Why Obama Should Postpone Giving Advanced Weapons to Egypt: A Guide for Congress
They were celebrating in Cairo the arrival of four new U.S. F-16s and the likelihood that the United States would give $2 billion in aid to Egypt this year.
They were also celebrating the warm welcome given to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Is there a contradiction here?
Also, given the ongoing violence in Egypt and the Islamist regime’s declaration of a state of emergency in three governates — a policy it and other opposition groups always rejected under the previous government — it is reasonable for the United States to postpone military gifts of F16s, advanced tanks, and other weapons to Cairo.
The credible Popular Current movement is starting to document killings and tortures by the police of captured demonstrators.
Regarding the state of emergency — and the state of democracy in Egypt — Mohamed Al-Kholi, a member of the upper house of Egypt’s parliament that approved the proposal, tweeted:
It is clear the Islamist-dominated council rejects listening to any kind of opposition and that it is just interested in rubber-stamping Morsi’s authoritarian measures.
Emad Gad, a political analyst for the state-controlled al-Ahram newspaper, warned:
The mobilization of [the] Shura Council [upper house of parliament] to endorse Morsi’s authoritarian measures offers renewed proof that the council exists solely to rubber-stamp Morsi’s decrees and promote the interests of the Muslim Brotherhood.
That was especially brave, by the way, since Gad knows the Muslim Brotherhood will soon be choosing his new boss (see below).
Another point, that to my knowledge hasn’t been used in Congress yet: last November, the International Monetary Fund suspended discussions on a $4.3 billion loan to Egypt for two months because of the unrest in the country. The talks are now being renewed, but the loan still hasn’t been granted. If the IMF can suspend negotiations over domestic repression in Egypt — and in that case, it could be argued that a delay hurt ordinary Egyptians — the United States can certainly do likewise in a situation where no Egyptian citizens will be hurt by a delay in providing planes and tanks to the military.
What are the arguments raised in Congress so far for stopping the arms transfer?
Senator Rand Paul remarked:
I think it is a blunder of the first proportion to send sophisticated weapons to a country that allowed a mob to attack our embassy and to burn our flag. … I find it objectionable to send weapons … to a country that allowed a mob chanting “death to America” to threaten our American diplomats.
This makes sense, but is still a marginal position in Congress.
Senator James Inhofe added an argument:
For decades, the U.S. has had a good relationship with Egypt, training their troops and working together to maintain peace and stability in the region. … Under Muslim Brotherhood President Mursi, this relationship has come to a halt. We need to continue to support the Egyptian military, which Mursi and the Muslim Brotherhood have currently distanced themselves from. Egypt’s military is our friend — Mursi is our enemy.
A third argument can be made regarding Egypt’s stance toward Israel, but the Egyptian government can argue that it formally maintains the peace treaty. There are other signs of trouble, though: for example, the government prosecutor’s office has now claimed that Israel has created a massive conspiracy to destroy Egypt’s economic facilities.
Fourth, military aid — Egypt gets $1.3 billion a year — and gifts of advanced weapons are given to countries that actually do something for the United States. It is clear that Egypt’s new regime will not support U.S. policy toward Iran, nor promote the Arab-Israeli or Israel-Palestinian peace process. The main thing that the Egyptian regime did for the United States was supposedly help broker an Israel-Hamas ceasefire. For this, the Brotherhood government is endlessly praised by Obama administration officials, including John Kerry in his confirmation hearings. Yet all that this amounted to was Egypt saving its Hamas client from a worse drubbing by Israel.
As for Egypt cooperating in blocking arms from reaching Hamas over the Egypt-Gaza border, this cooperation remains to be seen.
And then there are the statements by President Mursi and other top Egyptian leaders evincing anti-Semitic and anti-American hatred. What is especially noteworthy are the remarks of Fathi Shihab-Eddim, a top regime figure who — no less! — is responsible for appointing the editors of state-run Egyptian newspapers, and made — no less! — the remarks on January 27, Holocaust Remembrance Day. Shihab-Eddim said:
The myth of the Holocaust is an industry that America invented.
Note that he did not say it was a Zionist-invented industry. The statement is thus a direct attack on the United States, to be linked with Mursi’s saying — just a few hours earlier — that Jews controlled the American media, and to be linked with Mursi saying that Jews were the offspring of pigs and monkeys, as well as with other things he and Muslim Brotherhood leaders have said.
This is not just rhetoric, but their political analysis: evil, subhuman Jews bent on world conquest and destroying Islam are running the United States, but at the same time America is the centerpiece of the conspiracy to destroy Islam.
