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Remarks by Dennis Ross, Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for the Central Region J Street Conference 2011 Washington, DC February 28, 2011 As Prepared for Delivery – When J Street began planning this conference, I’m sure you had in mind discussing a very different reality in the Middle East than exists today. But a few months can feel like an eternity in the Middle East, and we have seen a remarkable transformation in the region over the last several weeks. For the first time in generations, people in Tunisia and then Egypt took to the streets and unseated their leaders through popular, peaceful protests. Thousands of people have followed them from Algeria to Bahrain to Yemen where we have seen governments begin to respond with different degrees of effectiveness. And we have also seen utterly appalling violence in Libya where a detached and brutal leadership has chosen a desperate and irresponsible response to its people’s legitimate demands. A few months ago, it was difficult to envision a Middle East without Ben Ali and Mubarak, stalwart representatives of an old order who governed with the belief that intimidation could preserve their rule. Now, as we enter a period of uncertainty, and seek to ensure that the transitions in Egypt and Tunisia are peaceful, orderly and credible, we need to begin thinking about the Middle East in new ways. As President Obama said a couple of weeks ago, “The world is changing; you have a young, vibrant generation within the Middle East that is looking for greater opportunity, and that if you are governing these countries, you’ve got to get out ahead of change. You can’t be behind the curve.” This morning I would like to talk to you about what has happened in Egypt, its impact on the region, and the actions taken by the Obama Administration in the region and beyond. One thing became very clear on January 25th when the first group of brave young Egyptian men and women descended on Tahrir Square: the status quo in Egypt was neither stable nor sustainable. For years, the Mubarak regime imposed its rule through a sprawling security apparatus operating under a three-decades-old Emergency Law. But Egypt’s revolution showed that repression alone cannot stifle dissent. That was the age-old tactic of the Mubarak regime: to arrest dissidents and activists; restrict the formation of political parties; and limit exposure to independent voices in the media. The parliamentary elections in November where the ruling National Democratic Party and associated independents won 95 percent of 500 seats was a clear indication of the regime’s intention to disregard all suggestions to open political space. The problem, however, was that the frustrations of the Egyptian people were growing and were being infused with a new dynamism from Egypt’s youth who have a profound yearning to join the 21st century. They want jobs, housing, and a future that offers opportunity. Unable to meet those needs and unwilling to satisfy the desire for openness, the Egyptian government fell back to what it knew best: coercion. One case in particular exemplifies the fallacy of the old-fashioned thinking that dissident voices could simply be intimidated through force. Last June, a 28-year-old businessman was 1 pulled out of an internet café and beaten to death on the street by thugs from the security forces. His crime: posting examples of police corruption on a blog. His name was Khalid Said, and within five days of his death, a Facebook page was created called, “We are All Khalid Said.” Within weeks, 130,000 people joined the page, which now has almost half a million followers. And we now know that the page’s founder was a young Google executive named Wael Ghonim, who himself became a powerful symbol of the opposition following his disappearance and detention for 12 days during the protests. Many of us who have followed Egypt’s problems for years, assumed the regime was simply too strong and repression was too pervasive for significant change to take place overnight. As my friend Hala Mustafa, the editor of the Egyptian journal, Democracy¸ warned in the Washington Post in 2005, “Unless the security services are reined in, real political change and efforts to implement ‘reform from within’ will continue to be blocked in Egypt and across the Middle East. The enlightened political elite will remain powerless, individuals who can make genuine contributions will be systematically targeted, moderate groups and trends will continue to be excluded, and most citizens will remain absent from political life. In a word, the political arena will still echo only one voice.” The irony, of course, is that when the political space is restricted to one voice, frustration is bound to deepen, and when it comes to the surface, it is more likely to boil over quickly. The youth of the January 25th movement showed their countrymen how to overcome their fear and were soon joined by Egyptians of all walks of life who maintained a peaceful but persistent call for change. Not that long ago, as many of you may rememeber, Egyptians were seized by heightened sectarian tensions and attacks against the Christian minority. But the truly national movement that emerged in Tahrir Square witnessed both faiths, Muslim and Christian, praying together in an ultimate symbol of unity of purpose. President Obama recognized the magnitude of change in Egypt very quickly. He stated early on that Egypt could not go back to the way it was and the government had to take meaningful and tangible steps immediately to respond to the legitimate demands of the protesters. That is what we communicated to our range of contacts within the Egyptian government including to President Mubarak directly. It is important to note that conversation did not begin on January 25th. Throughout our administration, we have stressed to the Egyptians the importance of opening the political system by taking tangible steps, such as lifting the Emergency Law and allowing international monitors to supervise last year’s parliamentary elections. The Mubarak government chose not to heed these warnings, just as they did not realize the magnitude of the problem they faced on January 25th. From the outset of Egypt’s upheaval, we made clear that the United States cannot dictate how others run their societies, but we also emphasized our support for universal principles, including freedom of assembly, association, speech, and access to information. We stressed all along that the demonstrations should be peaceful—and so should the government’s response. As the President stressed repeatedly, “We don’t believe in violence and coercion as a way of maintaining control.” We encouraged inclusive negotiations between the government and a broad range of opposition and civil society figures, with the aim of supporting concrete reform and irreversible 2 political change. We expressed the belief that the best way for the government to demonstrate its commitment to reform was for it to articulate a timetable and roadmap to the constitutional and political changes needed, and to lift the Emergency Law. We have sustained a broad outreach to a diverse range of nongovernmental and governmental actors in Egypt to encourage a negotiated transition and made it clear we support principles, processes, and institution- building – not personalities. Now that Egypt enters a particularly delicate phase, we have committed to helping in any way we can. Specifically, we reassigned $150 million in assistance to support Egypt’s democratic transition and aid in its economic recovery. Despite the extraordinary budget difficulties facing our country, now is not the time to cut aid to Egypt. The stakes are simply too high. Egypt has long been a symbolic and practical leader of the Middle East. The region looks to Egypt and will continue to do so now more than ever as other people from Algeria to Yemen seek to assert their own rights, and other governments determine how to respond to growing citizen demands. If Egypt’s transition succeeds in establishing a truly representative and responsible government, it will establish a positive model for others and it will affect the whole Middle East. While we have been encouraged by its initial steps, Egypt, as the President has said, is just at the beginning of its transition. We have applauded the military’s professionalism and performance during the protests, choosing to safeguard the population at a time of great uncertainty. The Egyptian military has been a source of stability throughout this period, but it now has an enormous responsibility for which there are no courses in military academies: to supervise an orderly, safe, and credible transition back to civilian rule. The military has committed itself to undertaking such a transition, and we maintain excellent contacts with the military with whom our own armed forces have worked so closely for several decades. We are also encouraged that in two of their early communiqués, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces reaffirmed its commitment to abide by all regional and international treaties, including its peace with Israel. Maintaining that position will be critical for Egypt’s continued responsible leadership in the region and beyond—and that responsible, leading role is something we all clearly want to see. As I said earlier, the challenges facing Egypt are not unique. Over the last few weeks, demonstrations have occurred in Algeria, Bahrain, Iraq, Libya, Morocco, Yemen, and, also Iran. Each of these countries has particular circumstances, but if there is one lesson these governments should take away from Hosni Mubarak’s final days in office, it ought to be that repression does not pay.

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