Neglecting Egyptian Political Reform

In an op-ed in today's Washington Post, Michele Dunne of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace does a great job reminding us -- and, more importantly, Obama's White House -- of the need to resuscitate the push for more democracy and human rights in Egypt. She says Obama is mistaken to have set aside these concerns in the hope that doing so will win Egyptian support for other U.S. priorities -- namely, the peace process and Iranian nukes:

But Obama can have Mubarak's help without having to pay for it with his silence. Mubarak shares Washington's interests in preventing the emergence of a permanent Hamas state in Gaza, in promoting a peace agreement between Palestinians and Israel, and in containing Iranian nuclear ambitions. He will work toward those ends for his own reasons and cooperate with the United States accordingly -- as he did even at the height of the Bush administration's democracy promotion rhetoric in 2004 and 2005.