The truth is that there is not a lot of difference between the political concepts of Iran’s leaders and those of Egypt’s leaders on this point. The difference is that the Brotherhood is much smarter at using the United States, whereas Iran’s rulers continue to antagonize it. This strategy works so well that the U.S. government in effect protects the Brotherhood regime in the Gaza Strip from being overthrown, and is about to put the Brotherhood regime into power in Syria.
It would be easy to compile many pages of profoundly anti-American statements made by Brotherhood leaders and media over recent months and years, yet such things don’t seem to appear in, or at least be factored into, the American debate. For instance, the Brotherhood consistently supported terrorism against American forces in Iraq, and leaders frequently speak about America’s decline as a reason for advancing the jihad to more and more places.
All of these points perhaps should be but are not sufficient to stop the sale. But are there additional arguments that validate doing so?
Events in Egypt have now provided such a rationale.
It is, of course, vital to maintain good relations between the United States and Egypt, and especially with the Egyptian military. As Inhofe suggested, though, these two things are not identical. While there is less hope of the army blocking the Muslim Brotherhood government than many outsiders think — its top priority is its own economic well-being; there are Islamist sympathizers in its ranks; the Brotherhood will eventually appoint the top command — that possibility still exists.
At this moment, the Brotherhood wants the army to intervene to put down opposition demonstrations and riots. The armed forces is reluctant to do so, even though the top general warned that the country’s future stability was at stake. For the United States at this moment to postpone weapons sales would send a signal to the army that it cannot count on unlimited U.S. backing if it does the Brotherhood’s bidding. The generals will think: these idiots in our government are messing things up to the point that we might not get more American goodies. Why should we send forces into the streets to shoot down citizens for such leaders?
There is another good rationale that can be used. While the president is elected and a constitution has been adopted, parliamentary elections must be held again for the lower house. It could be argued by the U.S. government that until the full parliament is in place, Egypt will not be fully democratic, and the provision of weapons can be postponed until then, in a few months.
One more: what do U.S. intelligence reports say about the security of weapons provided to Egypt? Is there a danger of their falling into the hands of Salafist — including al-Qaida-linked — terrorists, including soldiers?
Remember the assassination of President Anwar al-Sadat, in which members of the Egyptian military participated. While terrorists are not likely to take off in an F16, other weapons are more vulnerable. And then there’s the possibility of the theft of technology that might wind up in the hands of America’s enemies. This should be a real consideration, and I’ll bet there are some very interesting reports about such things in the Pentagon.
Because of recent events, then, the postponement of sales — which a month ago seemed a mission impossible — becomes a possible realpolitik American response, when before this point it was arguably against U.S. interests. With the Obama administration proclaiming its allegiance to human rights and democracy, that added point should affect the thinking of congressional Democrats.
Will the sale be stopped? Almost certainly not, unless there are more dramatic events. The president generally gets what he wants in foreign policy, and most Democrats are simply afraid to cross Obama even if they disagree with him.
Nevertheless, a credible attempt should be made to postpone the sale if for no other reason than that it would lay the basis for a possibly more successful effort the next time, when the Egyptian government’s radicalism will be even more visible.
A second reason for this effort is to show the Obama administration that there is a price for its policies, and that the strategy it is following undermines U.S. interests. If it is going to back the Brotherhood then the contradictions in this position should be exposed to the American public and members of Congress should be forced to take a stand. Democrats on Capitol Hill who back the White House on other issues might well realize that they need to curb it on foreign policy, lest it damage both America and their own political careers.
Of course, the White House will not change course, just as it didn’t do so when demonstrators were being repressed in Iran. Having just appointed an all pro-Islamist team, Obama has doubled down on his policy. But he should have to pay for such behavior in public opinion and the loss of congressional support.
Notice how weapon shipments to Israel can be postponed at a drop of the hat but nothing gets in the way of arms transfers to Egypt,Pakistan or Turkey. I understand the idea of creating military dependancy on the US for arms to gain leverage. However, in reality it doesn’t work. Given the international arms market no country needs to be dependant on a single supplier. Furthermore, the recipients of the military largesse know that the weapons will be sent eventually so why modify their behaviour? It seems that we send these weapons out to hold onto what few remaining high tech manufacturing jobs are left. Short term gain for long term pain.
Actually it does work. Arms elsewhere cost money and furthermore cannot be fully integrated into weapons systems. You can’t mix and match. If Egypt had money they’d already be buying their stuff elsewhere.
U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald’s war against the truth
http://illinoispaytoplay.com/2013/02/06/u-s-attorney-patrick-fitzgeralds-war-against-the-truth/
No,it is a zero sum game for us. We borrow money to lend money to Egypt while spending our own money to build these weapons for Egypt so how are we benefitting from this?
