US News

President Obama incoherent on Egypt

President Obama gave an interview in which he explained his assessment of our relations with Egypt.

He said Egypt is not “an ally” and it is not “an enemy” but a “new government that’s trying to find its way”.

So why are we forgiving $1 billion of their debt?

Remember also, that this money could be used toward our own debt reduction, but President Obama refuses to prioritize our domestic financial troubles in favor of Egypt’s.

“The administration is negotiating whether to waive some debt payments altogether or allow “debt swaps,” in which the money that would otherwise pay down the American debt is spent on training and infrastructure projects in Egypt intended to attract private investment and create jobs,” reported the New York Times earlier this month.

Even more troubling however, was when Obama said that the US is waiting to see how the Egyptians respond to the attack on the US embassy in Cairo. In this instance, he explained, we “expect that they are responsive to our insistence that our personnel are protected and our embassy is protected” and if they fail those measures “then we’re going to have a real problem”. And Obama highlighted that he’s watching to see if Egypt lives up to its obligations in terms of its peace accord with Israel.

But this same scenario played out almost exactly a year ago when an Egyptian mob, bought and paid for (by the way), stormed the Israeli embassy and nearly slaughtered the employees trapped inside. At that time, President Obama had to intervene to save the Israelis. The only difference now is the excuse the rioters used for their attack and the relative lack of success.

Obama told the interviewer that as president, he’s supposed to focus on security for “our people, making sure that we gather all the facts, making sure that we are advancing American interests.”

Which American interests is the President advancing when he so obviously fails to secure “our people,” when he issues a statement that includes a disclaimer about the violence (“The United States deplores any intentional effort to denigrate the religious beliefs of others.”), when based on the timing, the riots clearly had nothing to do with any “intentional effort to denigrate the religious beliefs of others”?

This isn’t “leading from behind” anymore, it’s incoherent.