Egypt through Obama's lens

[Swede]

Obama looks at the Egyptian drama through an unusual lens. He has experienced dictatorship firsthand, a world where "the strong man takes the weak man's land," as he quoted his Indonesian stepfather in his autobiography. The president came of age reading Frantz Fanon and other theorists of radical change. He is sometimes described as a "post-racial" figure, but it's also helpful to think of him as a "post-colonial" man.

Obama's policy decisions over the past several weeks have been guided by a sense that the fissures in Egyptian and Arab society have been building for a long time, and that, as one person familiar with his thinking says, "this is not something that can be put back in a box."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/02/03/AR2011020305691.html

[mix]

1. US military aid to Egypt is "without [human rights] conditions" under Obama.

His administration also cut funding to cultivate democracy in Egypt.

Fanon was an entirely different man with an entirely different set of values.

Obama is the empire's new face.

[Erose999]

2. I have no doubt that Obama is up to speed on postcolonialism, but...

as with everything, Obama seeks consensus and compromise. He has to toe the line his corporate backers (who have a lot at stake in Egypt) tell him to toe.

Its not so much a problem with the man as it is with the institution of the office of the Presidency. When it comes to foreign policy, any president, no matter how idealistic, is ultimately forced to play the game.