As the world holds its breath to learn if the Egyptian people’s amazing struggle for democracy ends with a breakthrough or a bloodbath, President Hosni Mubarak would do well to consider the South Korea option.  Ultimately, Korea’s dictators and democracy were both winners.

Like Egyptians, South Koreans endured decades of American-backed dictatorship.  In the spring of 1987, Korea’s military government held sham elections not unlike the ones held in Egypt last November. However, in both places, a combination of repression and rising expectations proved a combustible mix. If the actual trigger for Egyptians was the sudden overthrow of Tunisia’s dictatorship last month, Koreans drew inspiration from the “People Power” overthrow of Ferdinand Marcos in the Philippines the year before. Indeed, “Marcos” became a code word for Korean reporters to describe their own dictatorship.

As in Cairo today, student-led demonstrations drew hundreds of thousands into the streets of Seoul 24 years ago. Like Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, Korea’s Christians played a supporting role at the outset. After weeks of clashes and tear gas, on June 29 the government announced that a free and fair direct presidential election would be held within six months. Given that almost exactly seven years earlier, the military unleashed a crackdown that killed over 200 citizens, the question we must ask is, what had changed?

When facing persistent social unrest, all dictators invariably undertake a cost-benefit analysis of cracking down versus opening up. In 1980, Korea’s coup leaders correctly determined that there would be little or no cost for killing. Indeed, within months of wiping the blood off of his hands, General-turned-President Chun Doo-hwan was one of President Ronald Reagan’s first foreign guests at the White House. Later that same year, Seoul was awarded the 1988 Summer Olympics.

China reached a similar conclusion in June of 1989. After two weeks of martial law, the butchers of Beijing calculated that firing on demonstrators in Tiananmen Square would be of great political benefit and little cost. Indeed, foreign investment actually increased in 1990 and exploded thereafter.

Far from incurring any costs, China and Korea’s dictators were rewarded for their bad behavior. For the United States, the price was much higher. A generation of Koreans became virulently anti-American because of our support for a hated regime. Can the U.S. afford such blowback in Egypt?

In Korea in 1987, by contrast, not only were the demonstrations much larger than in 1980, but the Reagan Administration was now insisting that the Chun regime begin the transition to democracy. More importantly, Korean military leaders revealed later that they had considered a crackdown, but feared losing the Olympics if they had turned the streets of Seoul red.

Many pundits have declared that the United Sates is a mere bystander to the struggle for democracy in Egypt, powerless to shape the outcome. This could not be further from the truth. Not only does the U.S. provide $1.3 billion a year in foreign aid (largely to the military no less), but the U.S. is also Egypt’s leading trade partner.

Since last Friday, the Obama Administration has only hinted that future U.S. assistance could be linked to the government’s behavior. If he has not already done so behind the scenes, President Obama must not waste a moment to make it clear to Mubarak that if the Egyptian army opens fire on innocent demonstrators, U.S. aid stops and sanctions begin. Thugs will prove unequal to the task of quashing the uprising. If Mubarak still decides to clamp down, then it is time to reevaluate all U.S. overseas assistance. If we cannot shape outcomes in the country that is our second leading aid recipient, then it is time to conduct our own cost-benefit analysis.

If President Mubarak has time to read to the end of the Korean case, he might even fully embrace the decision to open up. Largely free and fair elections were held in South Korea in December 1987 as scheduled, but due to a divided opposition, the military’s candidate (and a leader of the previous coup and crackdown no less) managed to win the election. We will never know if there would have been a military coup had one of the opposition candidates won. Once a civilian was elected president five years later, Chun and his successor did briefly spend time behind bars, but they are now living out their days as elder statesmen.

Korea’s transition to democracy was conservative and gradual, but democracy was the ultimate winner. Korean legislators may still favor fistfights over filibusters, but Korea is now the most vibrant democracy in Asia. It is not too late for Mubarak to start Egypt down that path.

