Praying for Egypt isn't enough

It always feels a bit odd to me to pray for justice in the world--better to work for
justice and to pray for the courage and wherewithal to keep at it. Of
course, I know that my power to effect change is relatively small, and I
believe that God's is infinite. So I pray for justice, even though mere
words seem too easy even as I'm saying them.

But
it's odder still to hear such a prayer from the most powerful person in
the world. Yesterday at the National Prayer Breakfast (an event of
dubious value, but that's another post), President Obama offered this:

We
pray that the violence in Egypt will end, and that the rights and
aspirations of the Egyptian people will be realized, and that a better
day will dawn over Egypt and throughout the world.

Hard to argue with that. But a prayer? Obama is singularly positioned to actually do something about this, by increasing pressure on Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak to step down immediately--under threat of cutting the rather massive military aid the U.S. sends Egypt's way.

If
Obama does end up taking a harder line on Mubarak, the political
pressure he'll be responding to won't necessarily be from his own
constituents. As Adam Serwer argues,
it'll be because it's clear that Mubarak's likely to lose power anyway.
Our foreign policy is idealistic in rhetoric but pragmatic in fact, and
it's always strategic to pick a winner. And, Serwer adds, while the
Obama administration can tell Mubarak to respect human rights,