Splitting the difference

The Obama Administration this week moved to delay delivery to Egypt of more major weapons systems, in order to encourage its military-backed government to move towards more inclusive democracy.  The State Department’s explanation is a model of clarity and sobriety:

The United States will work with the interim Egyptian government and Congress to continue to provide support that directly benefits the Egyptian people in areas like health, education, and private sector development. We will continue assistance to help secure Egypt’s borders, counter terrorism and proliferation, and ensure security in the Sinai. We will continue to provide parts for U.S.-origin military equipment as well as military training and education. We will, however, continue to hold the delivery of certain large-scale military systems and cash assistance to the government pending credible progress toward an inclusive, democratically elected civilian government through free and fair elections.

I love the way even changes in policy are presented as continuing what was already happening.

The amount of money involved–more than $260 million–is not small, but it is still only a fraction of the approximately $1.1 billion the US provides yearly.  Security assistance required to counter terrorism, maintain border security,  pursue non-proliferation and sustain the peace treaty with Israel is excluded from the cut.  A lot of what is affected are Apache helicopters, Abrams tanks and F16s that Egypt already possesses in excess and has no real need of right now.

So this is not a decision to reorder priorities in US assistance to Egypt, as some have urged.  Nor is it business as usual, upsetting those who see Egypt’s military-backed takeover and repression of the Muslim Brotherhood as popular, necessary and desirable.  The Administration is trying to send a pro-democracy signal even as it maintains the priority given to American security needs.  Above all, it wouldn’t want to do anything that undermines the Israel/Egypt peace treaty.

This splitting the difference is unlikely to have much immediate impact.  The Egyptian military doesn’t really need the big ticket items that are to be postponed and Gulf financial contributions will presumably replace the budgetary support being withdrawn, even if they can’t replace the hardware.  For the moment, the Egyptian powers that be are far more concerned to wrap up their struggle against the Muslim Brotherhood than to put a few more tanks in their storage depots or in any way disrupt the peace with Israel.  They are determined to put the Muslim Brotherhood out of business.  The full panoply of courts, police, army, security services and media is seeking more radical repression of the Brotherhood than under Mubarak, when it was illegal but tolerated to a degree.

The repression isn’t likely to eradicate the Brotherhood, which has deep social roots and decades of successful organizational resistance.  But it could turn at least part of the organization into a more radical, and violent, path.  Some fear an Algeria-type internal war against the Islamists, which would be a truly bad outcome.

Military repression is also directed at non-Islamists, in particular the secular liberals who have objected to the crackdown on the Brotherhood on human rights grounds.  They are more vulnerable, as they lack both deep roots and organizational capacity.   They merit strong American support, but Washington’s continuing emphasis on security is not likely to leave much room for it.  I like to think the yearning for freedom that flowered in 2011 and 2012 can’t be entirely repressed, but it is certainly again becoming dangerous to say things like that in Egypt.  The hope that some see at the grassroots might get trampled.

The real impact of the aid suspension is likely to come months and even years down the pike, when the Egyptians come looking for the money and the Americans tell them what conditions they need to meet in order to get it back.  That’s assuming of course that the Americans will be interested in anteing up again, something that likely depends more on the needs of the American companies involved than on Egyptian military requirements.

Splitting the difference may be all Washington feels it can do at the moment, but it isn’t much and isn’t going to have much impact.

PS:  Former student Tarek Radwan does a fine job on the issues in this interview for Voice of America: