Be Realistic About Reform in Egypt

Re “Mubarak, Let Your People Go,” Commentary, May 19: Max Boot and his fellow “idealists” (who promote freedom through military interventions) really don’t understand the Arab world.

Egypt is not ruled by a “pharaoh.” It is ruled by a petty authoritarian. Egypt is not like the French monarchy in 1789. It is like the Greek city-states before the rise of Athens, where democracy evolved naturally in stages from tyranny to limited representative government.

Hosni Mubarak presides over a society from which Ayman Al-Zawahiri, Al Qaeda’s de facto leader, emerged. Al-Zawahiri’s terrorist comrades assassinated Anwar Sadat and attempted to assassinate Mubarak. Egypt cracked down hard and the terrorists fled to Afghanistan to take over Al Qaeda. They then attacked the United States.

Egypt is the only country thus far in the Arab world that has defeated a terrorist insurgency. Mubarak may take credit for this. What price instant democracy in Arab countries? Look at Iraq? Is it better off than Egypt under Mubarak?

Boot needs to get practical and study history without filtering events through his narrowly biased lens. Egypt needs societal reform, yes, but not at the price Iraq is paying.

Jean Rosenfeld

Pacific Palisades

So Mubarak is not serious about reform in the Middle East but George Bush is? After 9/11, any leader who did nothing about the billions of American dollars flowing into the hands of Middle East autocrats cannot be serious about reform in the Middle East. End of story. Just because Bush is willing to throw away American lives in the desert doesn’t make him serious about reforming the Middle East.

The neocon vision of reforming the Middle East without hurting Exxon’s bottom line is a farce. Tough decisions had to be made, and they were not. Boot is just upset because three months ago he was busy doing the “mission accomplished” dance over Iraqi elections, and Iraq is still a mess more than two years after the first “mission accomplished” boogie started in May 2003.

The key to reform in the Middle East is oil. Our president feels that corporate profits are sacred. Until his attitude changes, the Middle East will be untenable.

Branden Frankel

Irvine