Whether we admit it or not, stability drives most of our decisions. It’s why we prize houses, steady jobs and reliable transportation. We might say we tire of routine, but without it, civilization as we know it would not exist.
That isn’t to say we don’t pay for it; the price for stability became clear to President Obama over the past week.
Just after his State of the Union Address on Tuesday, in which he said “America must always stand on the side of freedom and human dignity,” the president dug himself a deep hole of hypocrisy.
He hasn’t aligned himself with Egyptian protestors pushing for an end to to their president’s 30-year rule. Obama knows Hosni Mubarak has been America’s lynchpin of the region. He is the assurance that his country will remain peaceful with Israel and friendly to the U.S. He is the key to the Suez Canal.
Like his rule or not, he has guaranteed an American foothold in the Middle East.
The administration is facing a difficult decision between choosing what they know to be good for the U.S. or choosing what they believe to be good for the world.
It’s an old question with the same outcome. Once again, we’re scared of the unknown.
Who would fill Mubarak’s vacant seat of power? The answer – or lack thereof – is frightening. It’s like being assigned a new roommate at random.
The protestors are prepared to take such a risk, but the Obama administration has chosen not to take sides.
The president is sitting back, stalling on the choice between idealism (the sentiment he was elected on) and pragmatism. By supporting neither side, he appears hypocritical.
This is nothing new for our country, however. Men who wrote and spoke volumes on freedom and the value of democracy owned slaves, supported racism and propped up dictators. Throughout the years, our leaders have contradicted themselves so frequently, the crow is as much a symbol of America as the eagle.
We’ve eaten enough of it.
So what’s the best course of action for people who seem damned if they do and damned if they don’t?
Maybe sitting on the sidelines and asking both sides to refrain from violence is the best strategy for now. However, in the days ahead, whoever takes the reins in Egypt may harbor ill will toward the U.S. A new leader could be angered that American politicians didn’t side with democracy, the principle they’ve claimed to support for all these years. Mubarak could be upset his supposed friend in the West never came to his aid.
To top everything off, some people predict a ripple effect across other countries in the Middle East.
We already know Hillary Clinton is pulling her hair out over the Egypt situation, but if other nations follow suit, everyone involved in foreign policy might need to buy wigs.
We hope for a happy resolution in Egypt, but we wonder if everyone has noticed the lengths we go to for the status quo. In a world that’s constantly changing, stability is at a premium.
