I gotta admit it. When it comes to Egypt, I am at a loss. I can’t game it out, even in theory. Every possible move seems wrong.
About The Author
BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
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Recent Comments
Lower your goals and expectations. You probably want too much and should aim for less.
It’s back to the old regime, pre-Arab Spring, with US complicity. Morsy blew it bigtime by acting if he had gained power that he hadn’t and by forcing a constitution that did not have the consent of a majority of Egyptians.
The best US move is to butt out and let the Egyptians sort it out. And move away from an oil and gas economy and armed forces as rapidly as possible.
Meanwhile, Israel is digging the hole deeper and the US is still buying shovels.
Morsy blew it bigtime by acting if he had gained power that he hadn’t and by forcing a constitution that did not have the consent of a majority of Egyptians.
I agree with this. The guy was a fucking idiot to tempt fate the way he did. He probably could have stayed in power had he tried to be President of “all Egyptians” like he promised at the outset. But he tried to turn the country into an Islamist state and fatally underestimated the depth of the popular and institutional resistance to this. We see the results before us now with hundreds dead in the streets.
What “US complicity” would that be?
The best US move is to butt out and let the Egyptians sort it out.
So, would cutting off the aid that’s been flowing for 35 years count as “butting out” or as doing something? Do you think any of the factions in Egypt would not consider it an action which sends a message?
How about maintaining the aid status quo that has been in place before, during, and after the Morsi government? Would that be doing nothing, or doing something?
Nobody advocating “butting out” ever seems able to answer that question, and I don’t blame them for that.
Well, I think it’s a bit hard to spin the continuation of US military aid as anything other than complicity. Cutting the aid is pretty far from doing nothing–it’s been status quo for decades–but there seems to be no rationale for continuing it.
I don’t think we should continue the aid, either.
But if the continuation of aid is an indication of complicity, then it’s probably worth taking note of the fact that we’re threatening that aid and canceling joint exercises and making public denunciations against the Sisi regime, while never having done that with the Morsi regime.
When I see someone talk about a government being overthrown “with US complicity,” that draws a certain picture (Honduras, Mossedegh, the attempt in Venezuela in 2002). That didn’t happen, and it is very misleading to suggest it did.
To say that the US should continue military aid is to say that the Egyptian military is running out of weapons and ammunition as the military aid is tied to purchase US military weapons and supplies. That doesn’t seem to be the case. Approaching $100 billion of military aid of 35 years should have positioned the Egyptian military to take care of itself. So materially IMO cutting aid does very little one way or the other. Continuing aid just increases already large stockpiles.
By butting out, I mean sending any American representatives of any kind to Egypt to consult with the Egyptian government about what they should be doing to handle this situation. Publicly asking Mubarak, Morsi, and al-Sisi for restraint was wise when people were in the streets peacefully protesting, but now one wonders what the private conversations between various parts of the US and Egyptian governments were.
At this point, there is no advice that the US can give that would be helpful to the resolution of this situation and the US should not presume to try.
The President has a law that he must obey that prevents sending aid to a government that conducted a coup. It is time for the President to obey that law because it is no longer ambiguous as to whether al-Sisi has conducted a military coup.
The President is at a political point at which he much show that he is not above the law. This is an excellent opportunity to do that.
To say that the US should continue military aid is to say that the Egyptian military is running out of weapons and ammunition as the military aid is tied to purchase US military weapons and supplies.
Untrue. We have been sending military aid to Egypt and its cast of governments for 35 years, and none of it had anything to do with the military running out of ammunition.
It is simply false to declare that not taking an unprecedented step against this particular regime is an indication of taking their side.
I don’t think you would be struggling with this point if we were talking about whether the US should cut off a decades-old aid relationship to a country that just elected a socialist.
The President has a law that he must obey that prevents sending aid to a government that conducted a coup. It is time for the President to obey that law because it is no longer ambiguous as to whether al-Sisi has conducted a military coup.
The law in question puts the judgment about whether a military coup has happened entirely in the hands of the President, and gives him no binding standards on making that judgment. I’m afraid you cannot simply throw down THE LAW as a trump card over judging the wisest course of action.
What MF stereotyping!!
I have no idea what that’s even supposed to mean.
