing on The Times Op-Ed page, went further back in history:

President George W. Bush’s decision to build democracy in Iraq seemed so lame to many people because it appeared, at best, to be another example of American idealism run amok — the forceful implantation of a complex Western idea into infertile authoritarian soil. But Mr. Bush, whose faith in self-government mirrors that of a frontiersman in Tocqueville’s “Democracy in America,” saw truths that more worldly men missed: the idea of democracy had become a potent force among Muslims, and authoritarianism had become the midwife to Islamic extremism … Mr. Bush’s distastefulness helped to blind Westerners to the momentous marriage of Islamism and democratic ideas.

The left has wrongly distilled President Bush’s emphasis on democracy into emphasis on elections, or on movements free of American influence. Bush rejected both those concepts. For Bush, like Churchill, democracy was a means to enable freedom; the ballot box was not the silver bullet. Also like Churchill, and Reagan for that matter, Bush had no problem whatsoever pushing American-style democracy — that is to say, America-friendly democracy. That is why Bush rejected dealing with the democratically elected Hamas, for example — elections do not validate a terroristic regime. Gaza was not true democracy in action; it was the patina of democracy lightly buttered over a bread of Islamism.

But the argument that has really roiled the left side of the blogosphere was this from Charles Krauthammer: “Today, everyone and his cousin supports the ‘freedom agenda.’ Of course, yesterday it was just George W. Bush, Tony Blair and a band of neocons with unusual hypnotic powers who dared challenge the received wisdom of Arab exceptionalism … Now it seems everyone, even the left, is enthusiastic for Arab democracy. Fine. Fellow travelers are welcome.”

For Krauthammer, however, Bush’s “freedom agenda” is a bit squishy: “We need a foreign policy that not only supports freedom in the abstract but is guided by long-range practical principles to achieve it – a Freedom Doctrine.” It would consist , of these elements:

(1) The United States supports democracy throughout the Middle East. It will use its influence to help democrats everywhere throw off dictatorial rule.

(2) Democracy is more than just elections. It requires a free press, the rule of law, the freedom to organize, the establishment of independent political parties and the peaceful transfer of power. Therefore, the transition to democracy and initial elections must allow time for these institutions, most notably political parties, to establish themselves.

(3) The only U.S. interest in the internal governance of these new democracies is to help protect them against totalitarians, foreign and domestic. The recent Hezbollah coup in Lebanon and the Hamas dictatorship in Gaza dramatically demonstrate how anti-democratic elements that achieve power democratically can destroy the very democracy that empowered them.

(4) Therefore, just as during the Cold War the United States helped keep European communist parties out of power (to see them ultimately wither away), it will be U.S. policy to oppose the inclusion of totalitarian parties – the Muslim Brotherhood or, for that matter, communists – in any government, whether provisional or elected, in newly liberated Arab states.

“Oh, I see,” responds Steve Benen, the Political Animal. “The ‘freedom agenda,’ intended to ‘ensure democracy’ comes with fine print, imposed on foreign countries by the U.S., shaped by Charles Krauthammer’s worldview.”

Michael Cohen at Democracy Arsenal argues that the fourth caveat will ensure that same-old foreign policy:

If we embrace democracy for the Arab world then we must embrace all parties that are willing to play by democratic rules – and that includes the Islamists. Our fear of Islamic political movements has led the United States, for years, to support authoritarian and dictatorial regimes – like Hosni Mubarak’s – with predictably disastrous results. And contrary to Krauthammer’s crowing for the Freedom Agenda, George Bush was guilty of the same crime, particularly in regard to Egypt where he backed away from calls for democracy when the US government decided we needed an un-democratic Mubarak more than an actual democratic process.

We can’t have it both ways – we can’t support democracy and then reject political Islam. So long as Islamist groups are willing to abide by the tenets of democracy and participate in free and fair elections we should welcome their inclusion. To do otherwise . . . well it wouldn’t be democratic.

The first Krauthammer caveat is the sticking point for Daniel Larison of The American Conservative:

If the U.S. actually were in a “long, twilight struggle” with Iran and its allies, Krauthammer’s first principle would guarantee that the U.S. would end up with virtually no allies anywhere in the region in fairly short order. This is not because those governments would be taken over by forces sympathetic to Iran or by “totalitarian” forces following democratization, but because even properly functioning democracies in these countries would have no interest in serving as America’s front-line states in a regional contest with Iran. I can’t say that I blame them. Our Iran policy is irrational, and it is based in a wildly exaggerated fear of what Iran is capable of doing. Western Europe was at risk of being dominated or conquered by the Soviet Union, and other anti-Soviet allies were at risk of being overthrown or invaded by Soviet-backed forces, so their self-interest dictated allying themselves in defensive pacts with the U.S. Little of this applies to the countries Krauthammer is talking about here.

“ ‘Every instrument available’ is a nicely airy way of putting it, and Krauthammer does a deft little shimmy to get from talking about how the Truman Doctrine worked in ‘allies at the periphery, such as Greece and Turkey,’ to talking about the practice of anticommunism in the more robust and central European democracies,” adds Slate’s Tom Scocca. Then he turns up the snark:

As it happened, the way it did work on the periphery was that we encouraged our allies to outlaw the Communist Party, then to smash the Communists for being outlaws. In Greece, that eventually meant supporting a military coup and a right-wing junta, a dictatorship that ran on torture. This was necessary, you see, because anything—terror, torture, military crackdowns—was better than allowing Communist influence to spread. The Communists were a pernicious, totalitarian, foreign-influenced movement, in thrall to the monstrous Soviet regime …

The trouble with Krauthammer’s plan to do the Egyptians like we used to do the Greeks—besides that it’s corrupt, evil, and counterproductive—is that we already did it. That’s what just got overthrown.

Indeed, there are lessons to be learned from mistakes in the past, and there is no justification for such horrors. But do we really now mock anyone who thinks the Communist movement — the one that sang, “the Internationale/will be the human race” — was “foreign-influenced”? Is it now considered gauche, in some circles, to say that the Soviet regime was “monstrous”? I think there are quite a few Eastern Europeans who would argue otherwise, and maybe an Egyptian or two who could relate to them.

