The Cairo Freedom Train Is Leaving the Station, Mr. Obama

The Day of Departure demonstration in Cairo is underway today and America is nowhere to be seen.
The marchers hope to convince Hosni Mubarak that his time is up and he should retire before he is pushed out. Egyptian vice president Suleiman spoke on Egyptian television last evening and his words were not comforting, to say the least. His analysis of the situation is that it was fomented by "foreign" and some Egyptian dissidents who want to undermine Mr. Mubarak's good work. Suleiman's comments about foreign media were soon matched by a government-led attack on CNN, BBC, El-Jazeera and others. Reporters have been beaten, detained, had their equipment confiscated or destroyed and threatened if they continue to report the unfolding events. This last autocratic effort is right in line with the prior shutdown of the internet and the interference with international television signals. The spectacle is crystalline in its affirmation of all that the world, and Egyptians in particular, see in the Mubarak dictatorship.
Not only journalists, but all foreigners are now being harassed in Cairo. This development is dangerous because it could be the precursor of an isolationist view of Egypt, led by Islamic fundamentalists such as the Muslim Brotherhood. The result could well be an Islamic republic much like that in Iran, against the wishes of the great majority of the Egyptian people.
While all this is happening and while events are quickly spinning out of control, President Obama and the White House are "considering" their options. American and British media continue to talk about America's problem in siding with the Egyptian freedom fighters because it would unsettle relations with other regional dictators who are engaged with America in the war of terrorism.
I can only say once more that the stakes go far beyond these regional allies. America is already an outsider in the Middle East because of our prolonged and destabilizing war in Iraq, because of our willingness to side with dictators in exchange for support for our military policies, and because we have not been able, in more than 40 years, to forge a real Israel-Palestine peace or even prevail on Israel to stop taunting Arabs by continuing its West Bank settlement policy.
Mr. Obama is not dealing with the United Nations or Europe here. He is not even dealing with North Korea. He is in the midst of a genuinely popular uprising against tyranny. The least he could do is speak up loud and clear and say that America supports the Egyptian freedom fighters and will protect them. Dithering is not the answer, nor is the preparation of white papers that will be outdated before they are written. It is time to act - act before we lose every last bit of credibility we have in the Middle East, dictators apart.   
Two thoughts keep circling in my head:
1. The 1956 Czech freedom fighters of the Spring of Prague waited and pleaded for America to help them. Help never came and they were brutally crushed. It took more than 30 years and Ronald Reagan to right the wrong.
2. China is ominously quiet vis-à-vis Egypt. Rightly so. The largest community of repressed people in the world is in China. Do they know what is happening in Egypt and are they encouraged by it?