Canceling the upcoming military exercises with Egypt seems like a prudent and necessary move in light of the ridiculous and completely evil level of violence the generals just unleashed on pro-Morsi demonstrators. It’s mostly symbolic, of course, but circumstances call for some kind of symbol that we disapprove strongly with using snipers on political protestors.
This is the most fraught and difficult foreign policy environment I’ve seen since the last days of the Shah, and I was delivering newspapers on my bike back then. The only faction that might be considered good in Egypt right now is group that protested against the Morsi government’s heavy-handedness and asked the military to intervene. But look at the result.
Last year, it was the military’s refusal to fire on the protestors that forced Mubarak from power, but they have no compunction about shooting supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood. Armed and trained by, and allied with the United States, the Egyptian military’s actions reflect on us.
Yet, we don’t want theocratic forces to prevail in Egypt, either. What we want is political reconciliation, but that is looking impossible right now. Moreover, we don’t want to lose our influence in Egypt because it will be replaced either by Saudi, Russian, or Chinese influence. And there is the peace process that is currently going on between the Israelis and Palestinians to consider. And Egypt’s peace treaty with Israel which involves our ongoing military support for Egypt.
Without good options, it’s about management. And symbolism.
Well, if that’s the case, I would think that if EU and US representatives spent weeks and weeks and weeks begging Egypt not to shoot people, but then Egypt goes ahead and shoots hundreds and hundreds of people…maybe management is an issue? Containment seems broken.
I don’t disagree. But do you think breaking ties completely is going to make a happier result in Egypt, in the region, or for U.S. interests?
That’s a mighty big gamble, but it’s one we may have to make.
We’re in a bit of a lose-lose situation on this one – I don’t think there’s an outcome that doesn’t damage US interests in the region in the long run. If anything, the public perception of the Arab Spring was always a bit idealistic…and how we are seeing some serious sectarian divisions playing out across the region.
What a goddamn mess. I don’t think there’s any way we could have done anything better – it was always a complex situation – but hopefully this will discourage any further unnecessary adventures (namely the kind we had in Iraq) in the region.
The headlines from the Middles East are so bad it gave Netanyahu a hernia.
I think breaking ties is irrelevant to Egyptian considerations. I think pretty much anything is irrelevant to Egyptian considerations right now.
This feels like a fantasyland question. What good are all these close ties if this is what it gets you?
The coup regime has designated the Muslim Brotherhood an existential threat to a revitalized Egypt. The Brotherhood hung a big red banner out in the streets saying “Come and martyr us, motherfuckers!” The security forces obliged. The MB are quite plainly a bunch of fucking terrorists, committing religious hate crimes nationwide. And the police turned the whole country into a warzone for a day.
There’s no coming back from that. Who cares what the US says or does? So many screwups were made by so many actors at so many decision points that things are what they are.
Let them have their civil conflicts without our interference. Our interference is only going to cause another short lived compromise that will cause another conflict and another short lived compromise and so on. Butt out America. Allah will understand.
Don’t know if it’s worth pointing out, but it’s the police that are doing the killing. The army hasn’t been asked, and I have a feeling Sisi might be afraid to ask them because they might say no again. I’m very confident in Obama’s and Kerry’s judgment here.
That is an excellent point.
How many dead people would it take for you to lose confidence? 1000 dead in a day? 5000?
Who exactly is it you think instructed the MoI to “eradicate the terrorists” in broad daylight?
Michelle Obama and Rahm Emmanuel, obviously.
Everything that happens in Egypt – in the world, really – is caused by them.
You’re embarrassing yourself. Get it together.
Yeeeeah, posturing as someone who isn’t losing an argument doesn’t actually convince anyone that you aren’t losing the argument.
We aren’t having an argument. Rahm Emmanuel (???) is not an argument. You’re just defecating all over yourself to the apparent delight of whatever a yastryblyansky is.
Certainly wasn’t anybody under the rank of general. I didn’t mean to suggest that Sisi isn’t in the army but that the army itself is very complex. Mubarak was a general too, but the troops refused to support him in the end. As before they could be the key to a bearable outcome. The cops on the other hand have demonstrated that they are thugs many times.
Horrible as it is, there is nothing that the US can do. Or rather as in Syria almost anything the US can do is harmful. What I’m confident in is that Obama and Kerry recognize that.