Anti-government protests in Egypt

Anti-government protests in Egypt

Mubarak resignation creates political vacuum for U.S. in Middle East

By Scott Wilson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, February 12, 2011; 12:00 AM

President Hosni Mubarak's decision to step down Friday after three decades in power presents the Obama administration with a political vacuum where a stalwart ally once stood, shaking up the Middle East in ways that present as much peril as promise for U.S. interests in the region.

Tempering the jubilation in Cairo's streets, President Obama and other U.S. officials warned that Egypt's revolution, while stirring, is far from complete, with the country's military asserting control.

The Obama administration will be compelled to shift roles - from managing a volatile political standoff that paralyzed a regional ally to ensuring that Egypt's commanding generals, many of them trained in the United States, carry out the political and legal changes necessary to guarantee fair elections later this year.

"This is not the end of Egypt's transition," Obama said Friday at the White House. "It is the beginning."

Mubarak's resignation ignited celebrations across the Arab Middle East, including festive gunfire in Lebanon and joyous demonstrations in the West Bank city of Ramallah. But in Israel, where government officials watched anxiously as one of the country's few Arab partners retreated to a Red Sea resort, the sentiment was one of apprehension about whether Egypt's revolution could mean further isolation for the Jewish state.

The Obama administration is already looking beyond Cairo, just as it quickly turned the page on Tunis after President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali fled amid public protest a month ago, to the monarchies of Saudi Arabia and Jordan.

Senior U.S. officials say the economic stagnation, youthful populations and simmering political frustration in those kingdoms - echoes of Tunis and Cairo - may provide the spark for widespread political change that could usher out allies in favor of angry, anti-Western opposition movements. How to encourage the election of governments that are responsive to their electorates and to U.S. interests remains a challenge.

Ben Rhodes, the deputy national security adviser for strategic communication, said the administration had reached out by phone to officials across the Arab world in recent days to assure them that the United States intends "to keep its commitments."

"In addition to that message of reassurance, we've also been clear, publicly and privately, that the best antidote to protest is reform that opens up societies," Rhodes said.

But a senior Republican member of Congress who has access to intelligence reports said U.S. spy agencies have seen recent indications that other Middle East leaders were dismayed by the United States' treatment of Mubarak.

"The other countries are mad as hell, and they're mad as hell at us," said the lawmaker, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the matter candidly.

Emerging from the secular nationalist movement that produced Gamal Abdel Nasser and Anwar Sadat, Mubarak presented five U.S. presidents with a choice: push for greater democracy in a bellwether nation that gave birth to modern political Islam or tolerate repression in order to promote regional stability and support an Arab government willing to offer Israel at least a tepid partnership.

For decades, the U.S. government chose the latter path, a record that could turn the democratic process that may emerge from Cairo's Tahrir Square against the United States. The posture of key opposition groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood, whose opposition to Israel endures, is also likely to shape whatever replaces Mubarak's government.

Mubarak leaves behind the rigid institutions and laws of a police state, including the emergency decree he used to suspend many civil liberties, and a powerful army with a large stake in who leads the country. Egypt's Armed Forces Supreme Council announced Friday that it is in command, at least temporarily.

"Obama's insistence that this was about how Egypt is governed, not who governs Egypt, which was awkward for him, is actually the right thing to be insisting on now that Mubarak is gone," said Tom Malinowski, the Washington director of Human Rights Watch and one of several outside advisers the White House assembled in recent weeks to consult on Egypt. "It will be inspiring for opposition movements, but also potentially something that causes governments to crack down harder."

Senate Foreign Relations Chairman John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) said, "I don't think anybody should be getting too carried away with a victory lap today."

"You have a military in charge that has yet to prove it knows how to manage this kind of transition," he said. Mubarak's example may make the region's unelected leaders, especially those supported by the United States, more willing to adopt political reforms before public protest sweeps them away as well, he said.

"The question is how do they respond and we need to work with them on how to do so," Kerry said. "This is the challenge of the Middle East."

Administration officials point to the 1979 Iranian revolution and the 1998 uprising against Indonesian President Suharto as examples of street protests overturning U.S.-backed dictatorships, expressing the hope that the turmoil in Egypt eventually yields a democracy similar to Indonesia's. That outcome is vastly superior, in American eyes, to the rule of the clerics that has emerged in Iran.

The increasing political volatility in the region has large implications for U.S. security interests, and some of the most vulnerable countries are important in different ways.

The aging monarchy of Saudi Arabia, home to roughly a fifth of the world's proven oil reserves, governs a population where many are influenced by the most extreme interpretation of Islam, one hostile to Western culture.

The cosmopolitan Saudi elite fear the majority and have accepted the Sauds as an alternative to a more severe Islamist government. How the octogenarian leadership would weather a popular uprising is unclear.

In Jordan, King Abdullah II has fired his government and taken steps to appease public anger fanned by the uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia.

Sandwiched between a fragile Iraq and the volatile Palestinian territories, Jordan has been a pro-Western oasis for years, often over the objection of population includes majority of Palestinian descent and a large Iraqi diaspora.

And in Yemen, where demonstrators have taken to the streets against President Ali Abdullah Saleh, the Obama administration is carrying out counterterrorism operations in secret partnership with the government.

"We do have mending to do with the Saudis and others, who seem to have concluded we threw Mubarak over the side," said Elliott Abrams, a former deputy national security adviser for the Middle East under George W. Bush. "It will take a little tending to the relationship with the king and possibly with others."

Abrams, who has been advising the Obama administration on Egypt in recent weeks, said "we come out of this as a country in pretty good shape, with a basis to build a relationship with the new government. "

Staff writers Greg Miller and Mary Beth Sheridan contributed to this report.

Elated protesters 'staying put' in Tahrir Square until demands for democracy are met

By Craig Whitlock
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, February 12, 2011; 7:38 AM

CAIRO - Even as they celebrated their triumph over a dictator, many of Egypt's revolutionaries vowed Saturday to continue their peaceful occupation of Tahrir Square, saying their demands for democracy and accountability were still unmet.

Smaller but still vibrant crowds of elated Egyptians packed the square in central Cairo to take stock of their improbable success at ousting President Hosni Mubarak and to contemplate what might come next. Soldiers remained posted outside the square, ostensibly to maintain order, but grinned approvingly at the spectacle unfolding before them.