I normally try to stay away from this stuff, but the latest Glenn Beck blaze of paranoia on Egypt is just too much of a train wreck to miss. In 12 terrifying minutes, Beck outlines the contours of a Middle East that is ON FIRE, and promises to devote the next several episodes to giving his viewers the whole TRUTH, the TRUTH that “has no agenda,” the TRUTH that the mainstream media doesn’t want to tell you.

“I’m not going to give you the two minute sound-byte,” teases Beck. “I’m not going to treat you like you’re a moron. I’m going to treat you like you really do want to understand what’s going on in the world.”

Okay, we all know he’s crazy. But what I keep trying to understand, every time I catch a glimpse of Beck, is why do 2.5 or 3 million people tune in to watch this guy every night? Clearly, he’s figured something out. And as amusing as it is to gawk at the loop-de-loops of insanity, there’s got to be some deep psychological nerves that he’s satisfying.

Let me offer three hypotheses:

1. The puzzle-solving boost. The neuroscientist V.S. Ramachandran writes that “we are hard-wired to love solving puzzles.” In particular, we seem to most enjoy solving puzzles with sudden flashes of insight, “Aha” moments that give us a little flash of positive good feeling. This probably explains the appeal of conspiracy theories generally. Everybody loves a good mystery. And Beck’s most disturbing moments are kind of like that: he throws a bunch of oddly-sized puzzle pieces on the floor, and then promises to show how they will all fit together in an instant “aha” moment. It’s like puzzle-solving porn.
2. The smarter than everyone else boost. What Beck is consciously doing is letting his viewers in on something exclusive, some privileged view of the world that allows them to feel superior to those who aren’t in the know. These are viewers who have probably spent much of their lives feeling intellectually insecure. But by providing a simple, secret explanation for what’s going on the world, Beck is peddling an ego boost.
3. Anxiety needs some respect. Beck’s rants are fear-driven, and in that respect they must resonate with a sense of unease that seems to be plaguing too many Americans these days. But this is especially dangerous. Risk expert David Ropeik writes that “when it comes to perceiving and responding to danger, human brains are hard-wired to fear first, and think later.” Beck’s rants are fear-driven, and once the fear part of the brain is activated, the logic part of the brain just doesn’t function as well.

So, add it up, and what Glenn Beck is offering millions of anxious viewers is a chance to validate their fears and then illogically salve them by providing the psychological high of solving a puzzle that allows them to feel superior by being privileged to some secret, exclusive knowledge.

I’m not sure what the antidote is, but I’m guessing it’s not simply marginalizing Beck for his craziness, fun and ego-boosting as that may be. I do sincerely believe that the conspiratorial fear-mongering that comes out of the Beck empire is a serious, serious problem for our society, but it also taps into some serious psychological needs out there. More to think about here.

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak’s bizarre and wandering late-night address to the nation on Friday is almost certainly the beginning of his end.  Mubarak’s tone-deaf offer to reshuffle his cabinet is a ham-fisted attempt to address the Egyptian protesters’ concerns that only underlines his weakened position.  Only one of two paths seems open for Mubarak: that he clings to power through a campaign of violent and bloody repression, or that he flees Cairo to enjoy a luxurious retirement in Switzerland or Saudi. Given the army’s restraint thus far, thankfully the latter seems more likely.

The Obama administration deserves real praise for standing on the right side of history. Secretary Clinton’s remarks on the weekend’s talk shows struck an unambiguous tone as she called for the Egyptian people to “have the chance to chart a new future. It needs to be an orderly, peaceful transition to real democracy, not faux democracy.” Even John Boehner has praised the administration’s handling of the situation.

Should Egypt soon find itself staring “real democracy” in the face, what is the Obama administration’s next move?  The White House would do well to re-read a piece Shadi Hamid wrote for PPI in late 2008, particularly these sections:

Elevate democracy promotion through aid conditionality. The perception that America stands opposed to democratic openings in the Middle East must be challenged head-on so that Arabs and Muslims will begin to feel that they—rather than foreign powers—hold the keys to change within their own societies. The United States can start by articulating a regionwide contract whereby foreign aid is made explicitly conditional on a set of benchmarks, including respect of opposition rights, freedom of expression, and progress toward holding free elections, even if only on the municipal level at first.

