If either long term stability or genuine democracy were ever truly the concerns of Western powers in their interactions with the Middle East, then the next year will prove their foreign policy to be either fatally misguided or subtly and brilliantly executed.
Long-term stability, it should be acknowledged, can not be maintained by autocracy, theocracy or really even democracy; outside of a sufficient dissemination of pertinent information; and in supporting some of the most vaguely stable autocratic regimes in the region, Western powers have sacrificed to short term desire - or at least contributed to the obstruction of - the requisite social and political evolutionary processes that necessarily precede functional and stable democracy.
While lofty ideals and well-written speeches endeavour to paint foreign policy interactions with Arab nations as mutually beneficial (which for the states themselves, they no doubt are), the illusion of supporting freedom and justice has become increasingly opaque. Foreign policy is a discipline which is understandably (and even necessarily) self-concerned from a political standpoint and at the end of the day Arab votes don't elect American, British or French leaders.
But in perusing this notion of stability, whether out of concern for energy security or Israeli security or any one of a plethora of other regional concerns that all sit slightly higher up the list of priorities for state and foreign affairs departments that the welfare of Arab citizenry, it is becoming apparent that the nations in question might well have ignored a few key realities - realities which now look set to endanger future relations.
What's more, it appears that something vaguely ironic may have happened. In pursuing stability at the expense of democracy; empowering the suppression of ideas deemed unsavoury, the west may well have instead empowered the latter to occur far more organically and take root as an idea in the minds of Arabs far more sustainably than any Western strategist could ever have dreamed.
The Arab world at the moment is simultaneously rejecting an age of influence through dictatorship and embracing an age of democracy through influence. The result will be something wholly new.
Before January 2011 the US maintained a special kind of relationship with a number of Arab states in the Middle East, sold to the public on grounds that become shaky and difficult to hold when one criticises autocratic and theocratic repression with the one hand and gives out billions of dollars to Egypt and Saudi Arabia with the other.
The moral high ground, if it ever existed was abandoned in favour of other more pressing concerns and no one seems to remember where it was left, nor does anyone seem to acknowledge the immense and very real empowerment that it lends you when you truly have it and everyone else knows it.
Any semblance of international or local support for your actions as a state tends to evaporate in an environment where hypocrisy stands out so plainly. Where this comes back to haunt, is where it not only forments distaste in the politically explosive climate you are interacting with, but also inhibits your ability to use it as a bargaining chip, both locally and abroad.
There was never any doubt that these relationships were valuable to both parties, but in the changing political climate of the Middle East, it is to be expected that the relative value of a relationship may change. If, for example, the local and political value of veering away from close ties with the United States becomes greater than the material value of maintaining it, then we are likely to see some dramatic changes. Many commentators; comfortable with the notion that no Arab state in their right mind would turn down the amount of military and financial aid that Egypt receives have maintained that such a thing would never happen. How could it? Well, quite simply, the answer is that it ‘could’ happen if the politics changed and the politics are most certainly changing.
At the forefront of this change in politics is the perception of corruption and sovereignty. In Egypt, people had been watching their government's dealings with the US very intently for a long time. They knew they were part of a very large, very complex security blanket draped delicately over the Middle East, constantly being adjusted and re-pegged with military bases, aid money, diplomatic work, threats, compromises and the full range of back-door dealings. They knew their government didn't represent them. They knew the appealing language used on the international scene about supporting democracy, held no weight in a country where the US supported a military government, a dictator that had ruled for 30 years and a political environment where dissension gets you beaten, locked up or worse. They knew and many of them simply didn't care, or were at least resigned to the reality of their existence. "Egypt has always had a pharaoh" was a line often repeated in between flat smiles and maybe a laugh. This general cultural acknowledgement that 'representing the people' is something which governments just don't do, is one of the reasons why, contrary to popular Western belief, citizens in the Arab world generally don't have a problem with Americans or Europeans as people. They see the contrast between a state and its people all too clearly.
But then, in the beginning of 2011, the political status quo began to change, fast.
