Egyptian Unrest a Litmus Test for US 'Direction of Interests'

According to reports, on Tuesday U.S. President Obama hurriedly convened a meeting with his national security staff to discuss the situation in Egypt and review U.S. policies on aid to the Middle Eastern state. A White House spokesman indicated that aside from putting joint U.S.-Egyptian military exercises on temporary hold and other affectations of “sanctions,” no measures currently implemented have substantially influenced relations with the Egyptian military.

This ambiguity on Obama’s part comes as Egypt’s transitional government has arrested the Muslim Brotherhood’s leader, Mohammed Badie, and swept demonstrators out of occupied squares, demonstrating the difficulties that the White House encounters as it acts on its Egyptian policies. Following the military’s overthrow of Morsi, Egypt, previously dubbed “stabilizer of the Middle East,” has gradually transformed into the “headache of the Middle East,” and the U.S. will have a difficult time deflecting the blame.

It provides vast sums of economic aid to Egypt, but the lion’s share is funneled to the military. The U.S. uses these ties to incorporate the Egyptian military into its management of Middle Eastern security, a policy that serves an important function in resolving large-scale conflict between Middle Eastern nations but that has also made the Egyptian military arrogant and overbearing.

The U.S. has not reviewed or revised this policy but instead has viewed the spread of democracy in the Middle East as in its “national interest” since the outbreak of the war on terror, repeatedly sending signals urging democratization and change in the region. And after the Middle East moved toward true reform, the West did not take responsibility for the ensuing disorder that led to Libya’s collapse into a failed state and a prolonged civil war in Syria.

The U.S. magazine Foreign Policy recently published an article on its website pointing out that the U.S. will not foot the bill for the chaos in the Middle East, as domestic issues will always take priority. The author of the article argued that U.S. interests in the Middle East can be divided into five core interests and two discretionary ones. Withdrawal from Afghanistan and Iraq, ensuring that the homeland is safe from attack, freeing the U.S. from reliance on Arab oil, carrying out its security promises to Israel and preventing Iran from gaining nuclear weapons are the true “national interests” of the U.S. What Obama is concerned about is the American middle class, not the Middle East. This neatly dissects why he has adopted such a vague stance on Egypt: The U.S. does not wish to shoulder all of the responsibility for issues not directly relevant to its true national interests, and it is already incapable of resolving all of the world’s problems.

At present, a continued deterioration of the situation in Egypt appears likely. Egyptians can only have a future if they help themselves; relying on external forces to solve their problems is less than practical.

He Jingjun is a research associate at the Charhar Institute.