Egypt may be the land of the pyramids. But for the United States, these days it represents a landscape of boxes in which American policies and interests are trapped.

Former president Hosni Mubarak’s fall has opened up the political system for more Egyptians to reclaim control over their politics. Options for America, however, have narrowed — and the space available to advance US interests has shrunk considerably. Great powers don’t do well in these situations. Built up over time, their policies become entrenched and change ever so slowly (see Putin and Syria). And more than likely, American policy toward Egypt will evolve slowly or perhaps not very much at all. Given the anomalies and contradictions that characterize that policy, the change that does occur may not do much to boost US credibility in a region where it has little to start with.

Mubarak made it easy. There was one man, one policy, one address. For more than four decades, America hung its proverbial hat — support for the peace treaty with Israel, economic reform, cooperation against the region’s radicals, support for US security interests — on an Egyptian regime that promised stability (false though it proved to be) in exchange for acquiescence and support for authoritarian control.

No more. Washington is now stuck in a box — walled in on one side by anti-democratic generals whom it needs to maintain the treaty with Israel, and on the other by democratically elected Islamists, whose values are not its own and whom it doesn’t trust.