American Influence In Egypt

The American view that our involvement or activities are critical or even valuable in shaping events in Egypt is foolish. America’s influence is limited to the direct threat, included in Obama’s statement yesterday to withdraw all or a portion of the $1.5 billion in aid America provides Egypt each year, more than 80% of which is military.

American dollars flow to Egypt as a result of treaty obligations enshrined in the 1979 Camp David Peace Accord with Israel. The same accords support over $3 billion in military aid to Israel each year, making the two countries, alongside Pakistan, the largest recipients of US foreign support. The Egyptian aid can be withdrawn if certain conditions are met, but Camp David has led to 30 years of peace between Egypt and Israel and any sane American political leader would remove the support at his or her peril and that of our national interest.

A year ago conservatives were sure that the election of the Brotherhood candidate in Egypt proved the flaw in supporting the democratic aspirations during the Arab  Spring in predominately Muslim countries. Many felt, and said so loudly, that the President should have weighed in and perpetuated the dictatorship of the hated Mubarak, and so-called "moderate" dictators across the region.

Despite the obvious foolishness of America putting its finger on the side of the scale opposite tens of millions of Egyptians, the common wisdom was that the hated Mubarak would have been better than the Islamist Brotherhood and their front man, Morsi. It seems American conservatives underestimated the power of the liberal alliance in Egypt, as well as the Egyptian people themselves. In doing so they overestimated American power (again), somehow replacing the illegitimate certainty of their wisdom for that of the Egyptian people.

Look, they said, Obama managed to remove one of America's most reliable Arab allies, and what did we get? Morsi and the Brotherhood. Republicans, supporting trans-vaginal ultrasounds and all manner of male intrusion into the lives of women in this country, rallied for the infringed rights of women in Egypt under Brotherhood rule. 

Many conservatives and a few liberals made a  completely American calculation for a moronically American equation which apparently included Israel, the US, and Egypt, but actually left out the Egyptian people. 

Then, this week, secular forces allied to remove Morsi. It was reported that 30 million people poured into Tahir square this week to support the peaceful protests, an impressive turnout for a population of just over 80 million. Morsi is out. 

For those so eager to blame Obama for the loss of Egypt to Islamists, we would do well to remember that in 2011 Obama only released a statement fully in support of the aspirations for democracy the day after Paramilitary forces on horse and camelback charged crowds of peaceful protesters with sticks and swords. Against a deteriorating backdrop of increasing lawlessness, when Mubarak spoke the next day in fairly vague terms about transition, only at that point, February 10, 2011, did Obama call for “a credible, concrete and unequivocal path toward genuine democracy”.

 
For conservatives this was Obama throwing our ally under the bus. While most honest observers knew that only a Tiananmen type military assault, likely fronted by tanks, with all the attendant casualties, would restore some level of order in Egypt, conservatives still felt the President did not go far enough in supporting the hated Mubarak.  American Conservatives making this argument ignored the obvious fact that the Egyptian military almost certainly would not have obeyed orders to massacre peaceful protesters. This may be called real-politic but it is a morally indefensible position. Those that advocated on that side two years ago have no credibility today.

The first Egyptian revolution was the result of a coalition of Islamist Brotherhood leaders and urban secularists, both deeply oppressed by Mubarak and sick of it. Based on long term Brotherhood organizational strength, Morsi won the election that followed with 51% of the vote, and then proceeded to do everything possible to narrow his collation to his base, something less than 50% of the Egyptian population. After 20 years of dictatorship, Morsi's approach was a prescription for political failure.

During the Brotherhood's period of leadership, both sides viewed the Obama administration with suspicion. Morsi's supporters feel Obama did not adequately support their legitimacy as the first democratically elected Egyptian President. Meanwhile, Americans stood at least publicly silent as Brotherhood security forces in ways both large and small imposed their will on the people. Women were attacked on the streets of Cairo for not wearing the Hijab. Egyptian secularists quickly grew enraged at the US for continuing to support the undemocratic activities of the freely elected President.

During the second revolution the Obama Administration was even quieter, at least publically, than they were in the first revolution. The statement following Morsi's overthrow, far from applauding the result, challenged the military means and warned against mass arrests which the administration must have known were already underway.

Despite Obama’s statement, Morsi's removal is absolutely in our best interest. It breaks the cycle of democratic Islamists which have largely been the result of the Arab Spring. It interrupts Egyptian government support for lawless, militant, activity taking place in the Sinai buffer with Egypt. Most importantly these events provides an essentially liberal, secular path forward, achieved by non-violent means. We can only hope that both the non-violent tactics and the results embolden similar forces in Turkey, Tunisia, perhaps in the long term Syria, and across the Arab world.

A second revolution coming so close on the heels of the first  shows that the Egyptian people will not so easily be led into another couple decades of repression. I would only wish that Americans could consider how great that is, what a wonderful non-violent victory this is, especially so because we had so little to do with it. Egyptian liberals and secularists have seen the limits of American will and power and took their fate into their own hands. I think they see America and Americans much more clearly then we see ourselves. While lasers and fireworks dart through the sky above Tahir Square, once again talking heads and both the American left and right debate the role of US involvement. So patriarchal are we in our views that we simply cannot imagine that the Egyptian people had their own point of view, saw the first anniversary of the hated Morsi’s election as their opportunity, and acted upon it. Secularists, we can hope have learned a few lessons, perhaps the most important that the US government cannot and will not intervene to support or save them.

Now that the Brotherhood has been sidelined there are two centers of power in Egypt. The first is the Egyptian military, which even now acts in its own elitist interest. The second is the crowds in Tahir, fueled by social media, grievance, and the sure knowledge of their power in bringing down two separate governments in a two and a half year period. America is only tangentially part of the equation.