Still, the revolution's future path remained murky. Egypt's military chiefs, who took control of the country after Mubarak's abrupt abdication Friday, partially lifted an emergency curfew that the government had imposed during the protests. They also prohibited ex-government officials from leaving the country without permission.

But the military gave no immediate indication of how it planned to govern, or if it intended to give the revolutionaries a seat at the table.

"We're staying put. We're not leaving until the regime is gone," said Issa Adel Issa, one of the many youthful organizers of the encampment at Tahrir, or Liberation, Square. "We don't want a military government. We want a democracy with civilians in charge."

Issa ticked off a list of demands: the dissolution of Mubarak's handpicked parliament; the dissolution of his ruling National Democratic Party; the release of thousands of political prisoners; and prosecution of those responsible for the death of an estimated 300 demonstrators who were killed during the 18-day revolution.

"We have to sentence those responsible for these crimes," he said.

Ahmed Abed Ghafur, a 36-year-old computer engineer from Mansoura, a city about 100 miles north of Cairo, woke up to a fourth consecutive dawn after sleeping on the ground at Tahrir. He said he had no intention of leaving either, not until the military made more specific promises about institutionalizing a true democracy.

"This is a revolution, not a half-revolution," he said. "We need a timetable for elections. We need an interim government. We need a committee for a new constitution. Once we get all that, then we can leave the square."

While many protesters agreed with those sentiments, a consensus appeared far out of reach. Other Egyptians said they had made their point and that it was time to go home. Others proposed leaving the square for now but returning for weekly demonstrations.

Still others worried that they would be associated with the wrong side of history: Several of Mubarak's ministers and party officials resigned Friday and Saturday as they tried to distance themselves from his discredited regime.

The 82-year-old Mubarak's fate also remained unclear. He and his wife, Suzanne, were holed up in a luxury hotel at the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, having abandoned Cairo the day before. He vowed several times during the 18-day revolution that he would never go into exile, insisting he would die on Egyptian soil.

In a statement read Friday on state television, Egypt's supreme military council paid respects to Mubarak, a former air force general, and thanked him for his service to the country. While some Egyptians said he should be allowed to retire in peace, popular pressure mounted to hold him accountable, particularly on suspicions of widespread corruption in his family and inner circle.

In Tahrir Square, a group calling itself the Association of the Artists of the Revolution had taken over the boarded-up storefront of a condemned Kentucky Fried Chicken franchise. They plastered the facade with dozens of hand-drawn cartoon posters, all of them mocking Mubarak and many depicting him with bundles of ill-gotten loot.

One satirized Mubarak running his way through Tahrir Square, escaping with a large bag of money as Egyptians threw shoes at his back. It has become an article of faith in Egypt that Mubarak has become fabulously wealthy at the people's expense, accumulating as much as $70 billion dollars. Although such a figure is almost certainly exaggerated, the true extent of his holdings is unknown.

Desires for revenge and retribution, however, were largely overshadowed by Egyptians' immense pride at what their revolution had wrought and the fact that they had done it by embracing peaceful tactics. Looting and disorder were resolutely frowned upon to avoid tarnishing their cause.

Upholding that image was paramount for many demonstrators as Tahrir Square began to acquire a sacred status in the nation's consciousness.

Perhaps the biggest activity in the plaza on Saturday was directed by the revolutionaries' Sanitation Coordination Committee. Small armies of volunteers, armed with brooms and dustpans, fanned out across Tahrir as they attacked refuse with a vengeance and swept away the past.

Special correspondent Sami Sockol contributed to this report.

In Mubarak's final hours, defiance surprises U.S. and threatens to unleash chaos

By Joby Warrick
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, February 11, 2011; 10:25 PM

After a week of crossed signals and strained conversations, the Obama administration finally had good news: Late Wednesday, CIA and Pentagon officials learned of the Egyptian military's plan to relieve President Hosni Mubarak of his primary powers immediately and end the unrest that had convulsed the country for more than two weeks.

The scheme would unfold Thursday, with the only uncertainty being Mubarak's fate. "There were two scenarios: He would either leave office, or he would transfer power," said a U.S. government official who was briefed on the plan. "These were not speculative scenarios. There was solid information" and a carefully crafted script.

But the Egyptian president decided at the last minute to change the ending.

"Mubarak called an audible," the official said.

The Egyptian president startled many of his aides with an address, unseen by others, in which he appeared determined to cling to office. The speech surprised and angered the White House, enraged Cairo's legions of protesters and pushed the country closer to chaos, current and former U.S. government officials said in interviews recounting the events of the past 48 hours.

In the end, Mubarak's efforts only ensured a hasty and ignominious departure, the officials said. Within hours of the speech, Egyptian army officials confronted the discredited president with an ultimatum: Step down voluntarily, or be forced out.

Mubarak's defiant speech - described by some U.S. officials as bordering on delusional - was a final, wild plot twist in a saga that had played out in Egypt and Washington over the past 18 days. The likelihood of Mubarak's departure alternately rose and dipped as U.S. military officers and diplomats quietly worked with their Egyptian counterparts in a search for peaceful resolution to the country's worst unrest in six decades.

By midweek, confronted with growing throngs in Cairo, labor strikes and deteriorating economic conditions, top military and civilian leaders reached an apparent agreement with Mubarak on some form of power transfer. The details of the plan - and how it unraveled Thursday - were described in interviews with six former and current U.S. government officials who were knowledgeable about the details. Most of the sources insisted on anonymity in order to talk about the administration's internal policy discussions and diplomatic exchanges with Egyptian officials.

Communication between top U.S. and Egyptian officials had become increasingly sporadic early this week as Mubarak deputies complained publicly about U.S. interference in Cairo's affairs. But then U.S. intelligence and military officials began to learn details of the plan by Egyptian military leaders - something between a negotiated exit and a soft coup d'etat - to relieve Mubarak of most, if not all, of his powers.

The plan went into effect Thursday with announcements in Cairo to pro-democracy demonstrators that their key demands were about to be met. A rare meeting was convened of Egypt's Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, and afterward a military spokesman released a communique that seemed to assert the army's control over the government. The statement stressed "the responsibility of the armed forces and its commitment to protect the people and its keenness to protect the nation."

