At the same time, I warned, we should be clear-eyed about the risks inherent in any transition. Free and fair elections would be necessary, but not sufficient. Functioning democracies require the rule of law, an independent judiciary, a free press and civil society, respect for human rights, minority rights, and accountable governance. In a country like Egypt, with a long history of authoritarian rule, it would take strong, inclusive leadership and sustained effort from across society, as well as international support, to put these building blocks of democracy in place. No one should expect them to appear overnight. My words that day may have sounded out of tune with the hope and optimism many felt watching the protests in Cairo, but they reflected the challenges I saw ahead.
At the same conference in Munich, Wisner, as a private citizen and no longer playing any role for the administration, appeared via satellite to offer his personal opinion on the situation. This distressed the White House, which thought it had his assurance that he would not discuss his mission publicly. Wisner made waves by saying Mubarak shouldn’t go immediately but should oversee a transition. His comments came across as contradicting the President, and the White House was annoyed that Wisner had overstepped his brief. The President called me to express his unhappiness about the “mixed messages” we were sending. That’s a diplomatic way of saying he took me to the woodshed. The President knew events in Egypt were not in America’s control, but he wanted to do right by both our interests and our values. So did I. I knew Mubarak had stayed too long and done too little. But beyond getting rid of him, the people in Tahrir Square seemed to have no plan. Those of us who favored the stodgy-sounding “orderly transition” position were concerned that the only organized forces after Mubarak were the Muslim Brotherhood and the military.
By February 10, hundreds had been killed in clashes with security forces. The violence fed the protesters’ rage and their demands that Mubarak resign. Rumors swirled that he would finally bow to the pressure. Expectations ran high as Mubarak delivered yet another address to the nation. This time he announced the transfer of some of his powers to Vice President Suleiman, but still he refused to step down or accept the need for a transition in which he relinquished power. The crowds in Tahrir Square were infuriated.
The next day, February 11, Mubarak finally accepted defeat. Vice President Suleiman, looking worn and drawn, appeared on television and announced that the President had stepped down and ceded all his powers to the military leadership. An Army spokesman read a statement pledging to “conduct free and fair presidential elections” and answer “the legitimate demands of the people.” Mubarak himself did not speak, instead quietly departing Cairo for his residence on the Red Sea. Unlike Ben Ali in Tunisia, he did not flee the country, staying true to his defiant promise, “I will die in Egypt.” That last act of stubbornness left him exposed to prosecution and retribution, and he has spent the following years under house arrest, in court, or in the hospital as his health reportedly declined.
About a month later I visited Cairo and walked through Tahrir Square myself. My security team was nervous about what we were heading into; it was a complete unknown. But as Egyptians thronged around me, the overwhelming message was one of warmth and hospitality. “Thank you for coming,” several people said. “Welcome to the new Egypt!” others shouted. They were proud of the revolution they had won.
Then I met with a number of the students and activists who had played leading roles in the demonstrations. I was curious to hear about their plans to move from protests to politics and how they planned to influence the writing of a new Constitution and contest the upcoming elections. I found a disorganized group not prepared to contest or influence anything. They had no experience in politics, no understanding about how to organize parties, run candidates, or conduct campaigns. They didn’t have platforms and showed little interest in forming them. Instead they argued among themselves, blamed the United States for a variety of sins, and were largely dismissive of electoral politics. “Have you considered forming a political coalition and joining together on behalf of candidates and programs?” I asked. They just looked at me blankly. I came away worried that they would end up handing the country to the Muslim Brotherhood or the military by default, which in the end is exactly what happened.
The acting head of state was Mubarak’s Defense Minister, Field Marshall Mohamed Tantawi, who had promised to preside over a smooth transition to a democratically elected civilian government. When I met him in Cairo, he was so tired he could barely hold his head up. The shadows under his eyes reached practically down to his mouth. He was a professional soldier through and through, whose bearing and appearance reminded me of General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani in Pakistan. Both men were committed nationalists, devoted to the military cultures that produced them, and uneasy with both their dependence on aid from the United States and the political and economic threats they perceived to their respective militaries’ enormous powers. As Tantawi and I talked about his plans for the transition, I could see him choosing his words carefully. He was in a difficult position, trying to save his beloved Army from the wreckage of the Mubarak regime, protect the people, as the Army had promised to do, and do right by the former leader who had nurtured his career. In the end Tantawi followed through on his promise to hold elections. And when his preferred candidate, former Prime Minister Ahmed Shafik, narrowly lost to Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood, he allowed the result to stand.