Literally, I don’t know if you just accused my of stereotyping you, Egyptians, socialists, or what.
By all accounts, it seems like we’re going back to how it was when Mubarak was in power.
That’s not necessarily a bad thing in the short term for the U.S., speaking from a purely selfish standpoint, but the actions make any call we make for democracy look foolish and asinine. It will undoubtedly make it much more difficult to gain influence in the region, relative to Salafists or other theocrats who would turn the clocks back a millennium or two.
The US stopped making calls for democracy after the Occupy camps were dismantled.
Yeah, I love how Obama says “We do not attack peaceful protesters.”
Why yes, the hundreds of dead Occupy folks are a testament to that, seeing as how they were shot by federal troops.
Ask TarHeelDem what crime he committed to be arrested at gunpoint and held incommunicado. He was sleeping! Not even protesting, just planning to join a peaceful protest!
How can we ask him, when he was gunned down in the streets like a Muslim Brother in Cairo, which is exactly like the handling of Occupy protests?
Are you saying what happened to him was okay? If that’s what actually happened that damn well was an attack.
No, and I don’t think there is any plausible way an honest person can get to “okay” from what I wrote.
The comparison is fucking stupid. Pretending that the preceding sentence is the equivalent of “What happens to him is okay” is even more fucking stupid.
Yes, I am saying that.
And also, I love Saddam.
You should be really proud of yourself.
For calling you out on believing the comparison is illegitimate? You’d better believe I’m proud of it.
I do believe it.
That doesn’t reflect well on you, you know.
Back at ya.
Wasn’t that Bloomberg and the Mayor’s council or whatever it’s called that coordinated the crackdown on Occupy?
Aid to Egypt needs to end.
.
“Hegazy needs a million martyrs going forward to Al Quds”
You tell me about Egypt’s democracy, Muslim Brothers and the behavior of Salafist preacher Safwat Hegazy. Watch and listen for the hatred and incitement and from which political corner it comes. “It is either victory over the coup or martyrdom,” senior Brotherhood politician Mohammed El-Beltagy told the pro-Mursi rally. “Our blood and our souls for Islam!” the crowds chanted.
Egyptians who are supporter of the Tamarod or “rebel” movement are killed, police stations across Egypt were attacked with many deaths and for weeks/months the Coptic christians and churches were under siege.
The US can’t be a broker in Egypt, they don’t want meddling in their domestic affairs.
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/larison/cut-egypt-loose/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_c
ampaign=cut-egypt-loose
Larison agrees.
…
cut US military aid and the US tears up the Egypt-Israel Peace treaty. It’s not what John Kerry can use right now and the military have made the same calculation. The GCC states have already pledged $12bn in aid to the military regime of Egypt. All but Qatar of course.
“they don’t want meddling in their domestic affairs”
Maybe you can answer: would cutting off the aid that’s been flowing for three and a half decades – to Sadat, to Mubarak, to Morsi, and to Sisi (albeit with some threats) – couny as “meddling” or as “not meddling?”
.
Just treating friends as equal, a special relationship for peace in the Middle-East. Ms. Clinton had a different view on Syria and its people, figured a little rebel support would work out just fine. Not all dictators are equal, some are more equal than others. Also in Syria, the US is not “meddling”, just as the coup in Egypt is not a coup’d état. Human Rights is a matter of PR in the media and semantics. Please do not call it propaganda, any comparison to fascism is false.
You very flagrantly did not answer the question – just went off an little tear about some other, unrelated things that were on your mind.
I don’t blame you. It’s a hell of a question.
No wonder you decided to engage in PR and semantics. FASCISM!
Perhaps your complete inability to answer the question is something to keep in mind as watch the administration try to answer it – not as an intellectual exercise in a blog comment thread, but in actually formulating American foreign policy.
Marc Lynch has it right in his latest piece. http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/08/14/enough_is_enough_egypt_cairo_violence_obama_adminis
tration
We’re hated by all sides in Egypt and pretty much everything our politicians say on the subject does more harm than good. Stop meddling in Egypt for good or bad and let them sort it out. The appropriate thing to do would be to cut the aid. Egypt’s generals don’t feel they need it so much that they aren’t willing to crush all dissent with violence and make a mockery of the idea of democracy.