The statement prompted cheers among the hundreds of thousands of demonstrators who had gathered in Cairo's Tahrir Square anticipating an announcement of Mubarak's departure.

Hours later in Washington, CIA Director Leon Panetta made a scheduled appearance before the House Intelligence Committee. Asked about Egypt, he cited reports suggesting a "strong likelihood that Mubarak may step down this evening." The CIA retreated from the assertion, saying the director was referring to news reports, but the agency's classified cables continued to point to a likely transfer of power in Egypt that day, according to two U.S. officials familiar with the intelligence.

President Obama was en route to Marquette, Mich., for an event on wireless technology. Just before 2 p.m. Washington time, he took to the stage at Northern Michigan University to signal his approval for a transfer of power in Egypt that appeared to be only minutes away. "We are witnessing history unfold," an ebullient Obama said.

His words hinting of historic changes underway in Egypt were meant to express optimism without forecasting when Mubarak might surrender his powers, an administration official said. But the speech added to the growing anticipation about a speech by the Egyptian president set to take place two hours later - 10 p.m. in Cairo and 4 p.m. in Washington.

A solemn-looking Mubarak appeared on Egypt's state television just as Obama was returning to the capital. The U.S. president and his aides watched with increasing dismay as Mubarak criticized Western interference and ticked off a list of promises for the coming months. Although he referred vaguely to a decision to transfer "some of the power" to his newly appointed vice president, Omar Suleiman, his tone was defiant and he offered no hint of stepping down.

U.S. officials and Middle East experts who analyzed the speech said it was a case of extraordinary miscalculation on Mubarak's part. "It was a public relations disaster," said Daniel Kurtzer, a former U.S. ambassador to Egypt. The speech provoked roars of outrage from Tahrir Square as thousands of demonstrators began to march on the presidential palace and state TV headquarters, many of them shouting, "Leave, leave."

Mubarak's defiant tone conveyed his refusal to accede to expectations in Washington that he was finally leaving, said Scott Carpenter, a Middle East expert with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

"Mubarak went off script," Carpenter said. "But it wasn't what he said so much as it was the way he said it. He essentially agreed to say everything the army wanted him to say, but he couldn't say it the way people expected him to."

After landing in Washington, Obama assembled his national security team in the Oval Office to discuss the response. He sat down afterward to pen a first draft of his public response, choosing language that more clearly than ever put the White House on the side of the demonstrators. The final version began with this sentence: "The Egyptian people have been told that there was a transition of authority, but it is not yet clear that this transition is immediate, meaningful or sufficient."

"It unmistakably aligned us with the aspirations of the people in Tahrir Square," said a senior administration official involved in the Oval Office meeting.

It was a crucial shift for a White House that had been the scene of sometimes heated exchanges between aides who pressed for a strong message of support for democratic change in Egypt and others who worried that doing so could disrupt the traditional government-to-government relationship with a key ally.

There was a discernible change in Cairo, as well. Within hours of Mubarak's speech, "support for Mubarak from [the] military dropped precipitously," said a U.S. government official who closely tracked the events.

"The military had been willing - with the right tone in the speech - to wait and see how it played out," the official said. "They didn't like what they saw."

Even Suleiman, Mubarak's longtime intelligence chief, joined ranks with military leaders late Thursday. "He had been trying to walk a fine line between retaining support for Mubarak while trying to infuse common sense into the equation," the U.S. official said. "By the end of the day, it was clear the situation was no longer tenable."

Mubarak was told Friday that he must step down, and within hours, he was on his way to the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh. It was Suleiman who announced the change in leadership. At 11 a.m. Cairo time, the vice president stood before a television camera to formally declare the end of three decades of Mubarak rule.

"President Hosni Mubarak has decided to step down from the office of president of the republic and has charged the high council of the armed forces to administer the affairs of the country," Suleiman said. "May God help everybody."

Staff writers Karen DeYoung, Greg Miller, Mary Beth Sheridan and Scott Wilson and staff researcher Julie Tate contributed to this report.

U.S. Preparing Aid Package For Egypt Opposition

Thursday, Feb. 10, 2011
Time
By Massimo Calabresi

As Hosni Mubarak clings to power in Egypt, President Barack Obama and his foreign policy aides face two problems. First, with diminishing influence over Mubarak, they have to try to ensure the dictator fully relinquishes control. Obama took a stab at this problem Thursday evening after Mubarak's oblique and seemingly insufficient declaration that he was transferring some power to his vice president Omar Suleiman. In a statement from the White House, Obama called on Egypt's leaders to make it 'clear that this transition is immediate, meaningful [and] sufficient.'

The second challenge is harder. Washington has publicly called for a transition to democracy, which Egypt has never known. To avoid a continuation of dictatorial rule under a new strong man or a dangerous power vacuum as weaker players try to seize control, Egypt will need to see the lightning-fast development of long-suppressed political parties. So the US is preparing a new package of assistance to Egyptian opposition groups designed to help with constitutional reform, democratic development and election organizing, State department officials tell TIME. The package is still being formulated, and the officials declined to say how much it would be worth or to which groups it would be directed. (Watch TIME's video "In Tahrir Square, Strong Reaction to Mubarak's Speech.")

White House officials declined to say whether any of the new money would go directly or indirectly to the Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt's most prominent Islamic party.

The Obama administration cut democracy and governance aid to Egyptian opposition groups in its first two years in office from $45 million in George W. Bush's last budget to $25 million for the 2010 and 2011 fiscal years. The Obama administration also stopped providing aid to groups that had not registered with the Egyptian government, drawing criticism from human rights organizations. The administration has had conversations with Egyptian government officials, including the Egyptian envoy to the US, Amb. Sameh Shoukry, about the provision of new aid, sources tell TIME.

The US has a history of providing assistance to nascent democracy movements, with mixed results. In countries like Serbia and Ukraine direct and indirect U.S. aid helped youth driven opposition movements successfully oust repressive leaders by training them in non-violent civil disobedience, election organizing and other fundamentals of civil society. Elsewhere, like Belarus, the U.S. has had less success funding change through direct democracy-building aid, as dictatorial regimes remain impervious to democratic movements. (Read "How the U.S. Should Support Middle East Reform.")

