The US ambassador's speech. As I've previously written (and I'm not the only one to think so), I think US Ambassador to Egypt Anne Patterson has been too incautious in her embrace and praise of the Muslim Brotherhood in the last two years.
Her recent speech in Alexandria, though, helps correct some of her recent media statements and strikes many right notes for where US policy should be. America's Egypt. Open almost any study of Egypt produced by an American or an international development agency and you are likely to find it starting with the same simple image.
The question of Egypt’s economic development is almost invariably introduced as a problem of geography versus demography, pictured by describing the narrow valley of the Nile River, surrounded by desert, crowded with rapidly multiplying millions of inhabitants. A 1980 World Bank report on Egypt provides a typical example.
The clock is ticking... for Washington. I took this photo on January 29, 2011 in Tahrir Square.
Back to the same issue. Readers of this blog know that I am against US military aid to Egypt. I was against it under Mubarak and am against it under SCAF. The Betrayal of Egypt’s Revolution - NYTimes.com. On AP's piece on US democracy promotion funding in Egypt. US democracy aid went to favored groups in Egypt: Interviews and documents obtained by The Associated Press show that the workers' protest and the broader government crackdown with the raids helped expose what U.S. officials do not want to admit publicly: The U.S. government spent tens of millions of dollars financing and training liberal groups in Egypt, the backbone of the Egyptian uprising.
This was done to build opposition to Islamic and pro-military parties in power, all in the name of developing democracy and all while U.S. diplomats were assuring Egyptian leaders that Washington was not taking sides. "We were picking sides," said a senior U.S. official involved in discussions with Egyptian leaders after last year's revolution swept President Hosni Mubarak from power after three decades. The official requested anonymity to discuss sensitive diplomatic matters.Since the December raids, U.S. officials have scrambled to repair their once close relationship with Egypt.
A few reactions:
Congressional Research Service - Egypt in transition_2011. 06CAIRO35. Egypt is looted, but the U.S. press calls it 'reform' Joseph Stiglitz One of the more annoying and dishonest features of the mainstream American media over the past couple of decades has been its use of the word “reform,” without quotation marks, as shorthand for a set of controversial economic policies the United States and global institutions like the International Monetary Fund have imposed on the poor nations in the global south.
The word “reform” is biased; no right-thinking person could be against it. If the New York Times and the Washington Post had followed their own rules about objectivity, they would have instead used neutral terms, like “neoliberalism,” or “the Washington Consensus,” and they would have pointed out that distinguished economists like Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz, along with large, vocal masses of people in the poor countries themselves, have warned for years that the “reform” policies are a slow-motion disaster. The Arab Spring, US foreign policy, the Status-Quo Lobby and the Dream Palace of the Zionists. I'd like to touch upon America and Egypt, because I've seen a lot of hand-wringing in American newspapers about the future of that relationship and a sense of misplaced buyers' remorse about the Egyptian revolution – misplaced because the US had little to do with the revolution, and because it is wrong-headed thinking about an unstoppable, irreversible event.
Generally speaking, the American foreign policy establishment is stuck on Egypt. It is having a hard time imagining a different Middle East. Its path of least resistance is banking on their financial and political relationship with the generals now in charge and maintaining the ability to project power in the region that it has had since 1945 to some extent and since 1990 in particular. If it continues on this path, which is unfortunately likely, because of the dearth of imagination in a foreign policy elite that has grown lazy in its imperial thinking, and because of the dire state of American politics, it will fail. Secretary Clinton in 2009: “I really consider President and Mrs. Mubarak to be friends of my family.
Jan 31, 2011 4:52pm ABC’s Kirit Radia reports: During a March 2, 2009 interview with the Arab television network Al Arabiya in Sharm el-Sheik, Egypt, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was asked about the State Deparment’s annual human rights report, which is perennially critical of Egypt’s record, and whether it was tied to an invitation for Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to visit the United States.
She replied, in part: Egyptian Foreign Policy After the Election. Many things are up for grabs in this month's Egyptian parliamentary elections: the role of religion, the power of the military, and the emerging shape of Arab democracy.
But one thing is not: Cairo's foreign policy. Washington believes that a secular victory would be good for U.S. interests and an Islamist win would be problematic. But no matter which party picks up the most seats in parliament, the new Egypt will be less compliant to U.S. demands and cultivate warmer relations with Iran. Egypt's spring revolution was largely directed at former President Hosni Mubarak's failed domestic leadership. But Egyptians were fed up with his foreign policies as well.