To say that U. S. policy baffles me is an enormous understatement. Can someone explain to me why, after years of supporting Mubarak’s authoritarian regime in Egypt when it lost the support of the Egyptian people, we withdrew our support to give it to the new Muslim Brotherhood government in Egypt which has now lost the support of the Egyptian people? What have we gained by supporting one authoritarian government after another?
They leave Israel alone. Besides, just how much does our support really mean? We werent going to land troops there. We keep giving them $3 billion a year so they won’t be mean to Israel, regardless who holds office. Beyond that, do you think the average Egyptian cares if we think someone is a swell guy?
Steve
Washington wants control. An authoritarian regime can deliver that; a democratic government is much less reliable and therefore unacceptable to the power elite.
@Ben Wolf
Washington wants control. …
For Cold Warriors and Security Hawks, stability is the goal. For liberal interventionists (including Neoconservatives), democracy, pink ponies, and rainbows are the goals. The scales are slowly falling from many people’s eyes.
There is no reason why the US cannot work with Morisi. You give him a taste of the potential aid, and you catch him on the “come back”. He may be a bastard, but he should be a US bastard.
What you say and what you do are not required to be the same. You use diplomacy to “paper over” the differences.
The Egyptian people judged Morsi’s reign by his economic performance in office. He failed, though, to economically lead his country, instead focusing on politics, gaining more power for himself, the Muslim Brotherhood, and ignoring collaboration with others that was promised during his campaign.
Consequently, the people turned on him, creating a bigger uprising than was seen in the recent ‘Arab Spring,’ disposing of the other dictator, Mubarak. Who knows where all this will lead. However, momentarily, at least, it is rather admirable to see people get the better of a government — one who is out of control in it’s zeal to establish more power over the people. When I think of our own circumstances, in light of the NSA, IRS, DOJ, and other foreign and domestic policy failures and debacles, I wonder when this country will wake up, demanding real transparency, leadership and economic growth, rather than the fake, incompetent, deceitful one we currently have, based on more on ideology, hope and change not for the better.
Interesting too, that all this is happening around the U.S.’s own Independence Day.
The idea that 3 billion dollars somehow buys us control in detail of Egypt is silly and naive. What it buys us is a limited degree of control over the military. But only limited.
If we can’t control a nation of 8 million like Israel where the population is basically friendly, how is it we’re going to control a nation of 80 million like Egypt when the population barely knows us and doesn’t like what they do know?
We withdrew backing from Mubarak when it was clear the mob had turned. We didn’t create the mob. Nor did we create this mob. Our policy is basically irrelevant. We are basically irrelevant except to the Egyptian army that needs spare parts for its toys.
@jan
… the Muslim Brotherhood …
This was NEVER a problem. Few of the pundits have any serious knowledge of world history. With a few exceptions, EVERYBODY can be co-0pted, and the exceptions are not relevant. In order to obtain power, you must compromise your beliefs, and once you have compromised your beliefs, you will continue to compromise them.
Consequently, the people turned on him, creating a bigger uprising than was seen in the recent ‘Arab Spring,’ disposing of the other dictator, Mubarak. …
They are now disposing of the democratically elected president, and he is being replaced by a dictator.
… Who knows where all this will lead. …
It will lead to where it was always going to – another autocratic government. It may be headed by a benevolent dictator, but it will be a dictator nonetheless.
@Tastybits, the army is reporting that it will appoint an interim president that will announce new elections, liberalize the Constitution, etc. We’ll see if that happens, but the fact that the army is saying this is an important indication that it does not believe it can rule Egypt without the legitimacy of popular consent. Change is coming. Interesting times, as the Chinese say.
@michael reynolds
The idea that 3 billion dollars somehow buys us control in detail of Egypt is silly and naive. What it buys us is a limited degree of control over the military. But only limited.
It is not about control. It is about influence. It is politics. No politician is controlled by his/her donors, but they are influenced the donors. You make them rich, and you “catch em’ on the come back”.
… when the population barely knows us and doesn’t like what they do know?
What they call you is irrelevant. Many of the countries that are publically “bad mouthing” the US are actually working with the US. This is the reason why Wikileaks and Snowdon are a major problem. When it becomes known that your “enemies” are secretly working with you, it makes them vulnerable. Vulnerable means unstable, and unstable is bad.
