The verdict and the Obama administration

Secretary of State Kerry in Cairo Sunday suggested that Egypt was in a critical moment of transition. On Tuesday, an Egyptian court handed down draconian sentences for Al Jazeera journalists accused of crimes allegedly committed in the pursuit of their profession.  While standards vary around the world, I think it fair to say that in no democracy on earth is spreading of false rumors, even if they help “terrorists,” punishable by seven years in prison.  Most of what the journalists were accused of would not make it into a courtroom even in many autocracies.

Egypt is not of course a democratic society.  But the American administration has been pretending it is on course to becoming one.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  Egypt is on course towards restoration of the autocracy, this time dressed in civilian garb (only recently acquired).  Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have bought and paid for this counter-revolution. They want the full metal jacket, not blanks.  General Sisi is giving it to them.

The problem for the Americans is that they want to continue aid to Egypt, which is not permitted by US law unless the administration can credibly claim that there is a transition to democracy in progress.  The verdict gives the lie to that assertion.  No doubt the Egyptian government will say it is a consequence of their independent judiciary. Both Foreign Minister Fahmy and presidential advisor Amr Moussa said as much about judicial decisions when they were in Washington a couple of months ago.  But that is nonsense.  The Egyptian judiciary was part and parcel of the military regime under Hosni Mubarak, and it remains the same today.

There are really only two serious options now for the US Government:

1. Go to Congress and explain why at least some of the aid needs to continue, despite the law, and seek legislative relief of some sort;
2. Cut off the aid, sending the Egyptians into the arms of the Saudis, Emiratis and Russians.

To me, the former course of action is more sensible than the latter.  It might, for example, lead to reshaping the assistance package more in the direction of aid to the Egyptian people, as Michelle Dunne has suggested.  But even that will offend the powers that be in Cairo, where there seems to be an insatiable appetite for American military hardware that gets put into storage and (thankfully) never used. One can only imagine what some of the motives behind that are.

The Administration may well prefer to try to continue to muddle through.  After all, it has Iraq and Syria to worry about at the moment, never mind Ukraine.  But failing to seek clarity on Egypt, with either option 1. or 2., will do nothing to improve an image of foreign policy hesitation and drift that is hurting a president once upon a time lauded as having deprived the Republicans of their traditional advantage on national security issues.

Egypt’s attempt to repress its way out of the chaotic revolution its now jailed activists launched more than three years ago is unlikely to succeed.  Extremist violence is on the upswing, especially in Sinai. The Muslim Brotherhood has gone underground, where it survived and even thrived for decades in the past and will again now.  The Obama Administration has said all the right things about the need for more inclusive governance.  Now it is time to do something, one way or the other.