Not everyone thinks democracy-building aid helps. Some analysts, like Steven A. Cook of the Council on Foreign Relations, criticized Bush-era democracy aid to Egypt as wasteful and better spent on agricultural and other projects. But a detailed study by Vanderbilt University and others found that US democracy aid was the only statistically significant factor affecting the pace and success of democratic development in the post-Cold War period. 'USAID Democracy and Governance obligations have a significant positive impact on democraassistance variables are statistically insignificant,' the study concludes.

Egypt's opposition groups are not starting from scratch, but after decades of repression under Mubarak, the country does not have much of a foundation to build on, U.S. officials have concluded. 'There is a civil society in Egypt,' says state department spokesman P. J. Crowley, 'But it has suffered from decades of restrictions. They do have an opposition but it's not yet organized.' Secretary of State Hillary Clinton first suggested the US might give aid to the Egyptian opposition groups on the way back to Washington from Munich Feb. 6. 'As the enormity of the organizational challenge is confronted by responsible leaders of the protest and the opposition, they are saying, 'Okay, we've got work to do,'' Clinton said. 'We are going to try to work with a lot of like-minded countries around the world to offer whatever assistance we can.'

In Washington, meanwhile, the Egyptian regime's representatives are trying to protect U.S. aid to the government even as Washington looks to fund the opposition groups. The Egyptian military gets some $1.3 billion in aid every year from the U.S. For now, Congress has been silent about the possibility of cutting that aid, even as the White House has suggested it may be in play. 'There's no near term threat that military aid's going to be cut off,' says one person familiar with the thinking of the Egyptian regime in Washington. For starters, Israel is strongly opposed to cutting the aid, as it could threaten the peace treaty between it and Egypt.

Nevertheless, the regime's lobbyists in Washington are urging Egyptian officials, including Amb. Shoukry to meet with Congressional leaders to emphasize the benefits of continued military cooperation. In the last few days, several U.S. military ships have transited the Suez canal, and with Israel's approval, Egypt has bolstered its forces bordering the Gaza strip. Egypt's Washington lobbyists have also told the regime that violence against Americans, journalists or peaceful protesters could endanger the regime's aid.

DNI James Clapper: Muslim Brotherhood "Largely Secular," "Has Eschewed Violence"

RealClearPolitics

"The term Muslim Brotherhood is an umbrella term for a variety of movements. In the case of Egypt, a very heterogeneous group, largely secular, which has eschewed violence and has decried al-Qaeda as a perversion of Islam," Director of National Intelligence James Clapper told a congressional hearing today.

UPDATE: Jamie Smith, director of the office of public affairs for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence later said in a statement to ABC News: “To clarify Director Clapper’s point - in Egypt the Muslim Brotherhood makes efforts to work through a political system that has been, under Mubarak’s rule, one that is largely secular in its orientation – he is well aware that the Muslim Brotherhood is not a secular organization.”

Posted on February 10, 2011

Egypt's finest hour

Los Angeles Times
Editorial

A popular, peaceful protest brought down a dictator. Now, a real democracy must emerge.

February 12, 2011

Every lover of liberty will share in the exhilaration of the Egyptian people after the resignation of President Hosni Mubarak. A revolt by students, young professionals and workers ousted a dictator who had ruled his country in the guise of a democrat for 30 years. It may be that intervention by the military was the immediate cause of Mubarak's dramatic turnabout the day after he refused to step down, but there's no question that the primary authors of his overthrow were the Egyptian people. Friday was the climax of that rare thing: a popular and peaceful revolution.

How — and even if — that revolution will be translated into a broad-based, democratic government isn't clear. The Egyptian military, to which Mubarak ceded power, must enact constitutional reforms necessary for free and fair elections, and it must broaden the negotiations with opposition figures that began in the waning days of the Mubarak regime. It will be a profound betrayal — for Egyptians and their supporters all around the world — if the result of this revolution is another military dictatorship, even a "benign" one that clamps down on corruption and promotes economic reforms. As President Obama said Friday, the next step in Egypt must be "nothing less than genuine democracy."

Speculation about what will come next is inevitable as well as important. But it shouldn't divert attention from the immediate triumph — the astonishing accomplishment of the Egyptians who filled Tahrir Square day after day and employed both the age-old techniques of popular protest and the new tools of social media to rally their countrymen to their cause. The protest's timing may have been affected by the uprising in Tunisia, but it reflected long-festering discontent with Egypt's sterile and corrupt political order, its thuggish police force and its lack of opportunity for educated young people. The yearning for change would have manifested itself sooner or later. But no one could have predicted how powerful, and peaceful, such a demonstration would be. Not since the fall of the Berlin Wall has there been such a dramatic testimony to the desire for personal freedom.

Last month, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton offered some prophetic advice for leaders in the Middle East. "Those who cling to the status quo may be able to hold back the full impact of their countries' problems for a little while," she warned, "but not forever." Clinton said that the collapse of entrenched regimes would create a vacuum that would be filled by extremists and terrorist groups. But in Egypt there is another alternative: citizens determined to establish democracy. Their triumph is a rebuke to cynics who believed Egypt was incapable of transformation — and an achievement the Egyptian army must not dishonor.

Avoiding a New Pharaoh

February 11, 2011, 11:34 am
NYT
By NICHOLAS KRISTOF

So Hosni Mubarak is out. Vice President Omar Suleiman says that Mubarak has stepped down and handed over power to the military. This is a huge triumph for people power, and it will resonate across the Middle East and far beyond (you have to wonder what President Hu Jintao of China is thinking right now). The narrative about how Arab countries are inhospitable for democracy, how the Arab world is incompatible with modernity — that has been shattered by the courage and vision of so many Tunisians and Egyptians.

It’s also striking that Egyptians triumphed over their police state without Western help or even moral support. During rigged parliamentary elections, the West barely raised an eyebrow. And when the protests began at Tahrir Square, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said that the Mubarak government was “stable” and “looking for ways to respond to the legitimate needs and interests of the Egyptian people.” Oops. So much for our $80 billion intelligence agency. On my Facebook fan page, I asked my fans (before the Tahrir protests began) what the next Tunisia would be. A surprising number said Egypt — if you were among them, you apparently did better than our intelligence community. Indeed, Egyptians in Tahrir told me that they were broadly inspired by America’s example of freedom, but that their greatest inspiration came from Tunisia and Al Jazeera. On Tahrir Square, there were signs saying “Thank you, Tunisia.” So, all of you Tunisians and Egyptians, “mabrouk” or “congratulations”! You’ve made history. The score in Egypt is: People Power, 1; Police State, 0.