We withdrew backing from Mubarak when it was clear the mob had turned. We didn’t create the mob. …
The mob was created by the increasing prices of food and fuel due to shortages. The solution was to decrease the food and fuel prices by increasing the supply. This takes money. As you have noted, the US has pissed away one trillion dollars in Iraq, and it has purchased instability. It would have taken only a few billion dollars to purchase stability.
(NOTE: I am not willing to get into a partisan argument with you are anybody else. You all can fight amongst yourselves.)
@PD Shaw
… Change is coming. …
I expect a return to normalcy, and hopefully, this “democracy” nonsense is over.
People accustomed to living under autocratic rule tend to act like people living under autocratic rule. Nice suburban middle class people tend to act like nice suburban middle class people. This is not a value judgement. You can take the bear out of the woods, but he is still going to sh*t in the backyard.
I’m not all that excited about elections. They’re only meaningful, as we’re learning in Egypt, in the context of little things like the rule of law, civil rights, and the securing of the rights of minorities. I’m more interested in liberal democracy, more of less defined above, than I am in mobocracy which is what seems to be taking hold in Egypt.
I repeat the question in my post. Why are we supporting authoritarian governments? They can’t be bought for the pittance we’re willing to pay if at all, as Michael points out. The influence we purchase is small. And there is a cost: we lose the trust of people who actually believe in liberal democracy.
I honestly don’t know what our alternative would be. IMO we pay the Egyptian military so they’ll stay out of wars with Israel. That’s about it. So, mission accomplished.
Aside from a general moral preference for humane, liberal democracies, and our usual superpower preference for stability, what are we after in Egypt? What policies would cause that goal to come about? What does anyone think we could have done in the real world to bring about a different outcome?
We backed Mubarak and nagged him to respect human rights, etc… Didn’t work. We recognized Morsi and nagged him to be more open-minded. Didn’t work. Now we’ll nag the new government to respect human rights, etc… Probably won’t work.
Then we’ll give them another 3 billion dollars to protect Israel’s southern flank, which will work largely because the alternative is an ass-kicking from Israel.
Am I missing something?
I question the question, I don’t believe that we’re supporting authoritarian governments. We gave money to Egypt to incentivize peace with Israel and promote steps towards democracy. The money went to economic development and military modernization, both of which I think provide a framework towards moving towards democracy. I think the rationale has probably morphed into humanitarian assistance; the country is an economic basketcase and almost all OECD countries are increasing aid to Egypt right now.
Because there really isn’t a choice. Egypt is not going to be a liberal democracy with stable institutions anytime soon. It’s actually trending in the opposite direction. Same with every country in the Persian/Arabian Gulf region.
Unfortunately, that isn’t what actually happened. Every year the State Department has waived the requirements that Congress placed on the money given to Egypt on national security grounds. Nothing specific to Obama. Bush did the same thing.
Andy:
I think the choices are actually somewhat broader. For example, the requirements imposed by Congress could be left in place. The grounds for waiving them given by the State Department, that the Egyptian government is cooperating with us on terrorism, ring hollow to me. To believe that what we’re paying the Egyptians is inducing them to compromise their own national interests just isn’t credible.
I think what’s actually happening is that we’re paying the Egyptians to do what they’d do anyway.
Dave,
For Egypt our interests are the Suez, the treaty with Israel, and non-interference with our policies elsewhere in the region. You’re right the cooperation on terrorism thing is hollow – IMO that’s just a lever to apply pressure to Egypt when necessary.
The problem with our policy is that Egypt is on an unsustainable path. It’s economy cannot keep up with population growth. A large population of unemployed, restless youth is a prescription for instability. I do not think Egypt’s problems are something that a weak democracy or a soft coup by the military can fix. To me Egypt looks a lot like Algeria in the late 1980’s / early 1990’s.
Given the coup, Congress has to vote again on whether to end financial aid. The army announced an agenda to restore a Constitutional, democratic order. Was that to assuage the Americans and other Western countries, was it to legitimize its action, or both?
Egypt’s population problem was twenty years ago. Now its fertility rate isn’t that much different from ours but the harm has already been done. The country can’t feed itself and there are no prospects for it doing so. Its only major source of foreign exchange is tourism and, with Islamist parties not just capturing the presidency but 1, 2, and 3, it doesn’t look very likely that the country will be able to exploit tourism as well as it might.
