President Obama's Pointless Speech

Here is a clip of President Obama's short speech in regards to the Egyptian protests and his discussions with Hosni Mubarak:

In this talk, the President had to find a way to show US support for the protesters without making our other autocratic allies feel jilted and worried that our support for them would also come to an end soon. It should not be surprising then, with such contradictory goals, that the President appears to have failed in both regards.

Here are some notable quotes, highlighting the problems with supporting both sides:

"It is not the role of any other country to determine Egypt's leaders, only the Egyptian people can do that."
That's some great sentiment, but for the past 30 years, Mubarak was able to hold on to power in part due to American support. We knew he was rigging elections every 6 years and torturing and killing the opposition in between, but we supported him anyway. So while the President is right about the way things should be, that is not the way they are.

"Orderly transition... must begin now."
This would be great news if the President backed this up by calling on Mubarak to resign to allow this to happen. Since he did not and left the door open for him to oversee the transition, this will likely not satisfy the the protesters.

"[Any new government] must include a broad spectrum of voices and opposition parties."
This is great for Egypt, but not so good for our buddies in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Jordan, Morocco, Yemen... Each one of their rulers now has to reevaluate their relationships with the United States. Maybe this will get them to liberalize or reform their governments. Maybe not.

"We hear your voices."
But without calling on Mubarak to respect the will of the people, it remains to be seen if the Egyptians will believe this. This speech seems to say, "we hear your voices, but we're unwilling to do what is necessary to help."

Since President Obama had to please all sides, he was unable to please either one. Which begs the question: why did he bother making a speech at this time at all?