Ever The Meddler

It was ever thus in modern history where the United States government has sought to intervene in the affairs of other nations at times when they have perceived their own national interests were being impinged upon. Perhaps a reasonable enough reaction since every nation is absolutely determined to uphold its interests in the face of circumstances seen to be antagonistic to their well being.

While pursuing a course of action designed and felt to be a suitable response to whatever U.S.-deleterious occasions were at hand, the U.S. administration has swung right more often than left, and in the course of their historical interventions, caused harm more often than good; swinging right is not necessarily consistent with what is right. With this new administration the country has taken a decided turn to the left.

Whichever direction it has turned, always in defence of democracy, even while upholding a brutally totalitarian government. Because democratic rights are interchangeable when the occasion demands it, with an intervening nation's self-interest - and in the case of the United States - as holds true throughout history for most confidently powerful societies dominating the international discourse, that self-interest would be related to trade as the propelling force.

Currently, the geography of the Middle East has suddenly sparked into an incendiary upheaval that threatens to bring down all the long-standing tyrannies that have exploited their populations, using the wealth of their natural resources to enrich the elite and the politically connected, whose relationship with the West, and particularly America, has helped to keep those tyrants in power.

U.S. President Barack Obama, unwilling to throw the power and authority of his super-status into the rink when anti-government protests were enlivening the scene in Tehran, to overthrow a government with which the West and America in particular is hostile, has decided in his great wisdom, to sound the death knell for Egypt's President Mubarak, an autocratic ruler whom the U.S. has supported for decades.

This may or may not have surprised the Egyptian government. It most certainly must have dismayed and alarmed President Mubarak, an elderly tyrant nearing the end of his natural span whose relations with the U.S. have been warmly reciprocal. Without a doubt, President Mubarak has made it clear he has no intention of abruptly leaving his post, but intends to oversee an orderly transition to a government that more closely resembles that which his people envision for themselves; perhaps not willingly, but as a patriot who understands his time is done.

He may be thinking of another supreme world power, that of ancient Imperial Rome, and its relationship with another Egyptian ruler. The times have changed but the perfidy of humankind has not, and Mr. Mubarak might just have muttered under his breath the immortal words coined by the world's eternally leading playwright: "et tu Brutus?" Not Caesar Augustus but current-day Pharaoh admittedly; history is full of its little and large ironies.

Sometimes it is more fitting to extend the courtesy of trust in the final intelligence of one's partner-in-history as well as one's adversaries in the political arena. President Mubarak without doubt did not ask for the opinion of his American executive counterpart. President Obama has one ear cocked on his own electorate and the other on his eventual historical legacy; there are times when the empty awarding of a world-famed recognition making one a Nobel Laureate simply rings false and actual accomplishments are required.

This will not go down as the American administration's finest hour. As to whether or not President Mubarak will manage somehow to endure and administer a final hand-over to an orderly transition of government that will reflect his peoples' wishes, time will tell. As to whether or not President Obama will be seen by history as no less awkward and effective, than former President Jimmy Carter dealing with Iran, despite his now-disputed rectitude, will also be seen with more clarity in the future.

For the present, it does appear that a previously unreconstructed dictator may have finally understood a lesson of governance, and human relations, that in representing the interests of the people as he did sometimes ably, sometimes dreadfully badly, the people must be consulted and treated with the dignity their human condition deserves.

As for the other, the truly democratically elected representative of the world's superpower, the lesson appears to be that principles are lamentably elastic to suit the expedient moment and once seated in that decisive throne of world domination, nothing is ever as simple as it may seen, sullying even the most earnestly rational mind with the murk of indecision and disappointment.

The dignified response of the Egyptian official who took umbrage on behalf of his country and his president - to President Obama's statement that President Mubarak should be transitioning out of power "now", and his press secretary's reiteration that "now means yesterday" - is sufficient unto the occasion.

When the Egyptian official responded by calmly stating that "President Mubarak's primary responsibility is to ensure an orderly and peaceful transfer of power. We can't do that if we have a vacuum of power", should have made President Obama blush with shame.