What does our president think? Egyptian army soldiers standing guard near the presidential palace, more than a week after the coup. (AP)
Are President Obama and/or Secretary of State John Kerry going to come up with an Egypt policy?
It’s been more than a week since Egypt’s army overthrew an elected president, Mohammed Morsi. The military’s trying to consolidate its hold on power, while the Muslim Brotherhood at least hints at civil war.
And it’s still not clear what Washington thinks about all this, let alone what (if anything) it wants to do.
Some of Obama’s foreign-policy aides are poring over thesauruses, looking for a euphemism for “coup” — because US law demands a cutoff of aid to Egypt in case of a coup. They’d better find a euphemism that will pass muster — or come up with some way to maintain ties.
True: The military is the main political beneficiary of $1.5 billion we send Cairo’s way each year. And true: No one wants the generals to run Egypt for long.
Also true: The army not only ousted Morsi, it put him and his Muslim Brotherhood aides under house arrest and shut down their media outlets.
Worse: Soldiers this week massacred 51 Islamists as they prayed.
Then again, last week the Muslim Brotherhood dumped political opponents off high-rise rooftops and cheered as the carcasses splashed blood on the sidewalk below.
And in his year as president, Morsi managed to worsen Egypt’s economy (no small task) and shut the secular opposition down as he rammed through a Sharia-based Constitution.
The Guardian’s Ian Black reports that the hot new word in Cairo translates as “ballotocracy”: It’s what the country gets when, like Morsi, you win an election in the ballots, but then rule as a tyrant.
Plus, in the long run, he’d have turned Egypt away from America.
So if we want to show our displeasure with the army, how about denying them the F-16s they seek? (Which of Egypt’s enemies will these fighter jets protect from anyway?). But better keep the aid going. Otherwise, we’ll be stopping aid to nondemocratic pro-US generals after approving it to nondemocratic US-wary Islamists.
Plus, it’s in America’s interest to have a say in Egypt’s future — though it’s not clear that the Obama team believes wehaveinterests there.
The president says, “The future path of Egypt can only be determined by the Egyptian people” — and he clearly means it.
Based on the (somewhat racist) idea that we’d never understand the mysterious ways of the Arabs anyway, too many in Washington think there’s little we can (or should) do to influence the course of Egyptian history.
But note: The aid to Egypt was fixed in 1978, awarding then-President Anwar Sadat for defecting from the Soviet bloc and agreeing — as price of admission to our side — to a treaty with Israel.
Turning Egypt around culminated a push made at the highest levels during the Nixon, Ford and Carter administrations.
Contrast that to the last year, as history was being made in Egypt’s streets — and our Egypt policy (such as it was) was mostly determined by a midlevel career diplomat, US Ambassador Anne Patterson.
The petite, mild-mannered Patterson did what diplomats in foreign capitals do: She stayed close to power (Morsi) while keeping lines of communication to the opposition.
Back in DC, though, the Near East desk at the State Department was literally vacant and decision-makers were absent. No one stated our goals, or warned Morsi that his authoritarian ways and drive toward a theocracy could cost him our support — which is vital for nearly-broke Egypt.
(It’s conceivable that they can make do without it: The Saudis this week offered Cairo $8 billion in aid, though they don’t always deliver on such pledges. If US aid is cut off, we’d best make sure the Saudis deliver, and that the Egyptians know we did.)
For all this, conspiracy theory-prone Egyptians are convinced we actually run the place (though every faction believes we support its foes.)
Hah: Over the July Fourth weekend, as Egypt underwent a second revolution in two years, Obama was playing golf and Kerry was off on his yacht.
Yes, leaders deserve some downtime, and can stay connected even when putting or yachting. But the pictures of Obama and Kerry relaxing told the tale of the last year: Save for an occasional cliché-filled speech, Obama has been absent on Egypt, while Kerry’s Israel-Palestine obsession has left him near-oblivious to the momentous events that are reshaping the rest of the Mideast.
So they seem AWOL — and too bad. Egypt is where America can still influence the direction of the region.
But first we need to spell out our interests and promote our values, which are cherished by some Egyptians. If we continue our neglect and zigzagging, we might as well leave the arena for the Saudis and Qataris to fight over.
Twitter: @bennyavni