Truth is that neither the American people nor the Egyptians are well-served by the current deal so we should just kill it.
Cutting the aid is taking a side.
Seriously. Of course it is.
If you want to advocate for an aid cutoff to punish the generals, go right ahead, that’s a legitimate position to take.
But don’t pretend it would be an act of studious neutrality and inaction. It’s just as much of an act of meddling as, well, continuing the aid.
I would say that the eventual situation there if we do cut off aid would be an overthrow leading to a MB dominated regime that goes to war against Israel because there’s no leverage to stop them and better to do it now before the equipment degrades like the Iranian US made stuff.
Wonder how that would shake out these days.
I don’t like the Muslim Brotherhood, but I don’t see where this assumption that they’d go to war with Israel comes from.
Unfriendly relations is one thing, but nobody country is going to be attacking Israel any time soon.
Predicting that a country that has no nuclear weapons will attack a country that has them is always a dubious act.
It requires assuming that the Muslim Brotherhood are irrational actors, more like suicide bombers than like an ordinary right-wing government.
Maybe the MB’s Salafist frenemies would attack Israel if they came to power.
Yes. And that is exactly what they are calling for right now, for the people to attack the Army as suicide warriors and die for Islam. At least that’s what I heard on PBS, not Fox News.
I don’t mean a classic war, but a plausible deniability war more like Pakistan’s support for the Taliban and Al-Qaeda.
Also presumably, Israel throwing nukes around would not go over well with the rest of the world.
True. But if we all agree that what happened in Egypt is a coup then the law is pretty clear on what we should be doing with that aid.
The law puts the finding in the hands of the President, and doesn’t tell him what to find.
Legal niceties are probably the least important thing to worry about here.
may have been a coup by Morsi –
But if we all agree that what happened in Egypt is a coup then the law is pretty clear on what we should be doing with that aid.
Trivia question: who succeeded Hosni Mubarak as the head of the Egyptian government?
Answer: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohamed_Hussein_Tantawi
Who appointed him?
Answer: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supreme_Council_of_the_Armed_Forces
So, was the United States obligated to cut off aid in February 2011?
Whatever happens will be bad. Either the Army will keep control with immense bloodshed or Morsi will return to power to lead a jihad against Israel. I know many think the later is a good thing. I just say, “Shame on you. You repeat what we did in the 1920’s.” Militant Islam is bad. Militant Judaism is bad. Militant Christianity is bad. Militant Buddhism – is there such as thing? It would be bad as was Militant Shintoism. Until human beings forget about forcing their fantasies about mythical beings on others, atrocities will occur.
.
I was surprised too! Extremism Rises Among Myanmar Buddhists
OMG! It is possible!
You didn’t know? Buddhism is no more insulated against it than any other belief.
The BBS in Sri Lanka could be described as a militant Buddhist organization.
A secular nationalist Arab leader is just as likely to go to war with Israel as an Islamist.
The actual secular nationalists in power in Egypt are just as likely to go to war with Israel as the actual Islamists opposing them: that is, not at all likely.
Right, I wanted to challenge the assumption that only Islamists would want to fight a war against Israel. If you look at the history of modern Egypt it’s clear that this is not the case. I agree that war with Israel is not likely.
However, it is all too common for governments to redirect populist anger at a foreign enemy in the face of domestic unrest.
Oh, I’ll bet an MB government would spew Ahemdinejad-level rhetoric about Israel. No argument there.
Militant communists and militant capitalists have wrought atrocities as well, as a little party known as World War II will attest.
The best move: threaten an aid cutoff once the immediate emergency ends, unless there is a political solution between the two sides.
Support a non-military figure from the left/labor/youth faction (the side of the triangle that keeps being ignored in the reporting) as an interim leader.
Find some country that isn’t universally despised by all sides – that is, not us – willing to mediate. Act as that country’s bad cop.
This obviously insufficient proposal has the merit of “If you’ve got a better idea, I’m all ears.”
The problem is that the left is not organized, and I don’t know why. Seems to be a problem worldwide…
Organizations involve structures for exercising, and restraining, power.
The left doesn’t do power.
and that basically sums it up both here and abroad
It’s a big problem
I don’t think I’ve ever been as sickened by something I’ve read in the New York Times.