Supporting Mubarak: A Relic of Cold War Diplomacy

I have been watching coverage of events in Egypt and I must say I find one fact noticeably absent in discussing our history with the Mubarak regime. How could we have supported this dictator all these years?

A little history here:

1.) Prior to the Camp David accords in the fall of 1979, Egypt under both Nasser and Sadat were in the Soviet sphere of influence. Egypt had engaged in several wars with Israel, our ally with the persistent support of the Soviet Union. The Camp David Accords in the fall of 1979 brought peace between Egypt and Israel and in so doing, Sadat's days would prove to be numbered. It was a peace condemned by his Arab neighbors and gravitated into the orbit of the United States and away from the Soviets. He angered dangerous people.

2.) Mubarak succeeded Anwar Sadat when he was assassinated on October 6, 1981. He was murdered by Islamist fundamentalists. The murder took place in an environment just a couple years removed from the Iranian Revolution and the creation of a government run by the evil Ayatollah Khomeini.

3.) The peace with Israel, its new relationship with the U.S., the emergence of Islamist Iran and the realities of Cold War Diplomacy created a necessary alliance in a region where there are no real allies. It was a game changing moment in international diplomacy at a critical moment of the Cold War.

4.) The fear of fundamentalist Islam has served to deter any real effort to pursue democratic reform in Egypt and elsewhere. It must be noted also that the Arab States, including Egypt were apart of the coalition in the first Gulf War. Fundamentalism in Iran and Saddam Hussein in Iraq placed a premium on "stability".

5.) Our failed diplomacy with Egypt is rooted in national ideals confronted by "realpolitik". For most of the 20th Century diplomacy has posited a choice. Communism or Fascism? Democracy or Communism? Democracy of Fundamentalism? Our policy is a failure because we never found a third way, an alternative to Old World analytics. The New World just borrowed a bad idea from the Old World. Propping up dictators in contravention of our values has some merit, but we could have pressed our values without toppling.

        The Cold War is over. It's time for a new brand of diplomacy that addresses historical contradictions and pursues a brighter future with faith and support for true advocates of democracy.