After overcoming the entrenched psychological barriers, inherent in any nation where finger-men, secret police and information ministries can have you bundled up in the middle of the night and hauled away for nothing more than a satirical jab at the man in charge, people got a taste for making themselves heard.
All across the region, swathes of people who had never known political freedom began to insist and continue insisting that, contrary to what they are told daily on the television and in newspapers detailing how dangerous they are to themselves and everyone else, they are indeed capable of running their own country.
Perhaps the constant finger-wagging and the assertions of their respective regimes that they represent a danger to themselves, are unjustified and the actions taken to 'keep them safe' are unjustifiable.
Aiding this groundswell of political action in Egypt and other states was the intense and eminently justifiable belief that their country was no longer their own. This perception is not solely targeted at the West either, with large portions of society regarding Iran (for the Sunni) or Saudi Arabia (for the liberals) as puppet masters malevolently manipulating the religious and therefore social and cultural environment of their nations.
The ceaseless tinkering of foreign powers amid efforts to stabilise the Middle East had created a popular, perspective which existed in a completely different dimension from the actions of the state.
It would be fair to say that the public perspective in Egypt at this moment does not gear itself well towards a particularly stable Middle East, but this lies slightly beyond the point. An acute awareness of the lack of sovereignty was prevalent in Egyptian society, the machinations of which might serve to suppress extremism over the short term, but invariably polarise and empower it over the long term, as has been the case with organisations that devote so much time and resources (healthcare, education, etc) to the concerns of the people such as the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Hezbollah in Lebanon and the AKP in Turkey.
Whether or not the end result of the Arab quest for representation is a more or less stable region, the almost complete lack of representation and the perception that foreign powers perpetuated the oppression has contributed to the overwhelming demand for democracy.
Mr Hosni Mubarak, the precocious businessman that he is, in addition to being a member of the ruling military authority in Egypt, had fostered ever-increasing military and economic relations with the United States. Egyptian military modernisation over the last two decades has progressed in leaps and bounds to the point where Egypt now possesses a license to manufacture American M1 Abrams tanks locally and has a fleet of modern warplanes that approaches Israel, in not just numbers, but also technological sophistication. A fact which has had a very real impact on the way the two countries interact.
But the great leap forward in military expenditure and hardware, has not come without its cost. Financially, a reasonable sum of that cost has been the burden of the American taxpayer, as 1.3 billion US dollars was funnelled towards the Egyptian military in 2010 alone, while the cost for Egypt has been a steadily increasing dependence on said foreign aid. The dependence, however, is mutual. Egypt develops a military infrastructure and hierarchy which relies more and more on external support, while America depends on a costly status quo in the Middle East.
So what happens when a military autocracy, dependent on its relationship with foreign powers for hardware, development and the steady supply of tourists, has an uprising on its hands?
When the revolution began, one of the first illusions to be shattered for the Egyptian population was the idea that different branches of the government were somehow independent of the whole.
On the 28th of January, when the military rode into Tahrir Square, they were cheered and celebrated for saving the protesters from the police and central security forces.
As the months have wound on, it has become increasingly clear that the structure and functioning of the Egyptian state more closely resembles a single multi-limbed deity, offering bread, jobs, security and cigarettes with some hands while pulling triggers and locking cell doors with the others.
The military did not save the people from the police, although if the situation were to deteriorate dramatically, that might well change. At this point in the whole affair the SCAF (Supreme Council of the Armed Forces), was simply endeavouring to do what any power does in the same situation - foster a demand for their continued presence.
On the 28th of January 2011, the police were withdrawn altogether from the streets of Egypt, prisoners escaped and chaos took over. Clearly, the SCAF thought that this would make a difference and miraculously change everyone’s minds.
It didn't.
