Our Role in Egypt

Charles Krauthammer wrote another great op-ed recently about the ugly choices for the US in Egypt.  I recommend it, though I don't entirely agree with him.

The US is a great and powerful nation.  Our power goes far beyond our military might, and comes with enormous responsibility. The world admires and emulates us.  The world is literally watching us, and following our example.  Even our enemies take our actions as justification for their own.  When we misstep, we often cause problems that we not only do not intend, but explicitly oppose.  Such is the nature of being a leader.

Our foreign policy of late has been driven by the ideas of the American left.  Those ideas are dominated by an unrealistic view of the motivations of people in other parts of the world.  An oversimplified encapsulation would be: "If we are nice, everyone will be nice to us"

Unfortunately, the world is not "nice".  Worse, there are leaders abroad who have agendas that are entirely incompatible with American interests.  One need only read a little bit of the rhetoric that comes from the radicals in the Middle East to know that the "nice" view of the world is not universally held.  (example here)

The world is a dangerous place, and we have enemies with their own agendas.

The US has worked hard to build a relationship with Egypt.  This relationship has been fostered in part with $1.5 billion of annual foreign aid.  The Egyptians have been an anchor to our mideast policy.  Up until recently, Egypt was led by a strong-man - Hosni Mubarak.  When the "Arab spring" demonstrations were at their height, the US played a role in ousting Mubarak, and pushing elections.  Mr. Morsi - closely allied with the Muslim Brotherhood, won the elections, both for president and the parliament.  The view in Egypt is that the US played a role in replacing Mubarak with Morsi, and suspicion is rife that the US is "on the side" of Morsi.

The year that Morsi held power was tumultuous.  Morsi behaved as more than a president, ousting military leaders, interfering with the courts, and trying to suppress demonstrations opposing him.

In June 2013, demonstrations against Morsi reached a crescendo, and the military, widely seen inside Egypt as the only impartial guardian of the nation, intervened and deposed Morsi.

By definition, this is a military coup.  US law requires aid to end if there is a "military coup".  Refusal to acknowledge a "coup" when the military deposes an elected government is absurd.

The requirements of the law are clear.

Unfortunately, the law cannot take into account the complexities of reality.  There are compelling arguments that the aid to Egypt should NOT end, based on US interests in the region, including relations with other Arab nations, Israel, and the example of Gaza, where the brotherhood helped engineer a one-man, one-vote, one-time revolution.

I have a modest proposal: Change the law.

It is clear to me that we cannot tolerate the president flouting the law.  Good intentions are no excuse.  Allowing the executive to play word games calling a coup not a coup only mocks the law. Yet, cutting off aid to Egypt would do enormous damage to our interests.

It would be better, in my opinion, if we had not given all that aid to Egypt, but we did.  As we stand, withdrawing aid would appear to Egyptions as the US siding with the brotherhood.  The Egyptian military already feels abandoned. Cutting aid leaves them publicly humiliated, and gives the brotherhood a propaganda windfall.  If you want the mideast in flames, this is your path.

If the reasons to keep aid flowing are persuasive, the right thing to do is change the law.  Let congress belly up to the bar and take some responsibility for, rather than just meddling in, foreign policy.  The president believes that he should conduct our foreign policy.  So be it.  Stop tying his hands.

Arbitrary rules about military coups do not comport with the complexity of our world, and they keep our president from doing his job.

Change the law.  Now.