When thousands of Egyptians poured out onto Cairo’s streets in protest on the January 25 “Day of Rage,” the political explosion rocked the region and shook President Hosni Mubarak’s government to its foundations. It set off a chain-reaction of follow-up street confrontations — and underscored three realities.
REALITY ONE: The international order can quickly change. Nimble governments must act rapidly to properly protect their national interests. The most important actions are often the initial diplomatic reactions.
REALITY TWO: The predictions of all-knowing talking and writing head pundits can be outdated quickly because prevailing conventional wisdom crumbles if there’s a sudden major domestic or international upheaval.
REALITY THREE: Forget the talk about how President Barack Obama will be defined by history by his legislative achievements, triangulation or the fate of health care reform. What is unfolding now, how Obama deals with it, and whether his decisions will have good or bad consequences for the Middle East and the United States will be what could define him for generations.
During the late 40s the political question became “Who lost China?” (to some it was Harry Truman). Then it became “Who lost Cuba?” (to some it was Dwight Eisenhower and JFK). Then “Who lost Vietnam?” (to some it was JFK and LBJ). And the hapless, inept Jimmy Carter will forever be associated with the question “Who Lost Iran?” and the change in the Middle East’s balance of power and growth of terrorism that followed from his fateful 1979 decision to distance himself from America’s longtime ally, the Shah of Iran.
Obama’s dilemma is a quintessential choice between good intentions and conceptual principles versus the hard, often brutal realities of national interest.
The copyrighted cartoon by Daryl Cagle, MSNBC.com, is licensed to run on TMV. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited. All rights reserved.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.