"For 60 years," said the visitor, "my country, the United States, pursued stability at the expense of democracy in the Middle East and we achieved neither.
Condi Rice had it right when she said in Egypt in 2005: "For 60 years, my country, the United States, pursued stability at the expense of democracy in this region, here in the Middle East, and we achieved neither".
In July 2005, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice traveled to Cairo, where she startled, and thrilled, many in her audience by bluntly declaring that "for 60 years, my country, the United States, pursued stability at the expense of democracy in this region here in the Middle East, and we achieved neither".
In a major speech in Cairo in 2005, Condoleezza Rice, then Mr. Bush's secretary of state, said that "for 60 years, my country, the United States, pursued stability at the expense of democracy in this region here in the Middle East — and we achieved neither".
"For 60 years, my country, the United States, pursued stability at the expense of democracy in this region here in the Middle East, and we achieved neither," said Ms. Rice, infuriating the Mubarak government and heartening opposition leaders like Ayman Nour, an oft-jailed Parliament member, with whom she even held a meeting as part of her trip.
But wouldn't it be nice, indeed thrilling, if America's secretary of state went to the University of Cairo, say, and made some simple statement like this:For 60 years my country, the United States, pursued stability at the expense of democracy in the Middle East and we achieved neither.
It accuses the protesters of being manipulated and armed by foreign powers, and claims, on its part, to be pursuing stability and reform.
His plan also called for a quick-reaction force in the region, perhaps based in Kuwait, and for pursuing stability in Iraq through diplomacy.
Refugees are not seen as people like us, with a right to pursue stability or security, but as human baggage to be removed at the earliest opportunity to territories on which to set down the white man's burden.
The strategy is a paradox: in pursuing stability, it strengthens the autocrat, but, in strengthening the autocrat, it enables him to further abuse his position, exacerbating the conditions that lead people to take up arms.
The country has remained an absolute monarchy under the House of Saud, which over the course of the 20th century leveraged the nation's vast oil wealth to pursue stability, international alliances, military power and regional influence.
