Egypt diary: Obama's big foreign policy test

When President Obama appeared on American TV sets just before 7pm on Tuesday he talked about “difficult days ahead”. And he wasn’t just talking about difficult days in Egypt.

The last few days inside the White House have been the biggest foreign policy test this president has yet faced. As every time the administration had settled on a policy it was immediately overtaken by events on the ground.

On Friday 28 Jan Obama made his first public statement on the situation in Egypt. He said then that “the future of Egypt will be determined by the Egyptian people” but he didn’t say that Hosni Mubarak had to stand down. Urging him instead to take concrete steps to allow better democracy and greater economic opportunity.

As the White House juggled its obligations to their old friend Mubarak with their commitment to democracy they sounded as though they were a few steps behind the way events were moving on he streets in Egypt.

Saturday 29 Jan saw a two-hour meeting in the White House that included Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Thomas E Donilon the national security adviser, William Daly the White House chief of staff, and Leon Panetta the director of the CIA. Behind closed doors they started talking about how to ease Mubarak out.

Clinton suggested sending Frank Wisner, a former ambassador to Egypt, who knows Mr Mubarak well, to deliver a message directly from Mr Obama to the Egyptian leader. Only problem was they didn’t know what that message was. His flight took off from Andrews Air force base at 2pm on Sunday but he didn’t know then what he was meant to say when he got to Cairo. He talked with senior officials in Washington several times during the nearly 14-hour flight as they decided to tell the Egyptian president he had to promise not to run for re-election and to promise also that his son would not stand.

Meanwhile in Washington on Sunday, Hillary Clinton appeared live on five different TV channels to deliver the message that the United States wanted to see an “orderly transition”.

It was rapidly becoming clear Mubarak could not survive but “no one wanted it to seem as if we were pushing him out,” one administration official told the New York Times. “That would not serve American interests. It was important for President Mubarak to make the decision.”

On Monday morning, WH called in a dozen foreign policy experts from think tanks around Washington. “Apologies for the short notice in light of a very fluid situation,” the e-mail said.

Egypt revolt: pressure mounts on Obama

Inside the Roosevelt Room they talked about how to engage the Muslim Brotherhood and or what Obama called “non-secular” parties that form part of the opposition. The administration is desperate to avoid any perception that they are trying to decide who should take over in Egypt. But at the same time they can’t have people coming to power with whom they don’t have a relationship.

Throughout this time the very close ties between the Pentagon and the Egyptian military were being maintained. Sec of Defense Bob Gates and the head of the US military Admiral Mullen were on the phone to their Egyptian counterparts.

And it seems to have paid off. On Monday night, the military leadership in Egypt seemed to break with Mubarak announcing that the military respected the people’s legitimate demands and that it would not use force against peaceful demonstrators.

On Tuesday morning an op-ed by Senator John Kerry appeared in NYT calling explicitly for Mubarak to go. He is a senior voice on foreign policy and friend of the White House – did this signal a change in tone?

Apparently he wasn’t asked to write the piece by the WH but they were not upset with what he’d done. He was saying what they couldn’t. Not whilst Obama was on the phone all day to other autocratic Arab leaders who are worried they might be next, and want reassurance that the US won’t immediately abandon them as soon as a few thousand protestors hit their streets.

Later on Tuesday Obama spoke on the phone to Mubarak for 30 mins. His second call to Cairo since this crisis began. We don’t know if he was angry that Mubarak has only listened to half the message from Frank Wisner. In his TV statement on Tuesday evening Mubarak hadn’t promised that his son would not stand for election in September. But by then it was obvious that Mubarak couldn’t stay in office until September whatever promises he made.

So when Obama appeared on TV a few hours later on Tuesday night the language had moved. He didn’t say Mubarak had to stand down immediately but he did say an “orderly transition must be meaningful, it must be peaceful, and it must begin now”. The operative word being NOW.

Inside the White House on Wednesday they are watching their TV screens, trying to keep up with fast-moving events on the ground, and as the situation keeps changing trying to work out what to say next.