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Egypt Isn’t Easy, But Deciding How The U.S. Should React to the Coup Is

Noah Millman disagrees with me that suspending aid to Egypt is an easy decision: But I don’t think that makes the call on Egypt now an easy one. America already has had the experience multiple times of cutting off clients who have crossed a red line of one sort or another. For example, we abandoned […]

Noah Millman disagrees with me that suspending aid to Egypt is an easy decision:

But I don’t think that makes the call on Egypt now an easy one. America already has had the experience multiple times of cutting off clients who have crossed a red line of one sort or another. For example, we abandoned the Shah when he had plainly lost the support of his people. This did not win us any goodwill once the Iranian revolution brought to power a profoundly anti-American regime – because the Iranians had not forgotten America’s longstanding support of the Shah, and because the Ayatollahs had their own reasons for setting themselves up in opposition to America [bold mine-DL].

Millman is right that finally abandoning the Shah after more than twenty-five years of support didn’t win any goodwill. U.S. support for Pahlavi rule had already caused so much resentment that belatedly changing position was never going to win anyone over. That was more a case of pulling the plug on a client ruler whose reign was already at an end. It was an instance of bowing to the inevitable rather than trying to win goodwill from another nation, which is often elusive at the best of times. In light of our experience with Iran, the U.S. should easily be able to see the folly of supporting a new military regime created through a coup.

When the U.S. has helped to orchestrate the overthrow of foreign leaders, it has usually invited disaster sooner or later for us and for the country in question, and when it has acquiesced in foreign coups it has given its tacit approval to some very brutal campaigns of repression. The decision to suspend aid should be even easier than in past cases because there is no major international rivalry with another superpower to consider. Many of our client relationships are relics of the Cold War that the U.S. could just as easily do without, but many of us cling to them and justify them as if nothing has changed in the last twenty years. Contrary to the shameless fear-mongering that Egypt might become a Russian satellite, the U.S. doesn’t have to fear that Egypt will be turned into the client of another major power. The treaty with Israel isn’t in jeopardy, and Egypt’s generals are hardly going to provoke a new crisis over Suez. Egypt’s internal political and economic problems are enormous, and they will be extremely difficult to remedy, but that isn’t the decision our government has to make. The decision of whether to suspend aid really is an easy one, and I’m not sure why we should try to make it seem any more difficult than it is.

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