show that idealism can have unpredictable costs...

Quote Originally Posted by Fuchs View Post
Mature citizens decide for themselves.
So do immature citizens. Both decide pretty much what they wish to decide and then look for evidence to support their position -- frequently ignoring dissenting voices.

Nothing new in that...
What the U.S. could do:
Support the opposition instead of dictatorships or at least drop the support for dictators.
A noble ideal. While I agree we can do that, getting the ponderous US government to shift gears is far more problematic than it seems to appear to many.

Supporting "the opposition" internally is a feature and a factor of the operation of the US government. Getting agreement on what course to follow is always messy, generally a lackluster compromise and will almost never satisfy most people. Thus we are condemned to a foreign policy that is, at best, strange. A big part of that has been that we for almost two centuries had so much wealth and relative power and so many built in strategic advantages that we could safely let US domestic politics rule our foreign (and economic) policy. Those days are gone but due to the excessive size of our government and its peculiar design, we are very slow at shifting focus. As I've said before, that's a feature, not a bug.

Whether that feature will work adequately well in the future is to be determined. I certainly do not know the answer but I can say that over many years, I've seen a lot of premature predictions of our fall or demise.
Do not supply arms. The point here is not so much that this will deprive them off arms (others will sell them), but it'll make the army less happy and thus more inclined to not support the dictator in a critical moment.
Idealistic statement and idea. Two problems with it. First, the arms are ancillary to dictatorships; their primary control is through intimidation of persons and / or the delivery of economic sufficiency.

Secondly, we've done that several time over the last Century, most notably and pointedly during the Carter years. What we discovered was that our the clients or customers would just turn to someone else and that the UK, France and Germany on one side and the USSR and China on the other were more than willing to fill the gap (and that remains true) -- thus, our industries lost production and sales and the net flow of arms was not changed in any significant degree. There is also the fact that in providing arms (and training) the US Armed Forces obtain some moderating influence on the local armed forces -- witness both Tunisia and Egypt today.
Yesterday, several well-known Republican faces have overtly supported Mubarak and disparaged the popular uprising as a 1979-style revolution that needs to fail. Meanwhile, the U.S. governments is not doing much of substance overtly.
Were they Republican faces or TV / Media pundit talking heads that lean Republican or right? I missed any politicians of any significance doing what you say -- though I did note that the Vice President, a Democrat, said Mubarak needed to stay.

The talking heads can be effectively ignored, the VP not so much.

Bob's World:
Now, when these "allies" are challenged by populaces who are acting very much in accordance with our express national principles we find ourselves in a massive conflict of interests.
True dat. Been that way since 1836 or thereabouts. Note that the conflicts almost always get worked out in a way that satisfies few but that is ordained by US domestic politics...
("We care about the people of Israel, not the people of Egypt") Why can't we care about both???
Affinity, I suspect...
We failed to reach out to the people of Iran and we did not work to establish a relationship with the new government.
As one who had served in Iran, had friends there and from there and was therefor paying attention at the time, that is a not totally true statement. We did reach out as best we were able given our ponderous nature and the reach was rejected -- not due to the oft stated 'Mossadegh affair' but simply due to ideology using the business of 1953 as an excuse. Check Bowden's "Guests of the Ayatollah" for just one of many sources.
Much of the current strain between the US and Iran is on the shoulders of the US and our policies toward Iran. In fact, the US can use how it changes its approaches to such situations with this Egyptian opportunity. Then leverage that to reach out and form a healthier relationship with Iran as well.
I very much agree with that. However the limitations of US domestic political intrusion and the correct and proper fear of the unknown results plus ideology that will reject US overtures will quite possibly not produce the results you seem to expect. Thus while it is quite easy for us -- You, Fuchs, myself and some others -- with no responsibility to say "we can do better..." it is far more difficult a decision and problematic effort for those that have the responsibility.
We have a chance to clear up this tremendous hypocrisy of conflicted US principles and policies in the Middle East, and I think we should make the most of it.
Again I agree. Again, having the responsibility to do that or not and the actual doing of it are not nearly as easy as writing about it...