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Throughout the delicate transition process, the United States tried to walk a tightrope, promoting our democratic values and strategic interests without taking sides or backing particular candidates or factions. Yet despite our efforts to play a neutral and constructive role, many Egyptians viewed America with distrust. Supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood accused us of having propped up the Mubarak regime and suspected that we would collude with the military to keep them from power. Their opponents feared the prospect of Islamist rule and alleged that the United States had conspired with the Brotherhood to force out Mubarak. I wasn’t sure how we could be accused of both aiding and foiling the Muslim Brotherhood, but logic never gets in the way of a good conspiracy theory.
When I returned to Egypt in July 2012, I found the streets of Cairo once again seething with protests. But this time they weren’t directed at the government—they were directed at me. Crowds gathered outside my hotel, and as we drove into its parking garage through the side entrance, people banged on our vehicles. Egyptian police did nothing to stop them, and my Diplomatic Security agents were forced to push the crowd back themselves, something they ordinarily wouldn’t do. Once inside my room more than a dozen stories up, I could hear the din of angry anti-American chants. My security and staff spent an anxious night prepared to evacuate the hotel if required. Despite warnings of more protests in Alexandria, I insisted we stick to the plan and fly there the next day to officially open a renovated American Consulate. After the event, as we left to get into our cars, we were forced to walk near the angry crowd. Toria Nuland, my intrepid spokeswoman, was hit in the head by a tomato (she took the blow gracefully), and a man pounded his shoe against my car’s window as we pulled out heading to the airport.
In Cairo, along with separate meetings with Morsi and the generals, I sat down with a group of concerned Coptic Christians at the U.S. Embassy. They were deeply anxious about what the future held for them and their country. It was a very emotional, personal conversation.
One of the most moving scenes from the revolution in Tahrir Square was when Christian protesters formed a protective circle around their Muslim comrades during the call to prayer. The reverse happened when the Christians celebrated a Mass. Sadly, that spirit of unity had not lasted. Just a month after the fall of Mubarak, there were reports from the city of Qena that a group of Salafists had cut off the ear of a Coptic Christian schoolteacher and burned his house and car. Other attacks followed. Morsi’s election only heightened fears in the Christian community.
Privately I was furious at the attacks on Huma by several ignorant House members. So I was grateful to Senator John McCain, who had gotten to know her over the years, when he went to the floor of the Senate and made his own disdain clear: “When anyone, not least a member of Congress, launches vicious and degrading attacks against fellow Americans on the basis of nothing more than fear of who they are, in ignorance of what they stand for, it defames the spirit of our nation, and we all grow poor because of it. Our reputations, our character, are the only things we leave behind when we depart this earth. And unjust acts that malign the good name of a decent and honorable person, is not only wrong, it is contrary to everything we hold dear.”
Several weeks later, with Huma sitting at his side at the White House’s annual Iftar dinner to break the Ramadan fast, President Obama also defended her, saying, “The American people owe her a debt of gratitude—because Huma is an American patriot, and an example of what we need in this country—more public servants with her sense of decency, her grace and her generosity of spirit. So, on behalf of all Americans, we thank you so much.” The President of the United States and one of our nation’s most renowned war heroes make quite a one-two punch. It was a real testament to Huma’s character.
In our meeting I told the Coptic leaders that the United States would stand firmly on the side of religious freedom. All citizens should have the right to live, work, and worship as they choose, whether they be Muslim or Christian or from any other background. No group or faction should impose its authority, ideology, or religion on anyone else. America was prepared to work with the leaders that the Egyptian people chose. But our engagement with those leaders would be based on their commitment to universal human rights and democratic principles.
Unfortunately the months and years that followed proved that my early concerns about the difficulties of democratic transitions were well-founded. The Muslim Brotherhood consolidated its power but failed to govern in a transparent or inclusive fashion. President Morsi clashed frequently with the judiciary, sought to marginalize his political opponents rather than build a broad national consensus, did little to improve the economy, and allowed the persecution of minorities, including the Coptic Christians, to continue. But he did surprise some skeptics by upholding the peace treaty with Israel and by helping me negotiate a cease-fire in Gaza in November 2012. Once again the United States faced our classic dilemma: Should we do business with a leader with whom we disagreed on so many things in the name of advancing core security interests? We were back on the high wire, performing the balancing act without easy answers or good options.
In July 2013, with millions of Egyptians again protesting in the streets, this time against the overreaches of the Morsi government, the military under Tantawi’s successor, General Abdul-Fattah el-Sisi, stepped in a second time. They removed Morsi and began an aggressive new crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood.
