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Looking at events in Egypt, Spengler sees little reason for optimism.
… If Obama succeeds in forcing the Muslim Brotherhood into a new Egyptian regime, Mubarak’s cronies really would be better off in London exile. That implies a tsunami of capital flight and the disappearance of Egypt’s managerial class who, feckless as they might be, nonetheless keep the economy working day by day. As I noted last week, Egypt’s $12 billion a year in tourist revenue has gone to zero and would take years to restore under the best of circumstances.
At this point, Egyptians will begin to starve. The government’s immediate response is to spend more. Egypt’s new Finance Minister Samir Radwan promised on February 5 that government subsidies would offset the rise in the world market price of food. The government budget would help to “achieve social justice”, Radwan told reporters.
The trouble, as the rating agency Standard and Poor’s explained, is that the government deficit will climb into the teens, from the 8.1% deficit registered last year.
How long Egypt can finance its external deficit, or its internal deficit, without recourse to the printing press, depends less on internal events than on the weather in China.
The Times’ Friedman writes rapturously that Egyptians “want to shape their own destiny”. Unless Egyptian intelligence has secretly mastered weather modification, Egyptians have very little say about their own destiny.
The New York Times on February 8 quotes Mohamed ElBaradei, the figurehead opposition leader, complaining that the Arab world is “a collection of failed states who add nothing to humanity or science” because “people were taught not to think or to act, and were consistently given an inferior education. That will change with democracy.”
It’s too late. A country that still practices female genital mutilation cannot undertake a grand leap into modernity (by way of comparison, China began to abolish foot-binding in 1911 and eradicated it entirely shortly after 1949).
In this case, Oswald Spengler’s motto applies: Optimism is cowardice. Memo to the temporary residents of Tahrir Square: pray for rain in China.
Ed Morrissey traces some of the recent missteps in Egypt.
In my latest column for The Week, I ask if Barack Obama truly knows what he wants as an outcome from the Egyptian crisis. After getting off to a good start in a near-impossible situation for the US, Obama then jumped the gun by demanding a “transition” from the Mubarak regime, which Robert Gibbs emphasized the next day by saying “now means yesterday.” At the same time, Obama sent a personal envoy to Hosni Mubarak, and the choice of envoy turned out to be a predictable disaster. Within a few days, the US was in retreat from its earlier demands:
“In the middle of this vacillation, Obama chose former Ambassador to Egypt Frank Wisner to go to Cairo and handle Mubarak personally. Wisner, who has served as ambassador to five countries in twenty years, went to review the crisis and speak directly with Mubarak on Obama’s behalf. Within days, Wisner publicly insisted that Mubarak needed to stay in office, saying that “President Mubarak’s continued leadership is critical.” The Obama administration had to distance itself from its own special envoy, who got promptly recalled and this week returned to his day job.”
We will leave it to Jackson Diehl of the Washington Post to illuminate the many errors of this administration in Egypt – not the least of which was the childish effort to be the unBush.
During her first visit to Egypt as secretary of state, in March 2009, Hillary Rodham Clinton was asked whether human rights violations by the Egyptian government that had been documented by the State Department would interfere with a visit to the White House by President Hosni Mubarak. It was a good question: Mubarak had not been to Washington in five years, thanks to his clashes with the Bush administration over his political repression.
“It is not in any way connected,” Clinton replied. “I really consider President and Mrs. Mubarak to be friends of my family. So I hope to see him often here in Egypt and in the United States.”
Thus began what may be remembered as one of the most shortsighted and wrongheaded policies the United States has ever pursued in the Middle East. Admittedly, the bar is high. But the Obama administration’s embrace of Mubarak, even as the octogenarian strongman refused to allow the emergence of a moderate, middle-class-based, pro-democracy opposition, has helped bring the United States’ most important Arab ally to the brink of revolution. Mass popular demonstrations have rocked the country since Tuesday; Friday, when millions of Egyptians will assemble in mosques, could be fateful.
The administration’s miscalculation about Mubarak was threefold. First, it assumed that the damage done to relations by George W. Bush’s “freedom agenda” was a mistake that needed to be repaired. In fact, Bush’s pushing for political liberalization was widely viewed, in Egypt and in the region, as the saving grace of an otherwise bad administration.
Second, the Obama administration’s Middle East experts concluded that there was no chance of serious reform – much less revolution – under Mubarak. So they plotted at playing a “long game” of slowly nurturing grass-roots movements and promoting civil society, in preparation for the day when Egypt might be ready for real reform. In this they badly underestimated the secular opposition that was rapidly growing in the blogosphere and that months ago began rallying behind former U.N. nuclear director Mohamed ElBaradei.
Third, as an emboldened Mubarak stepped up repression, staged a blatantly rigged parliamentary election in November and began laying the groundwork to present himself for “reelection” this year, the administration chose to mute its criticism. Bland, carefully balanced statements were issued by second- and third-level spokesmen, while Clinton and Obama – who regularly ripped Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu – remained silent.
