Washington's Kid Gloves and Egypt's Fist

The inference I draw from Kerry's delicate toe-dancing is not so much that President Obama has given up on democracy promotion in the Middle East, as is often alleged, as that Egypt has changed in such a way that Washington gains almost nothing by speaking the truth. In 2005, when a previous secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, came to Egypt, she shocked the ruling elite by declaring that "the day must come when the rule of law replaces emergency degrees." But Rice had an audience: the activists who had taken to the streets to protest the autocratic rule of President Hosni Mubarak. And those activists were delighted and emboldened, at least until 2007, when Mubarak sent his thugs into the street to block parliamentary elections, and the White House of President George W. Bush said nothing.