Leave Egypt Alone

Marc Lynch at Foreign Policy:

With blood in Egypt’s streets and a return to a state of emergency, it’s time for Washington to stop pretending. Its efforts to maintain its lines of communication with the Egyptian military, quietly mediate the crisis, and help lay the groundwork for some new, democratic political process have utterly failed. Egypt’s new military regime, and a sizable and vocal portion of the Egyptian population, have made it very clear that they just want the United States to leave it alone. For once, Washington should give them their wish. As long as Egypt remains on its current path, the Obama administration should suspend all aid, keep the embassy in Cairo closed, and refrain from treating the military regime as a legitimate government.

Hundreds of people have been killed in the military’s latest assault on protest encampments and the ensuing clashes. The secular vice president, Mohamed ElBaradei, has resigned and the current ruler of the country, Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, has ousted the rest of the civilian government and appointed military generals as governors under a “state of emergency.”

Beyond our nefarious entangling alliances, there are more cons and pros in the Obama administration’s continued devotion to the Egyptian relationship – even from the imperial point of view.

“The sensible thing for the U.S. to do at this point would be to suspend aid to the Egyptian military,” writes Daniel Larison at The American Conservative. “It is long past time to suspend that aid in response to the July coup, and it is increasingly difficult to see what the U.S. gains from not doing so.”

This poster, held in the crowds just after the July 3 coup, sums it up fine:

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16 thoughts on “Leave Egypt Alone”

  1. Coup d'état and right on cue comes the junta. Good old fashioned paramilitary murder. A duly elected government for Egypt wasn't quite up to Amerikan standards and with a nudge nudge wink wink, Egypt's generals massacre Egyptian people and it's okay you see as, Muslim Brotherhood ranks right up there with Hamas and Hizbullah. Icky icky…

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  3. In oilee Indonesia65 2M Ikhwan were killed by OPEX to remove shariaa from office..In M$r13 who will take 2M Oilee bribedMubarak officials to Hell..indeed in Tansoro Allah SWT Yansrkum.

  4. Interesting…

    I'm still a little 'confused' as to why John McCain and Lindsey Graham are personally traveling to Egypt (in concert with Qatari and UAE foreign ministers along with an EU "envoy"), meeting with Muslim Brotherhood leaders, and recommending detained Muslim Brotherhood leaders immediately be released from prison as a preliminary step "to get back to the negotiating table".

    Why is Lindsey Graham making statements such as: "The people who are in charge were not elected. The people who were elected are in jail. The status quo is not acceptable."

    and…

    “In democracy, you sit down and talk to each other,…”it “is impossible to talk to somebody who is in jail.”

    http://www.latimes.com/news/world/worldnow/la-fg-

    Why is AW.C still conflating 'diplomatic' so-called "democracy building" with "non-intervention"…especially considering the fact these two concepts are incompatible and even contradictory to one another?

    All this just seems a little 'odd' to me…

    1. Most likely that establishment figures like Lindsey Graham have figured out that the coup maker may not be able to deliver on order and control in Egypt. They probably feel that they have grossly overestimated the competence of Sisi et al. as local satraps. If they have not been able to get the Ikhwan under control despite having all the guns, funds and diplomatic cover they have, they are a bum investment.

      And it seems Sisi senses that, which explain his whiny statements regarding the Americans not openly backing his not-a-coup.

      Only way to salvage the situation (from US perspective) would be to roll out the tired old hymn-book of 'freedom and democracy', and hope to inveigle the the Brotherhood to the negotiating table.

      If the Ikhwan hold fast, the coup will break. That is the only way Egypt will ever evolve past military misrule. It would also mean Egypt would be start moving out of the US orbit, which explains Mr Graham's sudden interest in democracy abroad.

    2. it just shows how crazy Graham is.

      Would he have said this about Germany in 1933 if someone had stopped the Nazis coming to pwer and Hindenburg had asked someone else to become chancellor?

      Morsi should never have been allowed to become president in the first place. he won by 2,000 votes but the junta were just about to declare his rival the winner.

      At this point the Obama regime applied huge pressure for him to be declared the winner.

      But with irregularities in the pollinG many areas, people not on the list, peope not able to vote etc etc. was he.

      It is like the election bEtween Gore and Bush II in 2000 – Ho! Ho!.

      Then after the coup there was the pressure many from the EEc and that Ashton woman to do nothing – if they had acted sooner the violence would have beenless.

      the brotherhood are highly dangerous and could not be allowed to take over a major Arab country.

  5. Not only Egypt but this is for USA and EU to leave the people of Middle East alone, Yankee and Anglo Saxon-ism go home. It is up to the Egyptian people to proceed with what they started, a functioning democracy for all Egyptian, a government that would take the Egyptian people interests first, not the Saudis nor how much they paying, or wanting to bribe whoever. Here, one thing is for sure, Muslim brotherhood is an Islamic dictatorial regime, as the Turkish government is, and there are terrorist branches attached to muslims brotherhood, they are active and have shown their real savage face in Syria, in Iraq and elsewhere. Saudis and UAE would benefit firsthand in such governing system and they are at war with Syrian people, looking for war with anyone in the region that are not their "friend", these regimes looking to preserve the USA, Saudis and UAE tyrants interest and to expend these regimes regional religious power.

    There is nothing wrong with any functioning democratic government that works for its people where the interests of the people is the government priority, in Egyptian case Muslim brotherhood, when Morsi was elected, first thing in his political agenda was to denounce the Iranians hands in friendship and wanted to invade Syria because of the fact that Saudis-UAE have said so, these regimes looking to expend their religious warmongering, whereby such political move, by Morsi, would empower Saudis, UAE, USA, EU and Israelis interests, such politics would have saved their interests and their power would have expended into a new dimension. Libya is another fact of deception promoted by Saudis and UAE while the French, the Swedish, the Italian, the German, the USA government provided the ammunition.

    If leftist or liberals whom are for such regimes expansion then they are and have been wrong which bring us to the fact that they can not see the feature but rather looking to go backward. Look: this is 2013, the US, EU foreign policies has always been for people in Middle East to go backward, therefore, the new trend is for USA and EU to expend the delusional ideas rather then reality where a functioning democracy system is what people everywhere struggling for.

  6. The sensible thing for the U.S. to do at this point would be to suspend aid to the Egyptian military,” writes Daniel Larison at The American Conservative.

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