The balance of today’s Pickings covers the prospects for the election in 2012. Roger Simon kicks it off by watching Ariana Huffington.
… Arianna has read the tea leaves. Progressivism, which was riding the crest of popularity on the election of Obama, is over. It is no longer good for business. And just as the stock market is said to be a leading indicator on business cycles, I submit Arianna’s track record has shown her to be a leading indicator on the zeitgeist. She knows when to get out. Obama, and by extension progressivism, is fini. It is best left to fringey looneys like Code Pink. Put simply: progressivism is no longer good business. …
Charlie Cook, in the National Journal, has a more normal approach.
… It is highly unlikely that unemployment will drop to 7.2 percent by November 2012. A decline to around 8 percent would likely bode well for Obama’s reelection chances. If it remains around 9 percent, one can argue that most any major Republican nominee has a good chance of winning. Under this argument, the tipping point is between 8 and 9 percent.
Among 49 top economists surveyed this month by Blue Chip Economic Indicators, the consensus gross domestic product forecast was 3.2 percent for this year and 3.3 percent for next year, nowhere near the levels of growth that worked to benefit Reagan—4.5 percent in 1983 and 7.2 percent in 1984.
The 10 most optimistic forecasts among the 49 projected an average GDP growth rate of 3.9 percent for 2012, while the pessimists were at 3.2 percent.
For unemployment, the consensus forecast was 9.3 percent for 2011 and 8.6 percent for 2012. The 10 most pessimistic averaged 9 percent, and the 10 most upbeat averaged 8.2 percent.
Obviously, there are economic indicators beyond GDP growth and unemployment that are important. Economists watch inflation carefully, particularly with energy, food, and other commodity costs. They also eye real disposable income, which will be goosed by the temporary cut in payroll taxes enacted during the recent lame duck session of Congress.
None of this is to suggest millions of Americans rush to their computers at 8:30 a.m. on the first Friday of every month to find out the latest unemployment rate, and allow that to solely drive their assessment of the president.
But a strong economy and improving jobs picture does tend to validate a president’s economic stewardship, while a weak economy and poor job growth tends to repudiate it, fairly or not. …
And so does Sean Trende of Real Clear Politics.
Coverage of the 2012 elections has recently gone into overdrive, with attention focused largely on two issues: President Obama’s standing in the polls and the Electoral College. The two are obviously interrelated. Though it’s a bit early to be discussing all of this (there’s almost no correlation between a president’s standing in the polls at this point and where he ends up in November two years later) it is always useful to examine where things stand today – with the understanding that things may change for the better or for the worse for either party over the next 18 months.
One thing the polling data have confirmed over the last two years is this: President Obama is more popular than his policies. Going back to the earliest days of his presidency, Obama’s overall job approval rating has typically been higher than the ratings he’s received from voters on most individual issues – particularly on top domestic concerns like the economy, spending, the deficit and health care.
It isn’t hard to see why this is so. The president continues to be viewed in the public’s eye as a likeable person, a faithful husband and a good father. African American voters and liberal voters continue to adore the president. The historic nature of his presidency drew independent voters to him in 2008, and while they have abandoned him and his party in droves over the last two years over policy issues, they continue to have a certain level of affection for him personally.
Because the president generates so much personal goodwill, then, it isn’t clear that his approval rating has the same political effects that other presidents’ approval ratings do. Consider the following chart, which plots the percentage of the House caucus lost by the president’s party in post-World War II midterm elections against the president’s approval rating in the Gallup poll:
Peter Wehner is here too.
A few weeks ago, Senator Kent Conrad of North Dakota announced he will not seek re-election in 2012. A few days ago, Representative Jane Harman of California announced she will resign immediately. And last week Senator James Webb of Virginia announced he will not seek re-election in 2012, “confirm[ing] the news Democrats have been dreading for weeks,” according to Politico. Taken together, the resignations of these Democratic lawmakers are signs of a damaged party, one that is getting weaker rather than stronger.
The Obama Undertow is alive and well. …
Nile Gardiner thinks the president should we worried about 2012.
… It is of course far too early to be making concrete predictions for the outcome of the 2012 presidential race, and a great deal depends on the fortunes of the US economy as well as who the Republicans pick as their candidate. But with good reason, President Obama and his supporters should be nervous about their prospects 21 months from now. The November mid-terms were not a flash in the pan but part of a broader political change in the United States away from liberalism towards conservatism, as well as an emphatic rejection of the Big Government policies that continue to be promoted by the Obama presidency in the face of intense public opposition. President Obama may be experiencing a temporary bounce with his own personal ratings, but much of his agenda remain hugely unpopular.
A blogger at Weekly Standard says the same thing.
A CNN poll released this week asked Americans whether they plan to vote for or against President Obama in 2012. The options were “probably vote for,” “probably not vote for,” “definitely vote for,” and “definitely not vote for.” The most popular answer was “definitely not vote for” – chosen by 35 percent of respondents. Only 25 percent say they’ll “definitely vote for” the president. 51 percent predict he will lose. …