A Step Backward in Cairo

Remember this statement by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in June 2005? It was made at the American University in Cairo, and for many people represented a fundamental American reassessment of past U.S. policy in the Middle East.

We should all look to a future when every government respects the will of its citizens—because the ideal of democracy is universal. For 60 years, my country, the United States, pursued stability at the expense of democracy in this region here in the Middle East– and we achieved neither. Now, we are taking a different course. We are supporting the democratic aspirations of all people.

Well, Rice is back in Cairo, and we might want to reassess that supposed reassessment.