The Telegraph
What next for Egypt, the USA and the Middle East?
As Washington struggles to come to terms with a rapidly changing Middle East, US President Barack Obama is acutely aware he must get Egypt right, for the wrong side of history eagerly beckons.
"Rather late in proceedings, Mr Obama himself produced a more calibrated response on Friday, edging away from Hosni Mubarak and effectively putting the Egyptian leader on notice. "This moment of volatility has to be turned into a moment of promise," said the US president, who urged that "reforms that meet the aspirations of the Egyptian people".
"It was a similar choice of words to that used a day earlier by William Hague, the Foreign Secretary, whose reactions have been less equivocal than the Americans' but equally cautious.
"It is important in this situation to respond positively to legitimate demands for reform... that would be my advice to Egyptian leaders and to many others around the Arab world," he said.
"Reform, of course, is very different from regime change, which is what those on the streets of Egypt's cities seem to be demanding, and Mr Obama is acutely aware he must get Egypt right, for the wrong side of history eagerly beckons.
"Some in his administration still feel stung by criticism that they did not stand up for Iran's Green Movement when it braved Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's thugs in the summer of 2009.
"Failure now to support Egyptian men and women braving police bullets and batons, and being too closely identified with an ageing agent of tyranny, could wipe out Washington's credibility with a generation of young Arabs. Cairo, the very city where the US president famously declared a "new beginning" in relations between the America and the Muslim world early in his presidency, could become the graveyard of that ambition."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/egypt/8290551/What-next-for-Egypt-the-USA-and-the-Middle-East.html
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