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The people of Egypt should be trusted to choose their own leaders On one side are hundreds of thousands of Egyptians demanding fair elections; on the other side is an authoritarian president mobilising a bullying state apparatus against the crowd. Leaders of western democracies need not have hesitated over whom to support. To his partial credit, David Cameron expressed fairly promptly the view that Egyptians are entitled to political freedom. He also condemned repression by forces loyal to Hosni Mubarak. Less laudable is equivocation over the fate of the president himself. The moral imperative is clearly that he leave office immediately. But strategic considerations – the implications of a chaotic interregnum – have forced Mr Mubarak’s erstwhile western allies to hold back from publicly insisting on his exit. “Orderly transition” is the euphemism of choice. President Barack Obama has been similarly reticent, while coming under intense domestic pressure to direct the outcome of events in Cairo. Washington’s influence vastly outweighs London’s, but the same dilemmas are being pondered on both sides of the Atlantic. The choice is essentially between competing schools of foreign policy – pro-democracy idealism and strategic realpolitik. The idealists see events in Egypt, following similar turmoil in Tunisia, as the revolutionary spring after a long authoritarian winter during which economic and political development in the Arab world was frozen. Their preferred analogy is with the 1989 national uprisings in eastern Europe that tore down the Iron Curtain. By extension, the duty of the west is to embrace the popular revolt with unalloyed exuberance and consign Mr Mubarak to the dustbin of history. By contrast, the realpolitikers see events in Cairo as dangerous instability in a tricky part of the world where, crucially, radical Islam is a factor. In that analysis, the preferred comparison is with the Iranian revolution of 1979, when popular demands for democracy were hijacked by religious fanatics. Then Mr Mubarak looks like a secular leader and long-standing ally who should not be jettisoned to please a fickle mob – at least not in the absence of a clear alternative. It is easy enough to see why the US should want to hedge its bets. For as long as there was the possibility of Mr Mubarak prevailing over the protesters, Washington did not want to sabotage the relationship, not least since doing so would have repercussions for other alliances. Foreign policy hawks have been reminding Mr Obama of other Arab rulers – in Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Jordan, for example – who, for all their unpleasant domestic political arrangements, are useful in the global campaign against jihadi terrorism. These “strategic partners” would react badly to the US being seen to support or even foment grass-roots civil uprising. If, however, Mr Obama was seen to be propping up a despot in defiance of Egyptians’ democratic impulses, the US would lose any vestiges of moral authority it might have to influence the evolution of the post-Mubarak state. That would make it more likely that radical religious parties might capture the revolution. Meanwhile, there are practical obstacles to holding prompt parliamentary and presidential elections. Egypt’s constitution and administrative system are designed to preserve the existing regime. A poll that enabled Mr Mubarak’s party to reclaim its monopoly on power with a superficial imprimatur of democratic legitimacy would ill serve the people who have bravely insisted on a sweeping change. Western diplomats also fret that a hurried and disorderly election would benefit the ultra-conservative Muslim Brotherhood – active as an opposition force for many years – at the expense of the inexperienced, new secular civil protest leaders. Fear of the Brotherhood lies behind much western half-heartedness in welcoming the new era in Egyptian politics. That fear expresses most of all how little is known about strength of Islamist feeling on the streets. There is plenty in the Brotherhood’s past doctrines and rhetoric to cause alarm. It is an ideological relation to al-Qaida; the question of how distant cousins they are is fiercely debated by clerics and policy-makers alike. The more pertinent question is how relevant the organisation is to events unfolding in Cairo. It did not organise mass protests, nor has it dictated their demands. The crowds in Tahrir Square are clearly not the vanguard of some fanatical religious uprising. They are ordinary Egyptians who want a better life and are demanding the obvious political change – democracy – that will unlock other opportunities. They are in no hurry to replace a repressive secular regime with a repressive religious one. One of the defining features of western reaction to the abrupt upheaval in Egypt is sheer ignorance. The vast majority of diplomats, politicians and journalists failed to anticipate it and lack a sufficiently textured understanding of Egyptian society to forecast what might happen next. Western foreign policy has tended to treat the Arab world as a vast mass of potential recruits for jihad, best warehoused in authoritarian regimes, under rulers whose chief appeal lies in their lack of overt Islamist ideology and their appetite for military and intelligence co-operation. The events of the past few weeks demand an end to that approach. The policy of supporting governments that scorn democracy is a dead end. It makes a hypocrisy of western claims to support the aspirations of ordinary people. It alienates opposition movements, non-governmental organisations and civil society leaders who are the best hope for transition to more stable, plural politics in the region. A clear-sighted appraisal of western interests in the Middle East would reveal that the choice between the idealism and realpolitik is a false one. Putting trust in leaders such as Hosni Mubarak is not a mark of strategic caution, but a reckless gamble and a guarantee of future instability. Trusting people to choose their own leaders in free elections is also something of a gamble. But that approach has a better chance of preserving the west’s moral authority and retaining some popular goodwill in the Arab world. Those are far more reliable guarantors of stability and security. Egypt Hosni Mubarak Barack Obama David Cameron Islam guardian.co.uk