The Last Time America Had A Leader For President...

...he handled Egypt very differently:

When Mubarak, upset with Ibrahim’s reform advocacy, jailed the 64-year-old activist in 2002, Bush suspended more than $100 million in aid. Facing more than rhetorical disapproval from Washington for the first time, Mubarak reversed himself and freed Ibrahim. Then, on January 21, 2005, Bush delivered his second inaugural address, in which he declared that “all who live in tyranny and hopelessness can know the United States will not ignore your oppression or excuse your oppressors. When you stand for your liberty, we will stand with you. Democratic reformers facing repression, prison, or exile can know: America sees you for who you are: the future leaders of your free country.”

Mubarak chose to test Bush’s resolve. On January 29, Egyptian security forces arrested Ayman Nour, leader of the opposition Ghad Party, on trumped-up forgery charges. Bush would not dismiss the incident as just an internal Egyptian matter. Standing with her Egyptian counterpart, Ahmad Abu al-Ghait, at a Washington press conference, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice chided the Egyptian regime for its treatment of Nour. Rice subsequently decided to bypass Cairo on a planned trip to the region, forcing the regime to cancel abruptly a conference she was to keynote.

Mubarak was furious and used the state-controlled press to lash out. Political cartoonists depicted Bush alternately as Hitler or Satan. The government’s Al-Gumhuriyya declared that “America does not have any right to impose upon us its false role of defense of human rights, democracy, and free speech” and accused the United States of being worse than Hitler’s Germany. Likewise, Al-Akhbar castigated Rice for “crude intervention in Egyptian judicial matters.” Egypt was not alone. Bush’s approach threatened the established order. In every Arab state, as well as in Turkey and Iran, editorials whined about the American focus on transparency and spun wild conspiracies about American democratization efforts.

As Bush held firm, Mubarak wavered. Arab heads of state may have disliked Bush, but they respected him. After Bush not only ousted Saddam but oversaw Iraq’s first free elections in January 2005, they understood they could not dismiss his resolve. It is ironic that while American pundits tried to paint the Iraq war as diminishing American influence in the region, even Muammar Qaddafi’s own advisers ascribe the Libyan leader’s nuclear about-face to a combination of fear and respect for Bush after the Iraq invasion. As for Mubarak, in March 2005 he not only ordered the parliament to amend the constitution to allow contested elections, but he also freed Nour.

I had forgotten these incidents. They don’t prove that Bush was the greatest president ever, or that the current Egypt crisis could be solved by any American president. But it does show yet again the difference between having a “Decider-In-Chief” vs. a politician always looking for the chance to vote “present.”

Barack Obama is a smart guy and has given a couple of great speeches...but a leader? That’s “above his pay grade.”