President Obama is getting some pretty high-level advice about how the administration should respond to Egypt, now that that country has abrogated international norms and standards by failing to protect our embassy in Cairo as well as fanning the flames of anti-American sentiment.
Robert Kagan says defunding Egypt isn’t an option. Indeed, Kagan goes further by asserting that more funding may be the better option given that we need to keep Egypt economically viable. As he puts it, would an economic collapse push Egypt to be less extremist? Less anti-American and anti-Israel?
Instead, Kagan says that the Obama administration should stand on principle and demand greater democracy and freedom from the newly elected government. Egypt, he says has to have a “a sound constitution that protects the rights of all individuals, an open press, a free and vital opposition, an independent judiciary and a thriving civil society. President Obama owes it to the Egyptian people to stand up for these principles. Congress needs to support democracy in Egypt by providing aid that ensures it advances those principles and, therefore, U.S. interests.”
“Absent unequivocal expressions of public remorse in Arabic, U.S. officials should refuse to meet with Morsi when he visits New York in late September for the United Nations General Assembly,” write David Schenker and Eric Trager.
Navigating a path to a more effective Egypt policy is not going to be easy.
But the Obama administration doesn’t instill confidence when it lacks coherence about our relationships and its policies (Obama said last week that Egypt wasn’t an ally and the State Department had to spend days restating the fact that it most certainly was an ally and an important one at that).