To those of us who were pushing for change, it was clear that the cabinet-level principals were not. Time and again, Bob Gates, Hillary Clinton, and Mike Mullen would put forward the Egyptian government’s view—that the protests would die down; that things could be channeled into a “national dialogue”; that our policy should aim to revert to the status quo. This approach was being pushed hard by the Gulf States, chiefly Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), who feared this kind of unrest coming to their capitals.
