Through luck or skill or a combination of the two, the Obama administration has seen things go its way over the last week in Egypt. With limited influence, a huge amount at stake and a variety of potential outcomes that ranged from bad to disastrous, the White House and State department have watched as events unfolded along the path onto which they were trying to guide them. Violence has been contained. Mubarak is clearly moving to the sidelines if not entirely off the scene. An interim power center around the well-known and professional if thuggish Omar Suleiman has coalesced. Talks are underway between the two sides. Most important, the timeline of change has been markedly slowed down to a pace where the administration can begin to try and influence things.
Though they can claim only modest responsibility for these developments, the administration will eventually get around to taking credit for them: there is always time to play politics once the geostrategic earthquakes have passed. Likewise the punditry will exert themselves drawing conclusions about where on the notional and not-that-useful realist-idealist spectrum events have placed Obama.
For now, the administration is focusing rather responsibly on how to keep things headed in the right direction. One can see this less in the O’Reilly interview with Obama before the Super Bowl, which presented a fairly anodyne repetition of talking points, than in the comments of Hillary Clinton on her way back from the annual security conference in Munich.
Clinton, who has a well-ordered mind and is on top of her brief, laid everything out. Selections after the jump:
SPECIAL STATE DEPARTMENT BRIEFING WITH SECRETARY OF STATE HILLARY RODHAM
CLINTON (AS RELEASED BY THE STATE DEPARTMENT)
EN ROUTE WASHINGTON, D.C. FROM MUNICH, GERMANY SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 2011
First she lays out what the goals have been:
“We have said consistently, publicly and privately, we do not want to see any violence, we do not want to see violence from the security forces. We want to see peaceful protests. We want to see a process begun that will lead to an orderly transition that has milestones and concrete steps that lead us toward free and fair elections that install a new president who reflects the will and wishes of the Egyptian people. That has been our position. We have said it over and over and over again.
Then she ticked off the progress:
“[Mubarak] announced he wouldn’t run again. He announced his son wouldn’t run again. He announced he was resigning his position of the national party, and his son was resigning his position at the national party. He installed a vice president for the first time in 30 years. Those are significant actions.
Then she laid out what the White House wants next:
“Now, they do not constitute an orderly transition and the process leading up to it through dialogue and constitutional reform, creating a new approach to political parties, setting up an election, but I think they have to be viewed as a very important set of steps being taken to keep the movement going in the direction that we seek.
Then she explains the hurdles:
“They have a constitution which, as I understand it — and I am no expert on the Egyptian constitution, never gave it a moment’s thought, really, so now I am trying to play catch-up — as I understand the constitution, if the president were to resign, he would be succeeded by the speaker of the house. And presidential elections would have to be held in 60 days.
Then she suggests that things have slowed to a pace where those hurdles can be managed:
“Now, the Egyptians are the ones who are having to grapple with the reality of what they must do. And maybe I misheard it, but on CNN this morning, when one of your commentators was interviewing one of the leaders in the Muslim Brotherhood, and Al-Baradei, they were saying, ‘Well, it’s going to take time.’ Now, that’s not us saying it, it’s them saying it. Because once the protests have gotten the attention of the government — and we’ve seen what the government has done in response — I think there is an effort underway within the civil society, the opposition, the political parties, to say, “Okay, what comes next? And how do we get from where we are to where we want to end up?” That’s a really hard issue.
Later, she talked about the knock-on effects Egypt is having in the region:
“This is a very traumatic event. And it took a while even to accommodate — what did it mean, and was it going to last, and how would it be responded to… But I think that as it sinks in, there is a lot of soul searching going on about what more governments can do. And I hope it is, because there is no one-size-fits all. And — right? A formula that applies to every country in the region. But every country in the region (inaudible) says, “What more can I do to stamp out corruption, because it is a cancer that eats away at the hopes of young people looking for jobs?” I mean the young man who set himself on fire in Tunisia, which sparked their protest, apparently not only couldn’t get a job, even though he was a college graduate (inaudible), but was sick of paying for protection from government officials. I mean at some point, stop it. Open your economy. Make jobs available for young people. Give them a ladder of meritocracy and mobility that will begin to answer their needs.
There’s more in her comments, including the administration and Western outreach to civil society groups in Egypt, which are worth reading in their entirety here.