We the people support democracy. We the people support individual rights. We the people are deeply committed to the twin concepts of liberty and freedom. We the people believe that a world carved in our image will be a better world. We the people, secure in our shared history and insulated from the bloodletting that served as the crucible of our democracy, have never had any real idea of how to bring these dreams to reality in a diverse and often dangerous world. And so we are now confronted with our inability to turn dreams into practical actions by the inconvenient political drama that is Egypt.
We should, in the spirit of our own founding documents, rally to the aid of those rising against Hosni Mubarak. He is a dictator in the most basic and pure definition. Those millions who have conducted mostly peaceful protests over the last week, represent an oppressed majority clamoring for self-representation. But we are forced to play a dangerous game of revolutionary chicken; we can’t swerve until we know which side will win. President Obama, by the accounts of the overwhelming bulk of foreign policy experts not employed by Fox News, has played the game to near perfection…so far. But this won’t be the last game that this President, or any President, will have to play. The Egypt Paradox is already warming up in a number of other countries.