But the game isn’t over, and now a word of caution. I worry that senior generals may want to keep (with some changes) a Mubarak-style government without Mubarak. In essence the regime may have decided that Mubarak had become a liability and thrown him overboard — without any intention of instituting the kind of broad, meaningful democracy that the public wants. Senior generals have enriched themselves and have a stake in a political and economic structure that is profoundly unfair and oppressive. And remember that the military running things directly really isn’t that different from what has been happening: Mubarak’s government was a largely military regime (in civilian clothes) even before this. Mubarak, Vice President Suleiman and so many others — including nearly all the governors — are career military men. So if the military now takes over, how different is it?

The military ostensibly played a neutral role in recent weeks, and protesters certainly feel much more sympathetic to the military than to the police. But some elements of the army have been involved in repression of pro-democracy protesters, including arrest and torture. The Guardian noted:

One of those detained by the army was a 23-year-old man who would only give his first name, Ashraf, for fear of again being arrested. He was detained last Friday on the edge of Tahrir Square carrying a box of medical supplies intended for one of the makeshift clinics treating protesters attacked by pro-Mubarak forces….

Ashraf was hauled off to a makeshift army post where his hands were bound behind his back and he was beaten some more before being moved to an area under military control at the back of the museum.

“They put me in a room. An officer came and asked me who was paying me to be against the government. When I said I wanted a better government he hit me across the head and I fell to the floor. Then soldiers started kicking me. One of them kept kicking me between my legs,” he said. “They got a bayonet and threatened to rape me with it. Then they waved it between my legs. They said I could die there or I could disappear into prison and no one would ever know. The torture was painful but the idea of disappearing in a military prison was really frightening.”

That kind of thing happened to a lot of people, and those millions of brave Egyptians who went to the streets were protesting not just against Mubarak but against the police state as a whole. May Mubarak’s resignation mark a milestone toward their goal — and I think it is, but it’s not the end of the journey. And let’s hope that the United States makes absolutely clear that it stands for full democracy, not just for some kind of false stability that derives from authoritarianism. The Obama administration missed the boat in the last few weeks, but I thought yesterday’s speech and statement by President Obama marked an improvement. Let’s hope it continues. May Mubarak’s resignation mark a new beginning — in Egypt, and also in wiser American policy toward Egypt and the Arab world.

Postcard From a Free Egypt

February 11, 2011
NYT
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

CAIRO

Circulating through the streets of Cairo Friday night, with families packed into cars honking their horns in celebration and everyone strolling to Tahrir Square, I heard so many celebratory chants, but none more accurate and powerful in its simplicity than this one: “The people of Egypt made the regime step down.’’

The overwhelming sense of personal empowerment here, by a people so long kept down and underestimated by their own government was a sight to behold.

Tomorrow we can all talk about how hard this transition will be, how many pitfalls and uncertainties lie ahead for Egypt, but to be in Tahrir Square tonight, to feel the energy and pride of a people taking back the keys to their country and their future from a tired old dictator, was a privilege. As a group of men who had commandeered a horse and buggy bellowed as they crossed the Nile Bridge: “Hold your head up high. You are Egyptians.’’

My guess right now is that there are a lot of worried kings and autocrats tonight – from North Africa to Myanmar to Beijing. And it is not simply because a dictator has been brought down by his people. That has happened before. It is because the way it was done is so easy to emulate. What made this Egyptian democracy movement so powerful is its legitimacy.

It was started by youth and enabled by Facebook and Twitter. It was completely non-violent and only resorted to stone-throwing when faced with attacks by regime thugs. It drew on every segment of the Egyptian population. There was a huge flag in Tahrir Square today with a Muslim crescent moon and a Christian cross inside it. And most of all, it had no outside help.

In some ways, President Barack Obama did the Egyptian revolution a great favor by never fully endorsing it and never even getting his act together for how to deal with it. This meant in the end that Egyptians know they did this for themselves by themselves – with nothing but their own willpower, unity and creativity.

This was a total do-it-yourself revolution. This means that anyone in the neighborhood can copy it by dialing 1-800-Tahrir Square. And that is why my favorite chant of all that I heard coming back from Tahrir tonight was directed at the leader next door, Muammar el-Qaddafi of Libya. It said, “We don’t leave Tahrir until Qaddafi leaves office.’’ Hello Tripoli, Cairo calling.

In many ways, what we have witnessed in Egypt today is the real decolonization of this country. That is, after the British left Egypt, the country was ruled by an incompetent king and then, since 1952, by a stifling, top-down military dictatorship. For the first time in modern history, “Egypt is truly in the hands of its own people,’’ remarked Egyptian political scientist Maamoun Fandy.

And the sense of liberation is profound, or as another sign in Tahrir said: “Mubarak, if you are Pharaoh, we are all Moses.’’

Egypt has always been the center of gravity of the Arab world and because it drifted these past 30 years, so too did the whole Arab world. One can only hope with this liberation that Egypt can now start to catch up with history and become a leading model for Arab development. If it does, others will follow. If it does, the Arab world will have two emotional hearts, not just one.

There will always be Mecca in Saudi Arabia, where Muslims will make the pilgrimage to be closer to God. And there will be Tahrir Square, where people will come to touch freedom. For that to happen, though, Egypt will have to take this freedom it just earned and run with it – to show that it really can improve the lives of an entire nation. That will not be easy, and it will not happen overnight.

This country has a lot of catching up to do. But if Egyptians show just half the creativity, solidarity and determination in the next year of nation-building that they showed in Tahrir Square these last 18 days, they just might pull this off.

Exit Mubarak

February 11, 2011
NYT
By ROGER COHEN

CAIRO — The city is erupting. Honking and cheering fill the great metropolis from Tahrir Square to Heliopolis, from the banks of the Nile to the Pyramids. A ground-up leaderless revolution led by young Egyptians has driven Hosni Mubarak, the man who ruled with an iron fist for 30 years, from power.