As of 2014, the prospects for Egyptian democracy do not look bright. Sisi is running for President with only token opposition, and he appears to be following in the classic mold of Middle Eastern strongmen. Many Egyptians seem tired of the chaos and ready for a return to stability. But, there is little reason to believe that restored military rule will be any more sustainable than it was under Mubarak. To do so it will have to be more inclusive, more responsible for the needs of the people, and eventually, more democratic. In the end, the test for Egypt and other countries across the Middle East will be whether they can build credible democratic institutions that uphold the rights of every citizen while providing security and stability in the face of old enmities across faith, ethnic, economic, and geographic divides. That will not be easy, as recent history has shown, but the alternative is to watch the region keep sinking into the sand.
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King Abdullah II of Jordan managed to stay ahead of the wave of unrest that washed away other governments in the region during the Arab Spring. Jordan held credible legislative elections and began cracking down on corruption, but the economy remained stagnant, in large measure because Jordan is one of the world’s most energy-starved nations. Roughly 80 percent of its energy came from natural gas delivered via pipelines from Egypt. But after the fall of Mubarak and the rise of instability in the Sinai, those pipelines, which also carried gas to Israel, became the frequent target of attacks and sabotage, interrupting the flow of energy into Jordan.
Costly government subsidies were keeping the price of electricity from spiraling out of control, but as a result the country’s public debt was ballooning. The King faced a difficult dilemma: cut the subsidies, let energy prices rise, and face the wrath of the people, or maintain the subsidies and run the risk of financial meltdown.
One obvious answer lay to the east, in Iraq, where the United States was helping the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki rebuild its wrecked oil and gas industry. A less obvious and more controversial source of energy lay to the west, in Israel, which had just discovered extensive natural gas reserves in the eastern Mediterranean. The two countries had been at peace since the signing of a historic treaty in 1994, but Israel remained deeply unpopular among the Jordanian public, a majority of whom were of Palestinian origin. Given all his other troubles, could the King risk more protests by pursuing a major new trade deal with Israel? Could he afford not to? Over lunch with the King at the State Department in January 2012, and in follow-up discussions with his Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh, I urged them to start talking to the Israelis—in secret if necessary.
With U.S. support, Jordan began negotiating with both Iraq and Israel. An agreement with Iraq was signed in 2013 that, with the construction of a pipeline from southern Iraq to Aqaba on the Red Sea, should provide Jordan 1 million barrels per day of crude oil and more than 250 million cubic feet of natural gas. After a year of secret talks with the Israelis, a deal was announced in early 2014 to use Israeli natural gas from the eastern Mediterranean to fuel a power plant on the Jordanian side of the Dead Sea. The King was not wrong to have been cautious; representatives of the Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan slammed the agreement with the “Zionist entity” as “an attack on the Palestinian cause.” But it promised a future of greater energy security for Jordan and a new source of cooperation for two neighbors in a region of enormous challenges.
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Perhaps our most delicate balancing act in the Middle East was with our partners in the Persian Gulf: Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE. The United States had developed deep economic and strategic ties to these wealthy, conservative monarchies, even as we made no secret of our concerns about human rights abuses, especially the treatment of women and minorities, and the export of extremist ideology.
Every U.S. administration wrestled with the contradictions of our policy toward the Gulf. The choices were never harder than after 9/11. Americans were shocked that fifteen of the nineteen hijackers and Osama bin Laden himself hailed from Saudi Arabia, a nation that we had defended in the 1991 Gulf War. And it was appalling that money from the Gulf continued funding extremist madrassas and propaganda all over the world.
At the
same time, these governments shared many of our top security concerns. Saudi Arabia had expelled bin Laden, and the kingdom’s security forces had become strong partners in the fight against al Qaeda. Most of the Gulf states shared our worries about Iran’s march toward a nuclear weapon along with its aggressive support of terrorism. These tensions were rooted in an ancient sectarian split within Islam: Iran is predominantly Shiite, while the Gulf states are predominantly Sunni. Bahrain is an exception. There, as in Iraq under Saddam, an elite Sunni minority rules over a Shiite majority. In Syria the situation is reversed.
To support our shared security interests over the years and help deter Iranian aggression, the United States sold large amounts of military equipment to the Gulf states, and stationed the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet in Bahrain, the Combined Air and Space Operations Center in Qatar, and maintained troops in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE, as well as key bases in other countries.
When I became Secretary I developed personal relationships with Gulf leaders both individually and as a group through the Gulf Cooperation Council, a political and economic association of the Gulf countries. We created a U.S.-GCC security dialogue to intensify our cooperation. Most of the focus of our discussions was on Iran and counterterrorism, but I pressed leaders on the need to open up their societies, respect human rights, and offer more opportunities to their young people and women.
Hard Choices Page 44