Arabs Bristle at Bush's Agenda for Region - NYT

Earlier I had called Bush's State of the Union remarks on Egypt and Saudi Arabia exceedingly mild. Not everyone sees it that way. Some extracts:

"Reformers in Saudi Arabia planning for the country's first elections said his statements would undermine their credibility. 'This kind of talk is always frustrating,' said a Saudi commentator, Khalid al-Farm, head of the Arab Media Association and an independent observer for next week's elections. 'In essence he's saying the same thing we are, but all he's doing is putting the government and the reformers in a tight position.'
"'We certainly know the need for reform here and are working for it,' said Dr. Khalil Khalil, a professor at the Imam Muhammad bin Saud Islamic University who is widely regarded as a Saudi moderate.
"Dr. Khalil dismissed the call as pandering to domestic politics. 'It seems we know America very well, but America does not know us well. It needs to understand us better in order to find its appropriate role when it pushes these kinds of issues.'
....
"'These blunt American statements exert a kind of political and psychological pressure that backfires within segments of the Egyptian population because it makes the sincere demands of Egyptian activists and politicians seem like mere echoes of the American stand,' said Dr. Hassan Abou Taleb, editor in chief of The Arab Strategic Report published by the Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies.
"These are all intrinsic Egyptian demands that have been around for more than 25 years, not merely an echo of American calls in the past two years,' Dr. Taleb said."

As I said in my earlier post, the US has been on the wrong side of autocracy in Egypt and Saudi Arabia for too long. And it is certainly true that at this time those autocracies know that the US continues to not be willing to risk their destabilization. So reformers are best off brushing off the US for now. So be it.