What Does the US Ambassador Want?

Ambassador Patterson’s interference in Egypt’s domestic politics is unacceptable in principle. It is even more dangerous in her case since she is seemingly unable to find a difference between a country like Egypt, which is deeply rooted in history, and a country like Pakistan, which, with all due respect and love for its people, was only recently founded. In Pakistan, Patterson has achieved what is considered a success to her and to the state she represents. For this reason, she is highly appreciated in some U.S diplomatic and strategic circles. However, Patterson’s interference in the internal affairs of Pakistan has brought woe to the friendly country and its people. Pakistan is still floundering on its political track, despite the fact that the day before yesterday, elections in the country ended peacefully and without major problems. As for Pakistan’s economic situation, it is scary in a way that brings to mind a ringing of every alarm bell available to warn against the consequences of American intervention.

The spread of corruption in Pakistan has gone beyond manageable limits. The level of corruption there is among the highest in the world, at a time when poverty is rising and the class gap is widening with a clear bias toward the rich, led by feudal gentlemen. The tax system in Pakistan is an example of the absence of justice — public taxes do not contribute more than 12 percent of gross domestic product. Meanwhile, Pakistan has become one of the weakest countries in the world when it comes to development of the energy sector and to providing electricity to its people. Pakistanis live with long hours of power outages in summer and winter, as if this were something normal or inevitable. Were it not for the large number of small- and medium-sized enterprises, the Pakistanis could not have avoided an unemployment crisis reaching a level that is difficult to afford. About 80 percent of nonagricultural laborers work in these enterprises. Were it not for foreign aid, Pakistan’s economy would have collapsed. This economy lacks the elements of progress because of the same political turmoil that fueled the American intervention.

If Ambassador Patterson does not see a fundamental problem in the situation, if she is not even aware of its calamitous force, she needs to be immediately alerted to the fact that it is not right to handle Egypt in the same way that she handled Pakistan.