Engage political Islam. Democratization will likely further empower Islamists, a reality that the United States must come to terms with. In order to re-establish credibility on democracy promotion—and just as importantly, to show that we have no gripe with Islam—we need to engage in a sustained dialogue with all religiously-oriented parties as long as they fulfill the conditions of renouncing violence and committing themselves to the democratic process. A new administration must begin by stating as a matter of policy that the United States is not opposed to dealing with non-violent Islamist groups and has no problem with parties of a religious character coming to power through free elections.

This would be coupled with the initiation of a U.S.-Islamist “dialogue,” designed to explore areas of tension and misunderstanding. As trust develops, the discussion would move toward the question of how moderate Islamists can help us and how we can help them. In exchange for supporting the political participation of Islamist parties in their respective countries, America would seek to extract certain “concessions” in return, including guarantees that they would respect vital U.S. interests, including standing peace treaties with Israel.

Events over the last few weeks demand a reconsideration, if not a full-scale reevaluation of the wisdom of the Obama administration’s overall approach to democracy and human rights in the Middle East.

Facts are stubborn things, and the reality is that President Obama’s administration has now succeeded where President Bush never did. On his watch, Tunisia’s people rose up in protest over economic corruption and government repression and a dictator fled. The Arab world has a fighting chance at establishing its first true democracy.

At a minimum, those on the right who incessantly take credit wherever freedom blossoms need to grapple with that fact. But even more than that may be called for.

The Obama administration’s approach has not always been perfect, but it does appear, for the most part, rather consistent. And it does appear to have helped. It combines a steady rhetorical insistence on universal principles with an attempt, not always successful, to avoid lending its political support to either governments or protesters—betting on both and neither at the same time—event at times of crisis for regimes.

With events heating up in Egypt, the Obama Administration has done nothing to impede—and in fact has amplified—Egyptians’ calls for change.

With regard to events in Tunisia, Clinton was even more direct. Just days before Ben Ali fled the country, with his government grasping for support, she refused to throw him a rope, telling Al Arabiya: “We are not taking sides.”

Most importantly, the Obama administration has called on the governments of Egypt and Tunisia to respect the rights of peaceful protesters and to refrain from violence. This is by far the most valuable stance the U.S. can take in this moment of instability. An Tiananmen-style crackdown in Cairo’s Tahrir Square would have devastating consequences for Egyptians and Americans alike.

The toughest part has yet to come: Todays’s protests in Egypt are likely to be larger than the ones on Tuesday, and Tunisia has yet to consolidate anything resembling a democratic government. But so far, we have to commend the Obama administration’s approach to both Tunisia and Egypt.

With Tunisia calming down, it is worth reflecting on what the events might mean for us here in the good ol’ US of A.

The first point is that the Obama administration struck precisely the right balance between offering encouragement to the protesters and avoiding interfering in Tunisian internal matters. It is not quite true, as Andrew Sullivan implies, that Obama said nothing about the upheaval. The President released a statement saying he applauds Tunisians’ strength and dignity in standing up to corruption, an important comment that showed that America would not block the will of the Tunisian people. Nationalism is a powerful force in the modern world, and opposing it in now Tunisia would be a disastrous decision.

But neither is it true that the administration inserted itself into the equation, the way Abe Greenwald and others wanted it to. The Obama-ites kept their profile deliberately low, wary of making American support the issue that could be blamed for fomenting the revolution in a part of the world deeply suspicious of U.S. intervention. Unlike Greenwald et al., the administration understands that Tunisians hardly need the assent of an American president before bravely taking, or continuing, action. If anything, Tunisians would be wary of interference from a U.S. president that had praised the strong relations between the nations.

