When Bush Caved to Egypt

by Matt Latimer Info

Matt Latimer is the author of the New York Times bestseller, SPEECH-LESS: Tales of a White House Survivor. He was deputy director of speechwriting for George W. Bush and chief speechwriter for Donald Rumsfeld.

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Obama isn’t the only president who struggled in dealing with Cairo’s dictator and longtime U.S. ally. Ex-Bush speechwriter Matt Latimer on how 43’s challenge to Mubarak got watered down.

President Obama is far from the first president attempting a tricky rhetorical pirouette with the dictator and his men in Cairo, who are under the impression that Americans need them more than they need us.  As the Obama administration considers its approach to the turmoil in Egypt, it might be wise to heed lessons from the approach its predecessor took. The Bush administration’s experience was not exactly a shining moment in the cause of human freedom.

George W. Bush prides himself on being the “dissidents’ president”—a man who has stood courageously to expand the frontiers of freedom across the world.  And indeed Bush—particularly early on in his administration—did undertake laudable efforts to aid the cause of dissidents and political prisoners, even taking opportunities to publicly call for their release.  But by the end of the administration, his rhetoric had softened notably. And the speechwriters learned that there were limits to how far we would go in that effort. It was easy for U.S. presidents to bash regimes with which America did not have productive relationships—easy marks like Iran, Syria, and Cuba.  But when it came to confronting dictatorships with which we shared common interests—China and Russia, for example—the language we used was more careful, our actions more forgiving. This was especially true in the Middle East, where Bush frequently castigated the human-rights abuses in Iran and Syria, but seldom shined a spotlight on Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, or Egypt.

Egypt was a particular concern for Bush.  Early in 2008, Bush told an assembly of the presidential speechwriting staff that the Mubarak regime was his biggest disappointment. Bush had hoped that the country, with its educated, productive populace, might lead the way for democratic reform in the Middle East, but a crusty apparatchik stood in the way. Nothing was likely to change in Egypt, Bush said, until Mubarak was gone.

Sympathetic reporters touted Bush’s speech as bold and brave. They had no idea that the Egyptians had cowed the most powerful nation in the world to go against their better instincts.

President Bush and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak arrive for a joint statement in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, Wednesday, Jan. 16, 2008. (Photo: Pablo Martinez Monsivais / AP Photo)

That year the president was scheduled to deliver remarks at the World Economic Forum in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, and I was assigned to draft his remarks. Knowing of his frustration and his sincere interest in freedom for the Middle East, I thought a historic "tear down this wall" opportunity beckoned—a chance for the “dissident president” to challenge a dictator on his own turf and put America decisively on the side of his restive people. This was the president, after all, who memorably called in his second inaugural for “ending tyranny in our world.”   

Alas, that is not how it turned out. 

The first problem was that Bush instructed us to clear any speech we delivered in Egypt with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Usually the ever-cautious stability-loving State Department is to good speechwriting what Carrot Top is to comedy. But Rice surprised. Maybe it was a temporary mood, but Rice was frustrated with Egypt and other regimes who she said were stalling in advancing reforms. “They’ve screwed it up,” she said. She urged us to write a speech with some “edge.”

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• Leslie H. Gelb: Beware Egypt’s Muslim BrotherhoodAnd so we did. To give the speech added credibility, instead of just admonishing the usual suspects, I inserted criticism of Saudi Arabia for the restrictions it placed on women—restrictions I knew Bush thought abhorrent. Noting that friendships required candor, Bush would go on to press Egypt to live up to its promises of political and economic reform, and warn of the consequences if they shirked them. We knew, as well as anyone, that the Egyptian people were not enamored with those who ruled them. “The change the people in the Middle East have been looking for is before us,” Bush would say. “The only question left to be asked by the leaders and intellectuals of this region, and in this room, is this: Will you be left behind by this change—or will you choose to lead it?” And then the great moment: Bush would stand in Egypt and call directly for Mubarak to send a message of “goodwill” to the world by ordering his guards to go to the prison where dissidents were held, open the door of the cell where his nemesis was held, and set free one of the world’s most famous political prisoners: Ayman Nour, an Egyptian reformer whose only real crime was to challenge Mubarak in a “free” presidential election. Previously Bush had irked the Egyptians by calling for Nour’s release, but his name was one of many in a long list of political prisoners from perhaps a dozen countries, and Bush had never called for his release while in Egypt. Egypt seemed especially vulnerable to American pressure on these matters, since its regime was dependent on billions of dollars in U.S. aid.