From The New Yorker on the hypocrisy and double standards driving America and its ally Egypt.
"American foreign aid has always been an awkward exercise in high-minded self-interest—humanitarian goals balanced uneasily with strategic calculations. Whenever these two come into conflict, Presidents inevitably find a way out of their loftier commitments."
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"This history of double standards shadows the recent events in Egypt and Washington. When a country’s military sends tanks into the streets, deposes an elected President, suspends the constitution, shuts down television stations, and arrests the leadership of the ruling party, the usual word for it is “coup.” But, in the days since all this came to pass in Egypt, the Obama Administration has gone to great lengths to avoid calling it by its rightful name—Jay Carney, the White House press secretary, said that the events of July 3rd and afterward were under “review”—for the obvious reason that, under the law, it would mean the end of $1.5 billion in U.S. military and economic aid.
Hypocrisy can be an essential tool of foreign policy, but it works best when there is a policy to justify it—otherwise, it can seem randomly cynical. At the moment, the U.S. has no policy toward Egypt. In the two and a half years since the popular protests that overthrew the Mubarak regime, the Administration has followed a pattern: express concern about tumultuous events, then accept their outcome as a fait accompli and make the best of the new status quo, without a perceptible effort to use whatever influence the U.S. still has over the main actors in Egypt’s political drama."
"American foreign aid has always been an awkward exercise in high-minded self-interest—humanitarian goals balanced uneasily with strategic calculations. Whenever these two come into conflict, Presidents inevitably find a way out of their loftier commitments."
****
"This history of double standards shadows the recent events in Egypt and Washington. When a country’s military sends tanks into the streets, deposes an elected President, suspends the constitution, shuts down television stations, and arrests the leadership of the ruling party, the usual word for it is “coup.” But, in the days since all this came to pass in Egypt, the Obama Administration has gone to great lengths to avoid calling it by its rightful name—Jay Carney, the White House press secretary, said that the events of July 3rd and afterward were under “review”—for the obvious reason that, under the law, it would mean the end of $1.5 billion in U.S. military and economic aid.
Hypocrisy can be an essential tool of foreign policy, but it works best when there is a policy to justify it—otherwise, it can seem randomly cynical. At the moment, the U.S. has no policy toward Egypt. In the two and a half years since the popular protests that overthrew the Mubarak regime, the Administration has followed a pattern: express concern about tumultuous events, then accept their outcome as a fait accompli and make the best of the new status quo, without a perceptible effort to use whatever influence the U.S. still has over the main actors in Egypt’s political drama."
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