Last November, senior government officials held a ceremony in Egypt’s Tahrir Square, unveiling a monument to the revolution’s martyrs. The monument was simple, though its significance was not. It consisted of a stone pedestal on a circular base in the center of Tahrir Square. A military band played. At a brief unveiling ceremony that morning, Egypt’s interim Prime Minister Hazem el-Beblawi said it was meant to honor “the martyrs of the January 25 and June 30 revolutions.”

The young people who led Egypt’s revolution two and a half years ago have been suspicious of the US for the simple reason that it supported former President Hosni Mubarak’s regime for 30 years. From the US perspective, President Barack Obama pivoted quickly from Mubarak to the people; but it did not look that way on Cairo’s streets. When the Muslim Brotherhood’s Mohamed Morsi was elected President in 2012, many Egyptians assumed that America must have supported him, because they could not imagine that the US would accept a result that it did not want.

Upon taking office, he... embraced political means like dialogue, respectful multilateralism, and the use of new media, suggesting that he felt the soft power to change minds, build legitimacy, and advance interests was the key element missing from the recent US approach to the world—and that he would quickly remedy that defect.

When the people rise up, there’s no guarantee they’ll succeed. Just ask a Burmese or an Iranian. Egypt’s revolution has a number of counts against it, the main one being the hollow core where Egyptian civil society ought to be.

Not much was needed; just some phrasing such as, “President Mubarak has served his country well, and ensuring peaceful transition to new leadership would continue that service.”

Not much was needed; just some phrasing such as, “President Mubarak has served his country well, and ensuring peaceful transition to new leadership would continue that service.”

If President Obama had said something like that, Hosni Mubarak would have been furious and probably ignored the advice, but Egyptians and others throughout the Arab world and beyond would have seen that for once the United States was not defending a dictator, but rather was standing on the side of democracy.

Egyptian opposition groups for years had targeted 2011 as the year they'd move to oust President Hosni Mubarak -- and US officials, although supportive, were "doubtful" of the unwritten plan's existence, a secret diplomatic cable shows.