If anybody wanted them, young Egyptians could leave. Nobody wants them.
The most likely course is the traditional outlet: war. Civil war or going after those darned troublesome Ethiopians.
If we developed our own energy policy (which we seem capable of doing over the long run), there wouldn’t be as much of a need to play footsie with any ME government, unless we saw fit to do so.
The so-called coup was different than most in that the military doesn’t seem to want to take over the economic responsibilities of Egypt. It’s major aim, in doing away with Morsi, was to achieve some kind of populace stability, and hopefully to have someone else come to power who was capable of rebuilding Egypt’s economy. Morsi, was an Islamic ideologue, plain and simple, and hopefully only an interim place filler to show people in that counry who they don’t want in power. And, even though Morsi, was democraticlly elected, he didn’r rule that way…and, the people were aware enough to see through his polices, early on, so they could replace him with someone else.
I only wish Egypt lots of good will in establishing a government who will serve the people and not some tyrant-want-to–be.
Washington (in its own mind, at least) has annexed the Middle East and judges it U.S. territory. FDR set us on that path with his promise of security to the House of al-Saud. Jimmy Carter doubled down with his pronouncement of World War III if any “outside” power attempted to control the region. Hillary Clinton renwed commitment to it last year when she announced a permanent heavy American military presence there to prevent “outside” interference.
It’s the same thinking that went into Roman management of client states along the imperial periphery: keep a puppet in place to create the illusion of self-determination while exercising indirect control. The U.S. has overthrown many governments which refused to accept American dominance. What makes anyone here think that isn’t what’s happening now?
Somewhere in an early post of mine there’s a link and liberal quotes from a firsthand account of FDR’s meeting with Ibn Saud on his way back from meeting with Churchill and Stalin at Yalta, the first meeting of an American president with a Saudi king. It was written by our first diplomat to the kingdom, an interesting guy who, as it turns out, was my blog-friend John Burgess’s father-in-law. John’s a retired diplomat and has his own blog, the fine Crossroads Arabia.
To what purpose? So that they can ignore us and we cut them off? Aside from saving us a few billion dollars (not a bad thing) what does it accomplish?
We pay the Egyptians to not be a pain in the butt to Israel. They’re keeping their end of that deal.
I am not really sure what support we are giving Egypt other than the money we give them to not bother Israel. WHat other support are you thinking that we give them?
Steve
@steve
We give the Egyptians a great deal of technical support in monitoring the activities of their own people, lots of subsidized weapons transfers, food credit and diplomatic support.
Militarily Egypt is the continent’s 800 pound gorilla thanks to us.
There are all sorts of reasons. It’s the right thing to do. It’s the constitutional thing to do and, consequently, arguably the legal thing to do.
Doing the same thing as we say we’re going to do on a regular basis would strengthen our foreign policy position. Just to name a few.
BTW, we don’t pay the Egyptians so they won’t attack Israel. They won’t attack Israel whether we pay them or not. We pay them to give the regime domestic political cover for not attacking. Should we be giving domestic political cover to the Morsi regime? Or whatever is being put together to succeed it? I think we need to reserve judgment a bit more. That’s what present law requires but we’ll see.
Dave,
Is Egypt going to march the troops through Sudan to get there? If so, that will be quite something to watch!
@Ben- By report, Israel had asked that any support remain in effect. Worries about Morsi ending the peace treaty or interfering negatively in Gaza have not come to fruition, maybe partially because the aid was not cut.
Dave- Agree. An attack has always been unlikely. What we should say is that we are paying Egypt to not help groups that want to cross into Gaza/Israel and cause trouble.
Steve
I think Jan has the right of it. The US strategic interests in the ME are oil and the trade routes through the Suez Canal and the Strait of Hormuz. Egypt and Saudi Arabia are the linchpins.
Military aid to Egypt is meant to provide domestic security and protect the canal. The Egyptian military poses no threat to Israel. With the advent of precision munitions and overwhelming Israeli air superiority crossing Sinai with armored forces is impossible.
Recent advances in shale technology will lessen the importance of oil but the trade route through Suez will remain vital for our European allies and our potentially great friend, India.