Second, the fact that America let an Arab dictator it supported fall will not go unnoticed. One of Al Qaeda’s major grievances with the U.S. is that America supports autocratic, corrupt, “un-Islamic” regimes like Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Jordan. In the 1990s, senior Al Qaeda members, including Osama bin Laden, became (wrongly) convinced that it was U.S. power that was allowing these regimes to remain in power. As scholar Fawaz A. Gerges writes in his essential book The Far Enemy, bin Laden “considered Saudi Arabia an occupied country and its regime incapable of forcing the Americans out.” Gerges continues: “[H]e declared war on the United States, not on Saudi Arabia, because, as he told his cohorts, once the United States is expelled from the area, its local clients would fall like ripened fruits.” For Al Qaeda deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri the country in question was Egypt, but the logic was the same. The “near enemy” was propped up by “the far enemy,” America.

It will therefore be of great interest to Arabs and Muslims—and hardly just Al-Qaeda—that in fact America does not unconditionally support local despots. Should regime opponents emerge that are not inimical to American interests, the U.S. will not eternally stand in their way.

The real question is what lesson will be taken away from this. Will it be that America is in fact not behind the region’s many woes, that the U.S. is not the far enemy? Or rather, conversely, will it be that the U.S. will support tyrants until the Arab people rise up and cast them off? The two are not mutually exclusive, of course. One can imagine both becoming internalized by Middle Easterners in the coming days.

China’s President Hu is winging his way to DC as I type, set to dine with President Obama this evening.  The summit will be an interesting mix of symbolism and substance — most summits share elements of both, of course, because the two sides are usually equally interested in the wonkery and pageantry.  This time, not so — the substance and symbolism are bifurcated. China values the image of a proper reception on the world’s stage, while the U.S. is more interested in taking a hard line, discussing military ties, North Korea, human rights, currency revaluation and the like.

PPI has churned out a fair bit of China-related material in the last several months, and if you’re trying to read up on everything China-related during the summit, here’s a good guide to set you on the right path:

1.  In December, PPI hosted a forum on US-China relations, featuring Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE), Asst SecDef for Asia Chip Gregson, plus James Fallows, Joseph S. Nye Jr., and Mike Chase (see below).  We were trying to get at the question of balance in dealing with China’s rise — emphasizing cooperation where we can, being aggressive when we must, while properly understanding the limits of China’s power. As Nye put it during the panel:

There is a rise in Chinese power, but it’s a mistake to over-estimate it. The size of China’s economy and our economy may be equal in size by 2030, but they will not be equal in composition, and per capita income will only be 1/3 of our per capita income.

You can watch the CSPAN coverage here.

2.  Naval War College professor and PPI author Michael Chase has written three memos on the Chinese military, which you can read here (on China’s military budget), here (on its anti access and area denial strategy), and here (on its growing naval capacities).  Here’s his basic conclusion:

In short, the U.S. will need to strengthen its ties to key countries in East Asia and develop strategic and tactical military concepts and capabilities that would allow it to counter China’s growing military power. Meanwhile, U.S. policy makers must seek collaboration with the Chinese military in an effort to highlight the benefits of being a global stakeholder to Beijing.

3.  Finally, yours truly has penned a series of China-related posts in the last few months, on issues like North Korea, Chinese soft power (or lack thereof), and open-seas sovereignty issues.

Even though there seem to be a thousand pressing issues, here’s an overarching one that could could have grave implications in years to come:

Sino-American tensions in military relations are nothing new, but Secretary Gates’ trip continues to expose a fascinating—and potentially dangerous—rift inside the Chinese bureaucracy: the lack of communication between Beijing’s military and civilian leaders.

This week, China unveiled the J-20, its first and only stealth fighter.  China’s bizarre choice of this week—during Gates’ visit—to flex its newfound military muscles by test-flying the J-20 for the first time. When Gates signaled to President Hu that the test flight was unnecessarily provocative, Hu replied that it had “absolutely nothing to do” with Gates’ visit. Pointedly, Gates acknowledged his concern about the Chinese military acting independently of the political leadership, a problem that could in a worst-case scenario lead to unauthorized military action against, for example, Taiwan.

Getting China’s leaders to communicate with one another is well-outside the Obama administration’s powers, of course, but continuing to press Beijing’s political leadership on the issue is a good start.