After all the words and all the contortions and all the behind-the-curve contrivances of an Arab dictator confronted by a movement he could not comprehend, the finale was brief: “Hosni Mubarak has resigned as president of the republic and assigned the governance of the country to the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces.”

The statement was read by an ashen-faced Omar Suleiman, the vice president and longtime henchman of Mubarak to whom power was handed Thursday night before that power passed to the army.

Faced by the communications generation, a movement of Internet-linked 20-something Egyptians demanding the right to speak freely, Mubarak proved himself to the last to be the great non-communicator. Anyone wanting to teach a course in 21st-century politics should begin in Egypt, where the power of real-time flat Web-savvy organizations over ponderous hierarchies has just been illustrated.

What course the Egyptian armed forces will take is unclear, but their sympathy with the cause of the uprising — or at least their determination not to fire on the people and to defend the nation rather than a despot — has been evident from the time of the first big demonstration on Jan. 25. A communiqué issued by the military’s Supreme Council before Mubarak’s resignation said it was “committed to sponsor the legitimate demands of the people” in pursuit of “a free democratic community.” It spoke of the “honest people who refused corruption.”

At last, it seemed, an Arab people — long trampled-upon, long subjected to the humiliation of non-citizenry in a state without laws — stood front and center. The Arab world has awoken from a long conspiracy-filled slumber induced by aging despots determined to keep their peoples from modernity.

We in the West have often asked ourselves why a Middle East peace was so elusive. Perhaps we should have conceded that the building blocks we were trying to use were rotten to the core and we had been complicit in that rot.

Almost a decade after 9/11, the event that signaled the devastating gulf that had grown up between the West and Islam, this is a day of hope for millions of young Arabs and for the world. Egypt’s revolution comes hard on the heels of Tunisia’s and inevitably poses the question: which wizened specimen from the Arab Jurassic Park is next?

Democracies take time to build, but once built, as Europe illustrates, they do make meaningful peace with one another. To state the obvious — although it’s not obvious to some — there is nothing anti-democratic in the Arab genome.

Mubarak’s Thursday speech, in which he tried to cling to de jure power, was a surreal exercise in political deafness: you don’t say you’re going by listing what you plan to do. As a senior Western diplomat said, “He never understood.”

The U.S. defense secretary, Robert Gates, has been in regular contact with the Egyptian defense minister, Mohammed Hussein Tantawi, since the uprising began, urging restraint and the pursuit of a democratic transition.

I understand that the Egyptian military, which receives about $1.3 billion a year in U.S. aid, has repeatedly conveyed the importance it attaches to the American relationship and its determination to do nothing that would jeopardize the bond. All that American money — tens of billions over Mubarak’s rule — does appear to buy at least a professional army. The supreme test of the investment now comes.

The revolution was everywhere Friday, seeping out of a packed Tahrir Square like a dam breaking. The presidential palace was besieged, the state television building surrounded. In the Nile Delta and in Upper Egypt, unrest engulfed provincial towns. Until, in the early evening, the end came.

Before Mubarak’s resignation, two possible routes to a free election had been put forward. The first was embodied by Suleiman. It involved cleaving to a terribly flawed constitution conceived for a dictator and revising it along guidelines set by Mubarak in one of his parting acts.

That course always looked hopelessly flawed to me. One problem was the credibility of Suleiman, a security chief responsible for his share of torture and killing. How far could Mubarak be from the scene as long as Suleiman was guiding the process? What sense would it make to submit a revised constitution to a parliament picked in a rigged November election?

Now the way is open to the much better course proposed by the Nobel prize-winning opposition figure, Mohamed ElBaradei: the establishment of a presidential council including a military representative and two respected civilian figures to set in motion the drafting of a new democratic Constitution and free and fair presidential and parliamentary elections within a year.

It’s will be a tough road after almost six decades of dictatorship, but Egyptians have shown the depth of their culture.

Mabruk, Egypt!

You can follow Roger Cohen on Twitter at twitter.com/nytimescohen .

Mubarak's Swiss Assets Frozen

• WSJ
• FEBRUARY 11, 2011, 2:46 P.M. ET

By DEBORAH BALL

ZURICH—The Swiss government froze assets possibly belonging to departed Egyptian leader Hosni Mubarak and his entourage Friday, marking the latest efforts by the Alpine nation to crack down on illicit holdings in its banks.

The Foreign Ministry said Friday the government had frozen "any potential assets" belonging to Mr. Mubarak and his "associates." The freeze goes into effect immediately and lasts for three years.

A ministry spokesman declined to say how much money was involved or name the banks holding the money. The freeze applies to the sale of real estate as well. Global Financial Integrity, a Washington group that tracks corruption in the developing world, estimates that about $57 billion in illicit assets left Egypt between 2000 and 2008.

Swiss authorities slapped a similar freeze on the assets of Tunisia's ex-president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali last month a few a days after he was ousted.

Bern decided to freeze Mr. Mubarak's money in case the funds came from illicit means and to prevent Mr. Mubarak from accessing them until the source of the money is clarified. The Justice Ministry had no immediate comment as to whether the move came as a result of a request from authorities in Cairo. Reliable estimates of Mr. Mubarak's wealth, or how much of it is held in Switzerland, are scarce.

Switzerland, long a favored destination for illicit assets deposited by strongmen and dictators around the world, has been trying to shake off this image by tightening money-laundering rules and moving more aggressively to help return stolen money to victim countries. Overall, Bern has returned $1.6 billion, more than any other country.

However, critics charge that Switzerland is still sitting on the world's largest cache of stolen money—more than $150 billion, according to Global Financial Integrity. Non-profit groups have criticized Switzerland for not enforcing its money-laundering rules adequately

Last fall, the Swiss Parliament approved a law that makes it easier for the government to return money to victim countries, even if that country fails to cooperate with Bern in pursuing the dictator. The law stemmed from Switzerland's frustration at the lack of cooperation from Haiti in helping it pursue $5 million stashed in Swiss banks by former Haitian dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier. Earlier this year, Bern finally returned the money to Haiti.

Sitting on His Assets

How Switzerland was able to freeze Mubarak's Swiss bank accounts.

