My colleague Marc Lynch has recently challenged academics and policy experts to explain what the United States can actually do to strengthen democratic forces in Egypt. The post-Soviet experience may offer some useful lessons here. First, the United States can only be an anxious spectator on the most primal issues. In Power and Purpose, an analysis of American policy towards Russia after 1991, James Goldgeier and Michael McFaul (now ambassador in Moscow) conclude that, despite concerted efforts by President Bill Clinton, Washington was able to do very little to influence Yeltsin. Even had Clinton been more willing to speak out in the face of Yeltsin's democratic backsliding, they conclude, the United States probably lacked the leverage to move Russian policy. On the other hand, they add, "words do matter," and Clinton was far too constrained by the fear of losing Yeltsin as a partner on global or regional issues.
That is very much where President Barack Obama stands today with Egypt and Morsy. There's nothing Obama can do to affect the likely Islamic cast of Egypt's new constitution. But the White House's reluctance to criticize Morsy after he played a very useful role brokering a truce between Israel and Hezbollah has made it that much easier for Egypt's leader to follow his worst impulses. Obama seems to have pushed all his chips on Morsy, as Clinton did on Yeltsin -- though the Egyptian leader's secular rivals seem so feckless that it's easy to understand Obama's logic. The Clinton administration pushed a giant $22.8 billion package through the IMF for Russia, which Moscow promptly misused. That won't happen with Egypt, which is now balking at the IMF's conditions. But the Obama administration must adopt a less Morsy-centric policy. "You don't try to pick winners," Larry Diamond says. "You defend the process." And Washington can't issue blank checks, even though Egypt urgently needs financial help. At the very least, U.S. aid should be directed away from the military and towards security sector reform, as Congress is now considering.
The post-Soviet case reminds us that the long term really is long. The United States, Europe, and private actors made a real difference at the climactic moments of democratic upheaval in Georgia and Ukraine almost a decade ago, but now they have to engage in the slow and unglamorous process of training political parties, nurturing civil society, and giving economic advice as well as assistance. Defending the democratic process is an enterprise for the patient. It's way, way too early to despair about the direction of Egypt or Libya, much less Tunisia. (It may not be too early in the case of Iraq.) It's unlikely that any of them will wind up like Estonia -- or, for that matter, Turkmenistan. But they've got a decent shot at Ukraine.
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