The Sandmonkey is ranting over continuing US support for the Mubarak regime, and even more loudly, the continued scape-goating of the United States. Well worth reading.

A few quick notes after reading:

1) As the Sandmonkey says, the US is only omnipotent in the conspiracy fantasies of the Left, the Middle East and elsewhere. In fact, we do not have the ability to raise or destroy regimes with a wave of the hand and an email to the CIA (which would then be forwarded to the press).

2) Mubarak has successfully staved off real democratic reform by failing to protect free expression and stifling secular parties leaving only the religious extremists as a viable opposition. Without government protection it is very difficult for secular thought to circulate as it can be stifled much more easily than religious expression can. The religious groups can proselytize through their mosques and traditional distribution channels -- something the government has a difficult time suppressing. Further, it causes much more of a stink jailing a religious figure than a secular loudmouth. Without a viable secular alternative, who is there for the US to back?

3) 5000 people in the street isn't enough to overthrow the Boston City Council, let alone the Egyptian government. Again, who would you back if you were the US? The choice is between Mubarak, the Muslim Brotherhood or chaos. There is no alternative. Egyptians themselves simply aren't ready to pick up the ball. The forces of modernity and democracy are simply no where near any sort of tipping point that the United States could seriously consider giving the final shove to. Who's fault that is is a bigger question, but the fact remains.

4) People complain that we give $2 billion a year to Egypt and seem to get very little for it. That's true. It makes us look bad in the eyes of some of the forces of reform by backing a repressive regime. That's also true. But there's a flip-side. Accepting American money also taints Mubarak's regime in the eyes of the religious fascists and prevents him from playing the "Saladin," or in this case the "Nasser" card -- hero of pan-Arabism. To them he's a US tool. The money we give serves as an innoculation against his aquiring an even worse disease. So given the alternative, it may be all we can do at this juncture to keep him on something of a leash, albeit a long one.