In the sweep of events following the 11 September 2001 attacks, the low-level, intermittent jihadist insurgency in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula is understandably outside the spotlight. While posing a persistent threat to Egypt, Sinai militants have only occasionally attracted significant notice outside the country, usually following spectacular attacks on tourist or other civilian sites. To a degree, the scant attention is a function of isolation: the Egyptian state has made the northern Sinai, the primary theatre of violence, off limits to journalists and researchers.
Though lack of access has hindered understanding of Sinai events, Egypt’s experiences with Islamist militancy, the broad contours of which remain visible from a distance, can still offer insight into how the 9/11 attacks shaped U.S.… Seguir leyendo »
When Vice President Mike Pence visits Egypt on Wednesday, he will follow in the footsteps of countless American officials who have stopped in Cairo to laud the “strategic partnership” between the United States and Egypt.
This has become a vacuous and badly outdated talking point — the kind we both drafted during our years in the government. Mr. Pence shouldn’t pay lip service to it.
American and Egyptian interests are increasingly divergent and the relationship now has far less common purpose than it once did. Mr. Pence should make clear to Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, Egypt’s president, that the two countries need a reset, beginning with a major reduction in American military assistance.… Seguir leyendo »
One wonders how much further the United States will allow itself to be dragged down into the deepening abyss that is today’s Egypt. Those in the Obama administration and Congress who favor continued U.S. military aid to the dictatorship in Cairo insist that although such aid may run counter to American ideals, it does serve American interests. I would argue the contrary, that American interests are being harmed every day that support continues.
Far from aiding the United States in the struggle against terrorism, as the Egyptian military dictatorship and its supporters claim, the military’s brutal crackdown on Egypt’s Islamists is creating a new generation of terrorists.… Seguir leyendo »
Egyptian media outlets have been circulating the news that the U.S. Congress passed a law that would allow the Obama administration to continue sending military aid to Egypt despite its military coup last summer and the massacres and human rights violations that have followed.
Egyptian state media are proudly interpreting the legislation as U.S. acceptance of the new situation in Egypt, as a welcome return to previous U.S.-Egyptian relations and as U.S. support for all of the new regime’s actions.
Just last month, a U.S. congressional delegation visited Egypt. Speaking to local media about the transparency of the recent constitutional referendum, the lawmakers said that Egypt is on the right track toward democracy and freedom and that they are pressing to continue U.S.… Seguir leyendo »
Secretary of State John Kerry’s recent visit to Cairo and his seeming endorsement of the military rulers there have drawn withering criticism from across the political spectrum. Neoconservatives and liberal interventionists have blasted the White House for its failure to stand up for democratic principles and for the lack of clarity in its policy toward Egypt.
The United States government has succeeded in alienating just about every element in Egypt’s political constellation: Islamists, liberals, the military and much of Egypt’s public, too. This is no easy feat.
There’s no doubt that American policy toward Egypt and the political turbulence in the Middle East has lacked direction.… Seguir leyendo »
The debate over how the Obama administration should respond to the crisis in Egypt has mistaken a lack of political will in Washington for a lack of influence over Cairo, and incorrectly concluded that because General Abdelfatah al-Seesi might resist American pressure, no such pressure should be applied.
It is true al-Seesi would probably begrudge the White House and Congress if they sanction him over last week’s massacre of hundreds of civilians, which Human Rights Watch called the “most serious incident of mass unlawful killings” in modern Egypt. He might even revisit the privileged U.S. access through Egyptian airspace and the Suez Canal.… Seguir leyendo »
When it comes to Egypt, the U.S. has little leverage and therefore no real options. That's according to the prevailing wisdom, at least.
Yet this analysis — endlessly reiterated in mainstream commentary — is misleading. The absence of leverage does not preclude options. It certainly does not require the Obama administration to debase itself by pretending that the military overthrow of a freely elected government is not a coup or by accepting the Egyptian army's slaughter of civilians with no more than a tsk-tsk. The administration may choose to do these things, but not because circumstances oblige it to do so.… Seguir leyendo »
Egypt has entered a dark tunnel, and it is difficult to say when, and in what condition, it will emerge.
Many Americans, in the meantime, are outraged that the Obama administration has not exerted its supposed leverage, in the form of military aid, to pressure the Egyptian army to restore a democratic form of government.
But it is time for some realism about that leverage. A yearly sum of $1.3 billion may seem persuasive, but this money has always been intended to secure foreign policy outcomes, not domestic political arrangements that the United States favors. (The State Department has announced that it will put “on hold” $250 million in civilian economic aid to Egypt; the annual military aid expenditure will remain untouched.)… Seguir leyendo »
This week, the Senate voted to continue sending taxpayer dollars to Egypt, illegally. I offered an amendment that would take this $1.5 billion that is being sent abroad and reallocate it to nation-building here in America. The senators who voted against my amendment voted to violate the rule of law.
