America Has Taken Off the Hijab and has Thus Become "Saaferah" #Jan25 #Egypt #Mubarak Stephen Cook, Chairman of the American Council on Foreign Relations, a very powerful congressional committee that approves, disapproves charts and allocates the budget for all US foreign and strategic services such as State Department, CIA, NSA and all research think tanks on NPR: "The united States was betting on Mr. Mubarak because of past performance. We witnessed his past actions and recognized his ability to control the Egyptian people." "Mr. Mubarak was able to provide the United States concrete evidence of his ability to use our AID to Egypt in programs that have served US interests while maintaining a very stable regime for the State of Israel." "Mr. Mubarak's regime has been of tremendous value to our vital interests in the area. We supported him despite the excesses precisely because of the return value of this support." "Without Mr. Mubarak, Israel would have had to remain in full military mobilization for the past 30 years, and none of the achievements we have made in the area would have been possible." "Our continued support for Mr. Mubarak will depend on 1) his ability to maintain stability in his country and the region 2) his willingness to start effecting an evolutionary democratization to prevent a revolution and 3) to mollify the sort of significant grievances that we have seen in the streets of Egypt." "Secretary Clinton was reluctant to criticize Mr. Mubarak's harsh police treatment of the protesters precisely because this is a time to review our policy rather than make a harried decisions based on initial fear." "If we conclude that we cannot sustain Mr. Mubarak's regime we will change the course of our policy in the light of our conclusion. We did that in the case of Tunisia and we are prepared to take actions that best serve our interests in the area." "Our Friends in the area are providing the US with vital assistance, and will continue to do so because we share our values and strategic interests. The US action in the area, therefore, must take this power equation under advisement when charting our foreign policy."