America and Egypt After the Uprisings

摘要

On 25 January 2011, a week after the flight of Tunisian President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, Egyptians took to the streets protesting against Hosni Mubarak. Seventeen tense days later, Mubarak stepped down from power in favour of a military council which promised rapid political reforms.~1 This extraordinary storm of events posed sharp challenges to the Barack Obama administration, which faced a delicate balancing act between demonstrating its commitment to a long-standing ally, managing an inevitable transition in order to protect core interests, and acting on its inherent sympathy with the values of peaceful, democratic protesters. While its cautious and often private efforts enraged all sides, from the Arab palaces to the Egyptian streets, in the end the White House could boast of having played a key role in assisting with the peaceful, orderly and meaningful transition it had laid out as its public objective.