The Dictator You Don't Know

It always seems to be the case in American foreign policy that we choose to prop up the dictators we know rather than having them toppled and being stuck with one we don't. This wasn't always the case, however.  We are all familiar with the disastrous Bay of Pigs that was designed to overthrow Castro in Cuba.  There's also the 1953 coup in Iran where we actually helped overthrow a democratic government.  That turned out great didn't it??  There's the 1973 coup in Chile that was also largely backed the by U.S.  Truth be told, none of those turned out all so great for America.  Their results were either failure or governments that were much less free than before with regions entirely destabilized.

To be sure, what's happening in Egypt currently is not a coup.  So far it's an uprising from the people who want change from their government.  As it stands, the Egyptian government is entirely propped up by U.S. money and military support.  So it would be a definite conflict of interest for President Obama to encourage the protests intended to topple the government that is only in place because of, well, right now because of President Obama.

But the real reason for the cautious hope for the return of the status quo by the Obama administration is that there is no guarantee an uprising by the people of Egypt will result in anything remotely democratic.  It's possible it could leave Egypt with a populist strong man who would destabilize the region even more than it already is. It's a chance you take and one that is as hypocritical as anything could possibly be. Given our track record of inciting uprisings to topple governments, it's a much safer chance to go with the dictator you know.

Now I'm not saying it's right to back an oppressive dictator simply because he's friendly to our interests.  What I am saying is until Mubarak is actually gone there isn't much we can do.  But once he is gone our rhetoric must change to being supportive of the uprising if we want any sort of legitimacy in the new government.