The US Is Helpless in Egypt

Helpless, clueless and largely inactive: This is how Americans and Europeans stand before the explosion of violence in Egypt. More than 1,000 dead in the last weeks and nothing has been able to stem the bloodshed. The meeting of the EU foreign ministers today in Brussels is not going to change anything either.

Reporters from The New York Times have retraced in detail how U.S. emissaries in Cairo beat their heads against the wall dealing with the Egyptian government. Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham failed, as did stand-in Secretary of State William J. Burns. U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel called Egypt’s new strongman, General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, 17 times to no avail.

Like the earlier tragedy in Syria, the confrontation in Egypt illuminates a deeply unsettled superpower which, exhausted from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, tries to reduce its presence in the Middle East but fails to fully extract itself from a region torn apart by revolution, uprising and civil war. And to keep the Middle East from sinking utterly into chaos, it must not extract itself completely.

Unfortunately, American politics has lost its way under Barack Obama. Secretary of State John Kerry attested recently that the Egyptian military had been “restoring democracy.” The coup was not considered a coup in Washington; that would have required the U.S. by law to discontinue military assistance.

No wonder bitter scorn has been making its rounds in Washington! Last week, Barack Obama vacationed at Martha’s Vineyard, where he played golf. Please do not disturb!

America is currently demonstrating a frightening incompetence, affirming a verdict that political scientist Vali Nasr made in his book, “The Dispensable Nation” (which is worth reading). America, writes Vali Nasr, has become unsure of its role. The fitful way it pursues its interests has awoken doubts about the way its foreign policy is run. “But otherwise we must be prepared to matter less and to exert less influence — to become more or less irrelevant.”*

Vali Nasr is right on one count: Obama’s aimlessness cannot be the answer to Bush’s recklessness. Obama cannot leave the initiative to the Europeans and, as in Libya, confine himself to “leading from behind.”* Europe is not a foreign policy-making power and does not wish to become one.

The truth is, America is still the “indispensable nation” of which Bill Clinton and his Secretary of State Madeleine Albright once spoke. Only the government in Washington has the political and military clout to stand against the deadly powers warring in the Middle East.

If the United States cannot take this responsibility, or if it no longer wishes to, then the Middle East may face disaster.

*Editor’s Note: These quotations, accurately translated, could not be verified.