Egypt Again

See the Aardvark's basketball analogy since I love basketball (and Arab reform):

What does this mean for American foreign policy? I've been mulling over a basketball analogy for Bush's foreign policy. The US is basically a very strong team, with great players and an appealing style. In the first half (Bush's first term), due to astonishingly atrocious coaching and poor execution, the team dug itself into a big hole and went into halftime trailing big. Now, the US has come out in the second half and is playing a bit better - executing more crisply, running basic plays, and is starting to score some points. It's still in a big hole, but a few minutes into the second half its fans are starting to get excited, while the other side is starting to get restive. As anyone who's ever seen this kind of game knows, things could break in a couple of ways at this point: the other team could begin to feel the pressure, the US could gather real momentum, and the big deficit could fade away so that by the ten minute mark (I'm thinking college ball here) it could be anyone's game; or the other team could buckle down, slow the game down, absorb this first flurry and then grind out a victory over its more talented rival. Which way will it break? Too soon to tell. But Egypt and the other Arab dictators are old hands at playing tough, physical defense and frustrating more talented rivals. Is Mubarak's multiparty gambit another basket for the Americans... or a tough defensive gambit which will ultimately bog the Americans down and let the old professionals survive and advance?

More below.

The Aardvark later semi-retracts the analogy on the grounds that "it accepts the frame that equates Bush with Arab reform . . . The essence of my critique, and many other peoples' critiques, has always been that we don't think that Bush is serious about Arab reform, that he doesn't really want Arab democracy, and that his means of achieving such Arab reform and democracy are misguided and counterproductive." This has been my official view from time to time, but I think it needs to be revised. Looking at the Bush administration in its totally, the president has pursued this goal with at least as much seriousness of purpose as he's pursued anything other than winning elections. Which is to say, with only a limited amoutn of seriousness of purpose. And yet, not with none. He's not "not serious" in the sense of only pretending. He's "not serious" in the sense of generally not being a very serious person about policy.

The problem here is that what he's trying to do is very tricky and there's lots of nuance and double-dealing about. Take the al-Jazeera/al-Arabiya thing. Al-Arabiya wants Americans to believe that it's a proponent of liberal reform. And al-Arabiya tends to take a more favorable line to the US government than does al-Jazeera. Since Americans (like all people) like people who like us, this makes us -- especially those of us who don't pay close attention -- inclined to believe them. In fact, however, al-Arabiya is a tool of the Saudi government. We're getting played.

To make a long story short, I think the initial basketball analogy is right. Bush does seem to want to do the right thing. But he's up against a very complicated situation, an American security/diplomatic establishment that doesn't necessarily share his goals and isn't getting clear direction about what he wants in particular, some very canny players in the Arab regimes, and some core ideological commitments about Israel and Iran that aren't necessarily helpful in advancing his big picture goals. It's a situation that has the potential to become a mess. But also one that could work. I would say that, so far, the post-November Bush foreign policy has been a big improvement. We may run off the rails with Iran, or we may continue improving.

I hardly think Bush needs more cheerleaders, so I'll continue to focus more on booing what needs to be booed than on cheering what's worthy of cheers. But it's not an all-or-nothing situation, and the purpose of criticizing really is to encourage the administration to show us more of the good things it does.