Yes, that is an embarrassing brain fart on my part.
However, the military is giving the orders, not some police chief.
The military high command is giving the orders.
As we say in 2011, the military is not a monolith.
Which police? Interior Ministry or Military?
MOI.
A reader sends me this:
link
The bigger overhang is the Israel-Egypt peace treaty. If that were to be jeopardized, and that treaty was blown to pieces, I think we’d be getting ourselves entangled in a much bigger problem.
Very complicated.
And a lot of the equipment .. the Egyptians don’t, or can’t, even use.
How should Great Britain have responded to South Carolina firing on Ft. Sumpter in 1861?
They should have invaded NYC and claimed Cuba as its protectorate.
Declared war on Iran, obviously.
Not to justify the repression, but the Egyptian government and the Muslim Brotherhood have some history (per Wikipedia):
(Emphasis mine.)
here that the US can effectively influence, and I have very great doubt that we know what the answer is in any event.
The truth is no one knows how Islam and Democracy can be reconciled – it is decision out of our hands.
Best US Policy – avoid being perceived as the decision maker. The Egyptians have to own their own future whatever that means.
Our country’s credibility, except in the realm of military force, is pretty well done in, for now. Cancelling a joint military exercise is largely symbolic, I agree, but it’s really about all we can do.
As far as doing anything that aids Egyptian self-determination, we are better served as fladem notes as avoiding being perceived as the decision maker, and I’d go even further and say the U.S. needs to avoid being perceived as heavily influential in whatever outcome eventually materializes. The major complicators are that other countries aren’t similarly constrained, but the fault for our own hands being tied is our own.
We have a lot of non-military, non-violent work to do. But I don’t think the power structure in our country has the discipline to do it.
is because the reconciliation of Islam and Democracy is unknown. That isn’t our fault. The point is that it is nothing we should try to force or influence.
“The reconciliation of Islam and Democracy is unknown.” It seems to me the Egyptians had a free and fair election the installed President Morsi, but the result (like the election in Palestine that installed a Hamas ruling party) wasn’t to our (that is, the United States) liking. A chance one takes dealing with the messy business of democracy, but one which we don’t have much patience for.
Right now, the U.S. seems content to let the situation in Egypt play itself out, cynically playing semantic games over whether a coup is occuring or not. But if a popularly-elected regime is overthrown, the result will be a self-installed dictatorship that doesn’t enjoy the support of the majority of the people. Will we once again sacrifice a nation’s right to self-determination in exchange for the “stability” of a dictator? It’s quite disturbing.
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IMO: Egypt’s Revolution has failed, path to democracy longer and bloodier than expected. From before
the July 3rd military coup d’etat, or so you will the 2nd people’s revolution …
Egypt, Syria and parts of the world are on fire, can we locate Barack Obama .. on a golf course like Ike, perhaps on a ranch in Midland Texas, well you are close – President and First Lady honor George and Laura Bush in Tanzania.
My diary – Clapper Caught In Blatant Lie, Where’s Obama?
Juan Cole’s take: Egypt’s Transition Has Failed: New Age of Military Dictatorship in Wake of Massacre [August 15, 2013]
So Obama is faced with massive Sunni/Shia violence in Iraq, instability in Tunisia and Libya, retaliatory bombing against Hezbollah in Beirut and a root cause for sectarian violence in the Middle-East: differences between the regional power brokers the GCC states and Turkey. Perhaps Mubarak’s judgement was right when he told Bush: “Invasion of Iraq will open Pandora’s Box.” Obama too fails to heed good advice from leadership in Arab nations. In his National Security team there seems to be a disconnect with reality on the ground what moves the masses. Indeed, very similar to the period when the Shah of Iran was removed by a revolt.
None of what is happening in the ME is entirely our doing nor in our ability to control. Obama is not responsible for Egypt or Syria. We can try to minimize the damage but we are bystanders reacting like everyone else. Obama can go on playing golf because this will play out with or without him.
what the fuck Obama playing golf has to do with this? It’s an absurd attack – worthy of Fox News.
What advice is he not listening to? What solution can the US possibly effect?
Frankly, I would rather my president try to figure out how to pitch over a sand trap than get bogged down in these problems which he cannot fix, and which he did not create.
