Wednesday 2 February 2011

Hillary Clinton - friend of Mubarak - not the right person to deal with his departure

Barrack Obama - who has no real foreign policy crisis experience - seems to be relying on Hillary Clinton´s advice on dealing with events in Egypt. She is unfortunately a very bad choice. How on  earth could Clinton, a family friend of the Mubaraks, contribute to getting Mubarak removed as quickly as posssible?

Politico offers this analysis:

But proximity has its perils. In a 2009 interview with Al Arabiya television, Clinton defended the relationship with the Egyptian president and his wife when asked about human rights abuses by the Mubarak regime, saying, “I really consider President and Mrs. Mubarak to be friends of my family. So I hope to see him often here in Egypt and in the United States.”
That led to a Washington Post editorial, questioning her ability to challenge autocratic regimes — and raised questions about Clinton’s repeated claim that the administration has long pressured Mubarak to enact much needed democratic and economic reform.
Activists are pressuring the administration to move even more quickly – and publicly acknowledge the pitfalls of helping to prop up corrupt regimes.

Clinton also came up with the idea of sending formen ambassador and Enron man Frank Wisner to Egypt. Not the ideal representative, either.

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