On Thursday, President Obama declared access to social networks to be a "universal" value, right alongside freedom of speech. But when those networks helped weaken Egypt's Hosni Mubarak, one of the U.S.' strongest allies in the Middle East, the Obama team demanded Mubarak turn the Egyptian Internet back on – but didn't abandon support for him, either. Maybe this "Internet Freedom Agenda" wasn't so well thought out?

For more than a year, the White House has been pushing the idea that online connections are a good thing – no matter what's said using those tools. It's a way of signaling to wired people, not just governments, that the U.S. is on their side. The Obama administration called for Twitter to stay online during 2009 protests in Iran, and U.S. cash for new social networks like Pakistan's Humari Awaz and SMS relief webs for Haitian earthquake victims. "The very existence of social networks," State Department tech adviser Alec Ross said, "is a net good."

Now comes the test. The Internet Freedom Agenda may have just undermined an ugly pillar of the U.S.' Mideast strategy – supporting dictators – without doing much to aid the discontented millions that might replace it. While Obama tepidly calls on Mubarak to let people keep tweeting, Egyptian protesters may want the U.S. "to completely get out of the picture," as one told al-Jazeera. "Just cut aid to Mubarak immediately and withdraw backing from him, withdraw from all Middle Eastern bases, and stop supporting the state of Israel."

That's exactly what Mubarak never demanded – and why the U.S. fears what comes next. "The traditional debate is that we're willing to use these tyrants because they're useful," explains Marc Lynch, a George Washington University political scientist. "But if we continue to see developments like those we've seen over the last couple weeks, if they can't hold on to power, it doesn't matter if they're useful in counterterrorism."

Not that the U.S. did much to persuade Egyptian protesters it's on their side. The Obama team "could have come a lot stronger, prevented the Egyptian government from the crackdown on Internet communication, but they didn't," says Sherif Mansour from the human-rights group Freedom House. That makes Obama look either impotent or callous.

And it shows the Internet Freedom Agenda to be a dodge. The heart of the issue is whether the U.S. actually sides with the protests spreading around the Arab world – first Tunisia, now Egypt, and in Jordan and Yemen as well. Asking Mubarak to bring back the Internet pales in comparison to the annual $1.3 billion in U.S. military aid he receives.

"The Internet Freedom Agenda, to the extent it matters, it matters on the margin," says Lynch. "Those like Alec Ross, they were right analytically about how important the new media are for changing how the youth engage in politics... but it's part of a broader political context."

And if this conundrum looks bad in Egypt, it appears downright horrific in a place like Yemen, where the U.S. is fighting a shadow war against an al-Qaeda franchise with the backing of the dictator Ali Abdullah Saleh. "The obvious dilemma is if Saleh is overthrown we lose a partner in counterterrorism, just like we lost [Tunisian leader] Ben Ali, just like Mubarak," Lynch says. So will Obama side with Yemeni protesters, who might not want U.S. cruise missiles and commandos in their country?

Promoting Internet freedom doesn't answer that question. Al-Jazeera today quoted an analyst who noted that the Egyptian protesters have "moved from Facebook to... people-book." Social media, in other words, isn't enough to topple a government, but it is enough to weaken one. On the flip side, promoting social media while also supporting repressive governments empowers dissidents without giving them any reason to sympathize with U.S. interests. Who are you going to call when you need to launch a drone strike?

So far, the U.S. is trying to have it both ways. Obama's spokesman, Robert Gibbs, said Friday that Internet communication is in the "fundamental basket" of freedoms the U.S. supports. Yet after days of silence, Mubarak finally issued a statement on the protests – and indicated he has no intention of stepping down.

It's recalibration time for the Obama administration. Its posture so far isn't earning it much goodwill from the people who might take the place of the region's dictators, no matter how much the U.S. stands up for their right to tweet.

Photo: AP /Ben Curtis

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