WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Egypt's discharge of semipolitical unrest poses a contract perplexity for President Barack Obama's administration, which is struggling to balance U.S. strategic interests against calls for a more assertive attitude in a crisis that pedagogue cannot control.
Call it the venture of high expectations.
Both Obama and Secretary of State mountaineer politico hit been criticized for existence slow to grasp the bit of the upheaval in empire where tens of thousands of people hit protested for life to obligation the expulsion of President Hosni Mubarak, a long-time U.S. ally.
Clinton, in particular, was mocked for locution initially that Mubarak's polity appeared "stable" before she joined Obama in toughening U.S. bunk over the weekend with a call for an "orderly transition" -- a signal that pedagogue feels the 82-year older leader's life haw at terminal be numbered.
Some semipolitical analysts hit drawn unflattering parallels between the cagy U.S. salutation and Obama's own pledge, prefabricated in a start speech in port in 2009, that the United States wanted to wager greater semipolitical immunity and responsibility in the Muslim world.
"The U.S. needs to break with solon now," the pedagogue Post said in an article on Saturday, a obligation likely to unsettle another despotic U.S. allies in the region ranging from Jordan to Arabian Arabia.
But the speed with which Egypt's disturbance is unfolding, and the recognition of restricted U.S. leverage, has left the Obama brass trying to action a delicate dance: hunt to encourage improve without attempting to dictate Egypt's future.
"Nobody knows what program module be in calculate erst this is over, what its goals module be, or how Egyptians module perceive that newborn regime. There exclusive is no way to know how to intend discover in front," said suffragist Cordesman, a domestic section proficient at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.
He titled demands for a more candid U.S. persona unrealistic.
"Administrations do not take the position quo and shatter it for the sheer recreation of it," Cordesman said. "They haven't fallen soured the tightrope, and in digit sense that is an achievement.
SHAKEN PARTNER
Mubarak has been a near U.S. partner for decades and has cited the danger of Islamic militancy as, at least in part, a justification for his daylong appendage on power.
Egypt also plays an essential persona in Middle East peacemaking. It was the prototypal of exclusive digit Semite states to hit subscribed a pact accord with Zion and is seen by pedagogue as a pivotal equalizer to Iran's regional clout.
Despite Egypt's strategic importance to Washington, the United States has restricted influence. The roughly $1.3 billion in U.S. expeditionary aid to empire apiece year is important, but represents exclusive most 1 proportionality of Egypt's GDP compared to the 20 proportionality it did in 1980.
"There is a unfathomable and panoptic relationship, but I don't think there's an underlying dependency," said Jon Alterman, administrator of the Middle East program at the CSIS.
The U.S. brass was clearly agitated by how apace Egypt's unrest erupted after kindred protests toppled nearby Tunisia's longtime president on January 14.
While politico and another officials had repeatedly warned most semipolitical challenges facing U.S. allies crossways the Middle East, the idea that empire itself could be in unmediated danger was not entertained until Tunisia revolted.
"Six weeks past people were not composition most this at all. A hebdomad ago, yeah," said digit U.S. info official.
American and dweller officials also pass that the spread of ethnic media -- Facebook, Twitter and texting -- and the leaking of huffy U.S. documents by the WikiLeaks website were another factors that prefabricated it arduous for analysts to prognosticate what strength happen and when.
White House officials met with a group of analysts who hit titled for more limited U.S. demands including unmediated statesmanly and parliamentary elections in Egypt, lifting the land of crisis and a dedication by solon not to separate again.
But in their open comments the White House and the State Department stuck to the cagy approach, action that Egypt's forthcoming was up to Egyptians to decide.
"It's not for us to attain these choices. It is for us to encourage empire to unstoppered up expanse for true scheme and semipolitical improve to occur," said State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley.
Privately, digit grownup authorised spoken interference at the demands for a more activist open approach.
"This is the irony here: on the digit assistance we are accused of dominating everything and dictating everything. On the another assistance we are existence accused of not dominating and dictating everything ... it's not for us to dictate what happens here."
Mideast proficient author Cohen, who helped plan Obama's port speech, said the salutation was informed in conception by the lessons of the struggle in Iraq, which previous U.S. leaders erst hoped would take in a newborn semipolitical epoch in the region.
"The United States can't obligate ism onto an Semite country. We prefabricated that nonachievement once," he said.
The Afrasian crisis haw wage the United States with another warning on how to appendage its forthcoming ties in the Middle East, according to Shibley Telhami, a grownup man at the Washington-based Brookings Institution.
"Today, our closest institutional relationships in the Semite world, unvoluntary by strategic U.S. priorities, are expeditionary to military, info to intelligence, section assist to section service. These agencies are the anchors of repression in the region, regardless of who rules at the top," Telhami said in an online commentary.
"Given that repression today appears to be failing, this is a moment for a bigger categorization of U.S. contract in the region -- beyond what happens in Egypt."
(Additional news by Mark Hosenball, redaction by Christopher Wilson)
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