In general, I was impressed by President Obama's State of the Union speech last night. Others here—many more qualified than I—have commented and will continue to comment on various aspects (economic, electoral, et cetera) of the speech, but I would like to offer some thoughts on the two paragraphs of the SOTU addressing the wave of anti-authoritarian protest movements in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) referred to in short-hand as “the Arab Spring.”
Transcript and brief commentary follow, below the orange whazzit...
Excerpts via AP:
As the tide of war recedes, a wave of change has washed across the Middle East and North Africa, from Tunis to Cairo, from Sana'a to Tripoli. A year ago, Qadhafi was one of the world's longest-serving dictators— a murderer with American blood on his hands. Today, he is gone. And in Syria, I have no doubt that the Assad regime will soon discover that the forces of change can not be reversed, and that human dignity can not be denied.
[applause, pro forma standing ovation]
How this incredible transformation will end remains uncertain. But we have a huge stake in the outcome. And while it is ultimately up to the people of the region to decide their fate, we will advocate for those values that have served our own country so well. We will stand against violence and intimidation. We will stand for the rights and dignity of all human beings— men and women; Christians, Muslims, and Jews. We will support policies that lead to strong and stable democracies and open markets, because tyranny is no match for liberty.
Now, before I get into a discussion of these comments I must allow that the purpose of the State of the Union, irrespective of the specific President delivering the remarks and perhaps especially so in an election-year, is more style than substance, more a “mood piece” for popular consumption than a locus for nuanced presentation to wonks. On that general and impressionistic level, at the level of popular appeal and interest, the President's remarks on the Arab Spring likely hit the mark by noting 1) American opposition to dictators in MENA and their coercive rule and 2) the promotion of American values and institutions through the course of this “incredible” yet “uncertain” transformation.
That said, here we go with some brief commentary...
To my mind, these two paragraphs are exceptionally carefully crafted, intended to say neither too much nor too little. Given the momentous upheavals in MENA over the past year and given the wide media coverage of (a selection of, at any rate) the events and processes denoted as the Arab Spring, I believe that it would be almost impossible for the President to omit them altogether. Such mention, however, was deliberately and skillfully vague:
[A] wave of change has washed across the Middle East and North Africa, from Tunis to Cairo, from Sana'a to Tripoli.
This sentence is evocative rather than discursive, calling forth with “Tunis,” “Cairo,” “Sana'a” and “Tripoli” the unnamed names of deposed leaders: Ben Ali from Tunis, Mubarak from Cairo, Saleh from Sana'a and Qaddhafi from Tripoli. The different circumstances behind each leader's deposition are elided to an imprecise “wave of change.” Interestingly, the applications of American power in soft (Sana'a / Saleh) and hard (Tripoli / Qaddhafi) forms are not mentioned. Even in the following sentence noting Qaddhafi by name, the rôles of American diplomatic efforts and military intervention are buried deeply within the phrase “[t]oday, he is gone.”
If there is a key to interpreting President Obama's perspective on the Arab Spring, it is for me the first sentence of the second paragraph:
How this incredible transformation will end remains uncertain.
The President is quite properly framing the populist anti-authoritarian movements in MENA as a long-term process as distinct from an overnight success story. We are witnessing across the region, to varying degrees, only the beginnings of an undoubtedly lengthy transformation not only of institutions but of mentalities as individuals and groups renegotiate and redefine their relationships to the state and to civil society. There are no obviously valuative statements here to assess whether the President views these processes with optimism or pessimism or whether, as seems likely to me, his stance is a more judicious form of wait-and-see. This is not to imply indifference (“we have a huge stake in the outcome” obviously belies such an interpretation) but rather a measured statement of soft power exercised through advocacy and incentives, as much of the remainder of the second paragraph details.
If there is a flaw in the President's remarks here, it is in the final sentence of the second paragraph:
We will support policies that lead to strong and stable democracies and open markets, because tyranny is no match for liberty.
“Open markets” may seem uncontroversial to the majority of President Obama's audience but, as Juan Cole correctly points out, the negative socioeconomic effects of neoliberalism were, and remain, important issues at the heart of the protests.
Finally, it is interesting to me that the President did not laud or even note the elections in Tunisia or in Egypt which, independent of their outcomes, are significant moments in the emergence of democratizing institutions. It may be the case that mention of these elections was deemed unwise in order to limit the potential for distraction due to a) simplistic media coverage informing popular understanding of the electoral success of Islamist political parties (en-Nahda in Tunisia and the Freedom and Justice Party in Egypt) and b) the ridiculous “Obama is a crypto-Muslim” nonsense that he, and we, have had to deal with for years now.
In sum, the President's remarks on the Arab Spring in the State of the Union speech last night say more than their brevity might indicate. Others, of course, may parse his words in different ways...