WTF If you don’t care to read my post/links don’t comment. It was Ike who liked the golf course. That’s no secret.
I’m no fan of Obama on foreign policy, especially the four years of Ms Clinton. Just weighing the results. Perhaps Obama should spend less time on whistleblowers, NSA spying and harassing investigative journalists. Criticising Obama puts me in the class of Fox News? Who is the idiot … just so sad.
See TarheelDem’s post below, telling as it is.
Ike had a classy approach to Egypt and Israel too. More anticolonial that Obama could ever hope to be.
More anticolonial that Obama could ever hope to be.
Ike ordered the coups in Honduras and Iran, as well as the Bay of Pigs.
He was an admirable President and person in many ways, but he was a man of his Cold War era, and certainly no anti-colonialist.
Just shoot me. I guess I thought he was golfing when they installed the Shah.
In your defense, his handling of the Suez Crisis was extraordinary.
Obviously that’s what I was thinking of. Vietnam could have been better though we know how much worse it could have been, because that’s how much worse it was going to be.
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Nothing new, a process that can be predicted how government, power and society works.
Revolution and Counter-Revolution or Germany in 1848.
What shocks me everytime with genocides – Vietnam – Cambodja – Nigeria/Biafra (and now Syria), is how the establishment of colonial nations, secret service, mercenaries and arms transports, manage to pull off covert action and dupe democracies, voters and nations. The cost in human lives is high, people in power seem to be immune for the suffering. As Gen. De Gaulle in the Foccart network of African Nations simply said: “Go for It.”
Cross-posted from my diary – Egypt’s Human Toll Rises Above 525 Killed.
because 1848 is just like Egypt.
Except it isn’t.
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If you have no idea about the writings of Karl Marx, don’t feel bad.
I never read him during the three degrees I received.
Your mind is stuck in the past. The people put the military in power, idiot.
You can disagree with Oui as much as you want, but if you think he’s an idiot this may not be the right website for you.
Oui is consistently wrong in a manner that only a smart, carefully-informed person can be.
Joe and I have consistently disagreed, I would like to keep it that way. 🙂
My ambition to prove that you’re both right in some weird-ass sense.
Interesting observation.
Some folks needing a big huge crisis to divert attention and return to a trend additional spending on the national security state.
The national interest of ordinary people in the US is what it has always been — peace and prosperity. Seeking to preserve US influence in countries at the cost of peace and prosperity has been the story of the past generation of American foreign policy.
Letting the military and intelligence community drive the goals of American foreign policy has been a mistake for a much longer time.
After four and a half years, Mr. Obama’s unenviable situation is partially self-created. And like it or not the Gordian knot in the Middle East situation is Israel. And the sword of Damocles over US interests is Saudi Arabia. In both cases, “we built that”.
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Excellent post, I fully agree. The US has had a hand in the Middle-East for decades and bears direct responsibility for the Syrian civil war. The overthrow of Assad was a priority vis-a-vis Israel and Iran.
Also in the period of the Shah in Persia: Salazar in Portugal, Franco in Spain, military junta in Greece (till 1974) and a coup d’état in Turkey (1980). Foreign policy has never been easy, but always challenging. Obama is batting 0.200 on average.
Colonial states in Africa in search for independence and democracy. An eyeopener, documentary by Al Jazeera – President De Gaulle, West-Africa and the Foccart network. How the establishment of colonial nations, secret service, mercenaries and arms transports, manage to pull off covert action and dupe democracies, voters and nations.
I’m still saddened by the loss of UN Secretary General Dag Hammarskjold in a suspicious plane crash en route to the Congo. After his death, he was lauded by US President John F Kennedy as the “greatest statesman of our century”. He was a man with a vision of the UN as a “dynamic instrument” organising the world community, a protector of small nations, independent of the major powers, acting only in the interests of peace.
Also :
Israel is also why we can’t cut off Egyptian funding, yes? So Egypt continues to observe treaty obligations and keeps the Sinai border under control. That’s not Obama’s fault. And it’s not even just subservience to Aipac that keeps us so tied up, it’s also terror of Netanyahu’s irresponsibility.
One of the cultural casualties of the disorder in Egypt.
Mallawi Museum List of Stolen Objects
Hundreds reported killed as Egypt smashes protests. Its really a shame killing your own people what are they ddoing?
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