By Annie LowreyPosted Friday, Feb. 11, 2011, at 6:05 PM ET Slate

Hosni Mubarak In the protests that led to Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's ouster, his money was a point of contention for Egyptians. The country's youth suffers from crippling unemployment, with tens of thousands of college graduates unable to find good jobs. Its recent economic gains have failed to produce higher incomes for most Egyptians, with inequality growing worse over the past five years. About 40 percent of the population lives on less than $2 a day.

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But the Mubarak family itself has reportedly made out handsomely. Estimates of its total wealth reach $80 billion. (All these numbers, of course, should be taken with a grain of salt.) Newspapers in Cairo focused on Mubarak's money during the days of protests, and protesters noticed. One chant, reportedly, went: "O Mubarak, tell us where you get $70 billion!"

Due to a recent change in Swiss law, however, if Mubarak has secreted illicit money away in a Swiss bank account, Egyptians just might get some of it back. "I can confirm that Switzerland has frozen possible assets of the former Egyptian president with immediate effect," a foreign ministry spokesperson told Reuters on Friday. The ministry did not say how much money Switzerland froze or give any other details. The change to Swiss law makes it easier for the country to freeze dictators' assets even if their countries are in disarray.

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Switzerland has had a long reputation for upholding strict privacy-in-banking laws. As a consequence, its banks have gained a reputation as a good place for dictators to deposit stolen funds. Now, some legal scholars are saying the country is "poised to become an example of one of the most forward-leaning countries in the quest to return stolen assets to developing countries."

In October, the Swiss Parliament passed the Restitution of Illicit Assets Act, which took effect on Feb. 1. Among other things, it allows the Swiss Cabinet to freeze contentious assets even if a country has not formally asked Switzerland to do so. The Swiss Department of Foreign Affairs explains that it found "the inability of the requesting state to provide Switzerland with elements of proof or the necessary judgments" to be a "main problem." The new law, it says, "can henceforth provide a solution."

The foreign ministry devised the law in part because of its experience with "Baby Doc" Duvalier, the Haitian strongman deposed in 1986. Duvalier—who stole millions from Haitians and spent it on lavish parties, foreign homes, and shopping trips—kept some funds in Swiss banks. Now, thanks to the new law, Switzerland intends to repatriate some of Duvalier's stolen money as soon as possible. Switzerland has frozen and hopes to send back about $5.8 million, for use in "programs of public interest aimed at improving the living conditions of the (Haitian) population."

Other dictators have lately found themselves frozen out by the Swiss as well. For instance, the government has frozen the assets of Laurent Gbagbo, the president of Cote d'Ivoire, who lost a November presidential election but has refused to step down. This month, using the new law, Switzerland it also froze the assets of Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, the disgraced former president of Tunisia, who was deposed last month and has fled to Saudi Arabia.

The country has not said whether Egypt asked Switzerland to freeze Mubarak's money or whether the Swiss did so on their own. Either way, it does not seem likely Mubarak will get the cash back any time soon.

After Mubarak: Egypt's revolution was one of identity

By the Monitor's Editorial Board The Monitor's Editorial Board Fri Feb 11, 12:27 pm ET

For 18 days, millions of Egyptians of all stripes – from feminists to Islamists, rich to poor, Google execs to illiterate farmers, old to young – gathered around Cairo’s Tahrir Square. They set aside differences that would have once kept them from barely talking or even acknowledging each other on the street. In this giant melting pot, personal divisions by class, age, education, religion, or income disappeared.

The protesters assert a new Egyptian identity based on high ideals – ones that eventually led to President Hosni Mubarak stepping down.

It has been a startling exercise in redefining an entire society, one that has fascinated much of the world – not just other Arab states – in part because so many nations are also trying to redefine themselves.

From China to America, struggles over national identity have found echoes in Egypt’s historic revolution.

One good example is a Feb. 5 speech by British Prime Minister David Cameron. He said Britain is in need of “a clear sense of shared national identity.” He decried policies that encourage “different cultures to live separate lives, apart from each other and apart from the mainstream.”

The Conservative leader wants to prevent British citizens from being radicalized by jihadists to commit violence. The fear of home-grown terrorists, in both Britain and the United States, has grown as a result of recent attacks, such as the 2005 London subway bombings or the 2009 shooting spree at Fort Hood, Texas, by suspect Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan.

“True cohesion” at the local or national level, Mr. Cameron says, would allow people to say “I am a Muslim, I am a Hindu, I am a Christian, but I am a Londoner ... too.”

His speech comes after recent comments by French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel that the practice of “multiculturalism” has failed both societies by allowing tolerance of extremism. And in 2006, then-President Bush urged immigrants to learn English and US civics in hopes that they might help “us remain one nation under God.”

A liberal country, Cameron asserts, “says to its citizens, this is what defines us as a society: To belong here is to believe in these things.” He plans to have government “actively promote” values such as freedom of speech, freedom of worship, democracy, the rule of law, and equality between sexes. And organizations such as Muslim groups that don’t subscribe to “British values” will not receive government support.

In China, thousands of dissidents have signed on to a document known as Charter 08 that calls on Chinese leaders to “embrace universal human values [and] join the mainstream of civilized nations.” A Communist regime that focuses mainly on creating material wealth “has stripped people of their rights, destroyed their dignity, and corrupted normal human intercourse,” the charter states.

In the US, one attempt to redefine America is a House bill that would declare English the official language of the US – in hopes that this would help unify the nation around its founding values. The bill would also require that “all citizens should be able to read and understand generally the English-language text of the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the laws of the United States made in pursuance of the Constitution.â€

The rise in the use of Spanish has alarmed many Americans worried that Latinos are not assimilating fast enough or absorbing a civic identity. The number of people who speak a language other than English at home has more than doubled in recent decades. And according to a 2008 study by the University of California, Los Angeles, too many Mexican-Americans – unlike earlier European immigrants – aren’t fully integrating into US society. Their low levels of education are leading to “a weaker American identity.”

Identity is an extremely personal concept, one that requires core principles. The more universal those principles are, the more each individual will better help shape society or a nation.

Egypt has not been alone while millions of its people defined their values on the streets of Cairo.

Every day, many others around the world are trying to find that identity. Egypt’s victory is everyone’s.

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Staff photographer Ann Hermes talked to protesters outside the Parliament building in Cairo on Feb. 10