Former diplomats recall Arab Spring

Fort Smith native shares thoughts

WASHINGTON — The United States viewed the Arab Spring as an opportunity to advance American values and promote democracy, former U.S. diplomats said at a forum last week.

But the protests that broke out eight years ago had sharply different outcomes in different countries, they noted.

Anne W. Patterson, the former U.S. ambassador to Egypt and a Fort Smith native, shared her memories of the period at a panel Thursday organized by the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank. She was joined by Gordon Gray, a former U.S. ambassador to Tunisia, and by William B. Taylor, the State Department’s former special coordinator for Middle East transitions.

In Tunisia, the uprising swept away longtime President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, resulting in free and Democratic elections and stronger ties between the North African nation and the United States.

In Egypt, it helped topple longtime President Hosni Mubarak, who was replaced, briefly, by a democratically elected leader, Mohammed Morsi. Ultimately, he would be ousted by the Egyptian military — a development the White House was

reluctant to call a coup d’etat. Today, Morsi is imprisoned. The defense minister and military commander in chief who overthrew him, Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, is now president. Efforts are underway to change Egyptian law so el-Sissi can remain in power until 2034.

In Syria, the result was civil war.

The desire for regional stability helped shape the U.S. response to developments in Cairo, said Patterson, who had earlier served as U.S. ambassador to Colombia and Pakistan.

“U.S. policy towards Egypt has been relentlessly consistent for decades, and it’s all about maintaining peace with Israel,” she said.

“Yes, there have been ups and downs and democratic initiatives, etc., etc.,” she said. “But when push comes to shove, these all took a back seat to good relations with Israel.”

The U.S. has given more than $45 billion in military aid and roughly $30 billion in economic assistance to Egypt since the Camp David Accords were signed in 1978, according to the Congressional Research Service.

In recent years, economic aid has slowed considerably; fear of losing that money isn’t a major motivator, Patterson suggested.

“Holding back a few million dollars in a country that needs billions is not only ineffective, but insulting,” she said.

The annual military assistance — about $1.3 billion — is more substantial, she noted.

Patterson, who was stationed in Cairo during Morsi’s ill-fated presidency, emphasized the dominant role of the armed forces in Egyptian society.

“[It was] the Egyptian military that removed Mubarak [and] then got rid of Morsi. And if anyone gets rid of el-Sissi, it will be the Egyptian military. It wasn’t the democratic process,” she said.

Mubarak’s exit cleared the way for the election of Morsi, a member of the Muslim Brotherhood. Overall, Islamist candidates dominated Egypt’s parliamentary and presidential elections.

That wasn’t the outcome observers in the West had necessarily anticipated, Patterson noted.

“Some of us in the international community have not focused on what happens when the democratic tradition brings forward results we don’t like,” she said. “The Islamists won 72 percent of the first election in Egypt, and a lot of it was highly predictable.”

In retrospect, the U.S. could have encouraged Egypt to delay the democratic process, giving secular parties a chance “to organize and promote candidates,” Patterson said.

But “given the enormous disruption and labor unrest … I actually don’t think we had much choice but to push forward. It was just an unsustainable situation,” she added.

Patterson portrayed Morsi as a deeply flawed leader.

“My own view is that the problem with Morsi was not that he was an Islamic extremist, but he simply didn’t know what he was doing,” she said. “Many in the U.S. government got fed up with him because he was arrogant and incompetent and isolated and resistant to advice.”

While democracy failed to take root in Egypt, it took root in Tunisia, Gray said.

The U.S. helped with the transition but proceeded carefully, “recognizing that it was the Tunisian Revolution, the Tunisians’ revolution. It wasn’t our revolution,” Gray said. “In diplomacy, as in a lot of other things, a little bit of humility goes a long way.”

The U.S. provided funds to Tunisia early on, but it also took other steps. Days after Ben Ali was driven from office, then-President Barack Obama highlighted the uprising in his State of the Union address, telling Congress that in Tunisia, “the will of the people proved more powerful than the writ of a dictator.”

In the speech, Obama declared that “the United States of America stands with the people of Tunisia and supports the democratic aspirations of all people,” a statement that drew bipartisan applause.

Later that year, then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton paid a visit, Gray noted.

“I think it’s fair to say that the U.S. government was pretty fast on the mark in recognizing the opportunity

that the revolution presented,” Gray said.

America’s democratic values continue to inspire people around the world, Gray

said.

“U.S. leadership is very important,” he said. “We’ve got a lot of influence. We shouldn’t be afraid to use it.”