Trump Embraces Sunni Autocrats
By Robin Wright
By Robin Wright
On February 11, 2011, shortly after 3 p.m., President Obama
stepped before a microphone in the Grand Foyer of the White House. Egyptian
President Hosni Mubarak had just resigned after weeks of mass protests, in
Tahrir Square and nationwide, and a final nudge from the White House. “There
are few moments in our lives where we have the privilege to witness history
taking place,” Obama said. “This is one of those times.” He compared the
peaceful overthrow of Mubarak—who had been the centerpiece of U.S. policy in
the Arab world for three decades—to the fall of the Berlin Wall and Gandhi’s
civil disobedience against British colonialism.
“The wheel of history turned at a blinding pace as the
Egyptian people demanded their universal rights,” Obama said. Two months later,
Mubarak was detained on allegations of corruption, embezzlement, abuse of
power, and negligence for failing to stop the killing of hundreds of peaceful
protesters. He was sentenced to life imprisonment.
The wheel of history is now turning, at an equally blinding
pace, in reverse. Mubarak was freed last month; he returned to his mansion in
the Cairo suburb of Heliopolis. His two sons and other Mubarak-era officials,
also jailed for corruption, are free now, too. On Monday, President Trump
hosted Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, the former field marshal who
orchestrated a military coup, in 2013, against Mubarak’s successor.
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