So while Col Gaddafi and Presidents Saleh and Assad, lacking the same critical or dependent relationship with the West and quite the same semblance of concern for international diplomacy, sent forces marching head first into the centre of town, with orders to punish anyone bent on dismantling their regimes, the military council was sitting around in Cairo, seriously weighing their options. They have things to lose here - the least of which being their ownership of 40 per cent of the economy - and they are going to lose something regardless of which path they choose. Reports emerged of orders given to shoot protesters. They were rarely acted upon. In the end, despite a solid attempt by the state to turn Egyptians against themselves, a practice with a long history of success, Mubarak himself was given his marching orders. The safest way forward was to give the protesters a victory, albeit a largely hollow one. A gesture would perhaps be a more appropriate description.
Nevertheless, the revolution happened and the leader was ousted and tied to his feet, trailing behind him through the sand, was a large piece of the American security blanket. The real victory was psychological, not the end of Mubarak, but the newfound faith that things could be changed. For as hard as the council may have tried, as much as they may have wanted to maintain the status quo, it has been deeply threatened by the resurgent idea that political action gets results, irrespective of whether those results actually brought anything tangible the first time around.
Yet, in winning this battle, the protesters had irreparably changed the game. The SCAF, now left with complete authority, was forced into weighing its options again. What was the next step forward for them? How would they continue to deal with the sizable portion of the population who remained unsatisfied and continued to protest week in and week out, demanding the military’s complete abdication of power?
The SCAF had successfully quenched the revolutionary thirst of a large number of people, people whose frustrations now turned back towards the protesters in Tahrir who they identified and continue to identify as troublemakers. Those in Tahrir baulked at the idea that any kind of real victory had been achieved, while the rest of the country seemed quite content to soak in the self-love and nationalism of the 'January revolution', as was seen a year later on the 25th of January 2012 - a celebration which was, in an additional twist of irony, reciprocated by the military establishment.
The year and the revolution wound on. The counter-revolutionary activity that did occur was more often psychological than physical (although this was punctuated by not irregular crackdowns and days of violence) and sought to implode rather than explode.
Sure, Mubarak was their man, but they had and have other men. Mubarak was replaceable. Elections are malleable. People are easily divided and conquered. For a nation whose sizable regional influence is these days leveraged in its diminutive self-reliance, the overriding priority was to avoid burning any bridges. Or at least it was. The relationship that Mubarak and his predecessors had maintained with the West had obviously been mutually beneficial for the states involved, but whilst American support for the oppressive Mubarak regime had empowered both states and tacitly approved of the oppression of the Egyptian people - constituting one in a series of policy ethical jumps the US has completed in recent decades - it also in some very strange way empowered the revolution to progress as it did. It gave the ruling establishment something else to think about and something else to lose. But as that bridge started to show signs of weakening, the options of the SCAF started to open up.
In the instance of Libya, Yemen, Syria and other less-than-fortunate nations in the region whose people have struggled and will no doubt go on struggling against violent opposition to their cause, the choices available to the ruling regimes had no such diplomatic constraints. The decision to fight the prospect of revolution with a bloody fist was a simple one. In Egypt however, the choice was difficult. And while Generals sat around discussing the finer points of statecraft, American policymakers and advisers were themselves huddled in circles, pondering the implications of the Arab Spring on the carefully crafted Middle East policy they depended on so much, seemingly oblivious to the irony that in betraying their marketed and less morally ambiguous mandate in favour of their political one, at the expense of democracy, democracy had been been given a much greater sense of motivation and potentially become the strong reactionary force long term success requires of it. How convenient.
Now, we find ourselves in a precarious situation. As is inevitable in the long-drawn-out reality of a revolution, relations deteriorate and the frustrations of all parties begin to have dangerous consequences. As pressure from Washington on the SCAF escalates (as it naturally should), relations deteriorate further. Silence would constitute public complicity with the actions of the military council, but speaking up weakens the bridge even further and as the bridge weakens the SCAF perceive themselves with less and less to lose and more and more viable solutions for 'dealing' with unrest.
The idea of 'foreign hands' has made a resurgence in state rhetoric recently. Early in the revolution, it was a term that was thrown about, but mainly with reference to the aforementioned Shia influences from Iran and Islamist influences from Saudi Arabia and elsewhere in the Middle East. The Mubarak regime would never have publicly reinforced the notion of American meddling, as it was the same meddling that helped them remain in power.
