Mideast revolutions and diplomacy.

• Author: Rugh, William A.

The events we have witnessed in Egypt during the past three weeks contain some lessons we should think about. The first lesson is: significant changes in a country's political system can best be brought about by the people of that country, not by outsiders. A revolution was accomplished by the efforts of the thousands of young Egyptians who were persistent in their demands, who were mature and peaceful, reacting with restraint to provocations, and who showed Mubarak and the army that they would not give up until he was gone. They were resourceful, providing medical care to the wounded, food and water to the demonstrators, and communication to the participants and the outside world, and they did it all without any help from foreigners.

There have been many other examples of real political change coming from within rather than outside. When I was ambassador to Yemen, I had occasion to discuss democracy with Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Salih, who at the time (1986) rejected my advice and told me his one-party rule and authoritarian system was more appropriate for Yemen than America's multi-party democracy. Four years later, when Salih allowed multiple parties and a degree of press freedom, I asked him why he had changed his mind. He said he had discovered that there were opposition organizations underground in Yemen and he decided to allow them to operate openly where he could see them. He made a calculation to move democracy forward based on domestic political considerations, not my advice.

President George Bush thought he could promote democracy by occupying Iraq, and his invasion brought about some political changes there, but at a huge cost to the Iraqi people, as well as in American lives and treasure. That has hopefully discredited the idea of democracy promotion by foreign military intervention, which the Arabs opposed from the start. Moreover, most suicide bombers are motivated by the presence of a foreign military occupation, as Professor Robert Pape has so aptly demonstrated.

Diplomatic Levers

What about democracy promotion through diplomacy and foreign assistance? Some critics of the Obama administration are now arguing that Washington should have done more to support political change in Egypt and other authoritarian countries. Arab reformers have said the same. That is a valid suggestion, but doing so is not as easy as it sounds. The relationship between the United States and Egypt, as with other authoritarian countries, is complex and multi-dimensional, and we have an important stake in relations with many of those governments. We have supported the Egyptian government's peace treaty with Israel as in our interest and the Mubarak government held fast to it for thirty years, despite criticism from some other Arab countries. Egypt also was a key partner in the...