Aside from violating the law, they sent a clear message: Sending money overseas is more important than allocating these funds toward America’s infrastructure. Many American cities are now merely desolate skeletons of what they once were. Detroit, for example, lies in ruins, with 50,000 feral dogs roaming the city. Abandoned houses litter the landscape.… Seguir leyendo »
Tanto los Hermanos Musulmanes como la oposición liberal de Egipto están criticando rotundamente a los Estados Unidos, cosa que resulta problemática para la embajadora, Anne Patterson, para el Secretario de Estado, John Kerry, y para el Secretario de Estado Adjunto, William Burns, quien acaba de visitar El Cairo, pero también es evidente que los EE.UU. están intentando aplicar la política idónea.
Los EE.UU. están haciendo todo lo posible para no apoyar a un bando particular, sino más bien una concepción de la democracia liberal que entraña elecciones libres y justas y un modo de gobierno que respete y acepte las opiniones minoritarias y los derechos individuales.… Seguir leyendo »
In the wake of Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi’s eviction from office by the country’s military amid an unprecedented mass uprising, there have been calls for Washington to reduce or suspend its aid to this critical ally in the Middle East. Such action would be short-sighted and represent a vote of no confidence in Egypt, not just in the interim government.
Debating what label to put on the recent events deters from the truly important task: developing a strategy to support the restoration of Egypt’s economic and political stability. President Obama’s call for a reassessment of U.S. aid should focus primarily on how we can help Egypt, rather than on whether we should help.… Seguir leyendo »
Ayúdenme, queridos lectores, a resolver un pequeño rompecabezas. La semana pasada, mientras me movía con total libertad por El Cairo, Sam LaHood, hijo del ministro de Transportes de Estados Unidos, estaba recluido en la embajada de su país en la misma ciudad. Se había refugiado allí porque, junto con otros 42 activistas extranjeros y egipcios, pertenecientes a varias ONG, iba a ser juzgado por un régimen aún dominado por los militares y que recibe más de 1.500 millones de dólares de ayuda estadounidense. LaHood había intentado salir del país en enero, pero no le habían dejado.
El supuesto delito de los activistas es haber infringido los debidos procedimientos de inscripción para las ONG, de acuerdo con una ley de la época de Mubarak que hace casi imposible inscribir una ONG como es debido.… Seguir leyendo »
Now that seven American pro-democracy workers have been allowed to post bail and return to the United States, perhaps we can examine what the U.S. was up to in Egypt using reason instead of patriotic emotion. The Egyptian furor over such seemingly idealistic work may strike us as wild and idiotic, but in fact, the Egyptians have a right to be suspicious. America's attempt to promote democracy around the world through private organizations has unsavory beginnings and a sometimes troubling history.
The program stems from a discredited CIA operation. In the 1950s and '60s, during the Cold War, the CIA set up a group of phony foundations to funnel CIA money to private groups that were either anti-communist or, at least, non-communist.… Seguir leyendo »
Help me, dear reader, solve a little puzzle. While I was moving freely around Cairo last week, Sam LaHood, the son of the US transportation secretary, was confined to US diplomatic quarters. He had taken refuge there because he, along with 42 other foreign and Egyptian NGO activists, was to be put on trial by a still military-dominated Egyptian regime which receives more than $1.5bn in aid from the United States. LaHood had tried to leave the country in January, but been turned back.
The activists' alleged offence is to have violated the proper registration procedures for an NGO, under a Mubarak-era law which makes it almost impossible to register an NGO properly.… Seguir leyendo »
Americans like to think of revolutions as simple one-act plays. The colonists rose up against the British, ultimately defeated them at Yorktown and won liberty for us all.
In fact, it was more complicated. The nation's future was by no means certain in the period following victory. George Washington struggled to keep the Continental Army from revolting after Congress refused to raise taxes to honor its salary commitments. And, of course, it took 80 years before the country began extending the blessings of liberty to the millions held in slavery.
So too today is the fate of the Egyptian revolution uncertain.… Seguir leyendo »
Desde Esquilo a Brecht, los dramas históricos han tenido un comienzo, una parte central y un final. Personajes grandes y pequeños, nobles y sórdidos, buenos y malos, han luchado contra fuerzas que transformaban sus mundos. La inevitabilidad de esas luchas es un tema común en Burke y en Marx. La fascinación del conflicto de Egipto, en tanto que antiguo pueblo que vuelve a la vida, consiste en buena medida en su universalidad.
Uno esperaría de la ciudadanía norteamericana, que cree que su nación es depositaria del legado de la Historia, que manifestara algo más que un poco de asombro ante los acontecimientos que tiene ante sus ojos.… Seguir leyendo »
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's promise on Tuesday that he will not stand for reelection in September was too little, too late. The Egyptian regime is fatally wounded, with protesters demanding nothing less than a complete break with the past. Mubarak may not relinquish power tomorrow, but his days are numbered. And the government that replaces him is likely to include the Muslim Brotherhood, the world's oldest Islamist movement as well as one of its most feared.
In the coming days, the prospect of the Brotherhood's rise is likely to be one of the big stories out of Egypt. Alarm about this prospect is already being sounded in the West.… Seguir leyendo »
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