Today it is very plainly targeting the West. Earlier in the month 43 NGO workers, including 19 Americans were accused of illegally receiving foreign funds and were issued with a travel ban, preventing them from leaving the country. What the SCAF are really worried about however is the NGO's in question undermining military rule by aiding new political parties and promoting democracy, as is their mandate. The legitimacy of their operations, or lack thereof, comes from a complete lack of relevant processes for acquiring said legitimacy and the background levels of corruption that exist locally, rather than internationally.
Although a level of hypocrisy is again apparent in the West's indignance on the issue, as, were the situation reversed, there would most certainly be outcry, trials and probably accusations of terrorist activity. However, hypocrisy in this instance is not the exclusive purview of the US. Most NGO's in Egypt operate without the requisite seal of approval from the Egyptian government because it requires bribes to attain and generally never happens anyway. The government is certainly not going to legitimise pro-democracy groups in the middle of a democratic revolution.
Under Mubarak, all of this was ignored, as relations between the US and Egypt were of far greater importance, but now we are starting to see the effects of deterioration in that relationship. The latest in this series of events was the arrest of Australian freelance journalist Austin Mackell in the northern Egyptian town of Mahalla (famous for the April 6th movement and the labour protests in 2008). Austin and his companions, an American student Derek Ludovici and Egyptian translator Aliya Alwi, who were in Mahalla to conduct an interview with labour activist Kamal Al Fayoumi for the anniversary of Mubarak’s ousting, were originally escorted to the police station, under the auspices of protection, after being mobbed by folks feeding off the state-run rhetoric, which has for a long time now maintained that 'foreign hands' and 'spies' are behind the protests.
Upon reaching the police station, they were told that a report had been filed against them claiming they had been giving money to youths to incite protest and vandalism. After being held for 3 days, the trumped-up charges were dismissed because of inconsistent testimony and lack of evidence, but a large population remains convinced.
Austin and Derek have since been issued with the same travel bans as the NGO workers, while the interior ministry works to try and construct a new case against them. It seems at this point, that the ruling establishment is trying to fabricate some kind of grand conspiracy involving foreigners, in the hopes of legitimising their claims and painting the revolutionaries themselves as un-Egyptian. Many are taking it seriously as well, meaning that Austin and other foreigners in Egypt now exist in an environment where a significant portion of the population genuinely believes that it is their personal responsibility to identify and capture spies. A climate which will certainly do no favours for the already struggling tourism industry.
Politically, the ruling establishment is in an extremely delicate position. Now, in order to retain any form of traction with the public, they have to be seen as confronting corruption and violations of Egyptian sovereignty. They must be seen as opposing the very same behaviour that empowered them in the first place.
There is an inevitable trade-off here between relations with Egyptians and relations with everyone else. If Egypt is to be a country where the will of the people, rather than the will of outside forces, determines those in power, then foreign aid could indeed become a secondary priority.
Egypt is slipping away from the West. But where is it going? Recently, in an unprecedented move, the US announced that the 1.3 billion dollars in military aid Egypt receives each year is under real threat of being withheld. In and of itself, not necessarily a negative development, but the reaction from the SCAF and the Muslim Brotherhood alike, was less than inspiring. The reality is that it no longer seems to matter as much as it did. There is an increasing realisation in Washington and Cairo that the relationship between the two countries will not be the same again and while this results in a less invasive and less hypocritical position for the US State Department, it could ironically be far worse for Egyptians, who may begin to confront a military autocracy, more akin to that of Assad in Syria, beholden to no one.
The result could drive Egypt towards internal conflict at a level previously unseen or it could simply result in more independent policy and a greater Islamist influence on the future government. Perhaps once all is said and done, the nations involved will retain the belief that their relations are of overriding importance and continue to make political and policy concessions until something vaguely resembling a democracy emerges, with something vaguely resembling a satisfied and politically active populace.
One thing is certain however. The people of Egypt and the wider Middle East are demanding democracy because they want it, not because anyone else told them they should. And really, that's exactly the way it should be.