Egypt’s Military or the United States’?

Because of the agreement with Israel, the Egyptian military receives almost $1.3 billion annually.

The Egyptian people are living in a hopeless situation. Their provisional government is made up of a military junta that has Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, the Minister of Defense, as its principal leader. Specialists, like the sociologist Lejeune Mirhan, consider him to be another American puppet.

The Egyptian military, despite being respected by the population and having supported the popular demonstrations, suffers from a relationship of domination by Washington. Ever since the signing of the Peace Treaty with Israel in 1979, the United States has assisted Egypt militarily with an amount around $1.3 billion per year.

Incidentally, what happened after Hosni Mubarak’s fall was symptomatic. The Armed Forces of Egypt transmitted a message saying that all international agreements will be kept. Or rather, the peace agreements with Israel and the peace agreements with the United States, above all, stand strong. “Since 1979, those guys can’t do without that money; it goes directly to them, to that group of leaders, that military establishment,” says the sociologist Lejenue Mirhan, ironically.

The continuity of that “benefit” after the revolution will sound strange, to say the least, to the people who spent days in Tahrir Plaza. “During Mubarak’s era, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces always gained a lot from the United States’ support of the regime. The fear is that the same Mubarak regime continues to exist,” explains Arlene Clemesha.

The relationship of control that Washington has over the Egyptian military, which really counted in Mubarak’s fall from a point of view of international pressure, was an act of the United States. For Virgilio Arraes, Professor of International Relations at the University of Brasilia, Mubarak’s fall occurred, above all else, because of his inability to keep the country stable, which is the most important factor for the Americans.

(Renato Godoy de Toledo and Luís Brasilino collaborated on this piece)