Where is the proof that the military will not use these weapons against Isreal? Or our guys?
If you really believe that the Egyptian military is our friend then you are drinking from the wrong water fountain.
DON’T FORGET EGYPT’S IRAN TIES. You can add to your list Egypt’s courtship and imminent financial and military alliance with Iran. Even Obama-Kerry (and Hagel, God forbid) may not want Iran to have access to our plans and tanks. (Well, Hagel would probably think it’s a great idea.)
Given Obama’s earlier work as a bag man in Chicago, his current behavior is not suprising
Sen. Rand Paul Introduces Legislation Prohibiting U.S. from Sending F-16′s M1′s to Egypt – 1/31/13
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dm8APCgYpmw
If I remember correctly JP reported that Egypt has already received the first shipment of F-16s last Sunday….
Its checkmate, courtesy of our brilliant foreign policy people.
We cant “postpone” the agreement, because we already promised it to “Egypt”, and good guys don’t break their word.
The Muslims have us over a log (like always)…
We have to keep “our end” of the bargain, lest they accuse US of reneging, and dangle that “peace treaty” they have with Israel as being jeopardized….
Basically, their position is if we “break our promise” and don’t deliver the goods, why cant they “break their promise” to stay cool with Israel’s existence? Make US the bad guy.
It’s the classic Muslim/Alyinski ploy of using our own High Moral Standards against us. We wont go back on our word to “prove” to them we are a fair and reliable partner, they will stick it in our ass once they get the stuff.
Its what the Democrats DO with foreign policy…they give away the store for promises neither THEY OR THE MUSLIMS ever expect to be beholden to.
It’s the same old song I’ve heard before, we’ve been playing it since the early 50’s, how can anyone at PJM NOT know all the words?
We’re gonna give in, and get hosed .
Next?
We don’t “have to” keep to that agreement to sell advanced weaponry if the pre-conditions have changed. We proved that back in 1979 when an agreement to sell F-16s to Iran when it was still under the Shah was *cancelled* after the Islamic Revolution. It would seem this “most brilliant” administration is, in reality, even more foolish than Carter’s.
It’s not just Egypt that is the recipient of Obama’s generous support of the Muslim Brotherhood neo-caliphate countries with our military equipment and other supplies.
Given the nature of these rather unsavory groups and their contacts with even worse organizations, one must ask: where will Obama stop? Given the presence of “special weapons”: a double speak term for Nuclear,Radiation, Chemical, and Biological agents, that are not completely secured in various Mid East regions such as Syria,for example; would Obama deplete our government stored National Strategic Stockpile of medicines which are here to protect Americans against “special weapons”,and send them overseas to the Muslim Brotherhood affiliates?
You know, its really shocking how easy it is to disable an aircraft if you were to say, oh I don’t know, perhaps add a few parts in strategic places that have small hairline cracks that don’t show up on preflight inspection.
Now, Im not saying we should do that(because “that would be wrong”) but I’m willing to bet that a person knowledgeable with F-16 systems could very easily introduce a few things to the system before shipping to the client that wouldn’t show up until the first G positive turn, at which point it might be too late to fix, which would be a shame because it would probably result in a loss of the aircraft and possibly cause the rest to be grounded, which would be a damn shame.
In addition to that, its just unbelievable how easy it is to bribe people in the middle east. I’m not saying we should bribe Egyptian Air Force Mechanics to introduce the occasional bit of FOD to the air intakes( because “that would be wrong”) Im just saying that its really a shock at how damaging something like a simple bolt can be to the turbine blades of an F-16.
You know, the funny thing is about those modern jets. If they dont get serviced by a modern technological workforce, they dont tend to last very long. For example, if someone uses the wrong hydraulic fluid or fails to do maintenance in the right way, its absolutely shocking how fast a complicated piece of aircraft can fall apart in the sky. Im not saying we should mislabel the manuals or purposely screw up the instructions in any way (because “that would be wrong”) Im just saying that even under the best of conditions, you really do depend on the guys on the ground to keep you up in the sky.
You know its funny, I was just wondering if the F-16 comes with some of those fancy-schmancy Li-ion batteries thats been giving Boeing all that grief with the 787.
Ah well. One can dream….
Those planes will be delivered as agreed with technical support. The F -16 is the premier US export product of its kind. We all know how deep technical and training support can go, or not.
Why Egypt needs with that now is up to them.
Those aging F-15s flew pretty well last week.
It would be wonderful Frank, and in my opinion wonderfully just if something like that were to occur.
Reading your comment brought a big grin to my face and reminds me of a story somewhat similar. A friend of mine, considerably older who passed away many years ago was QC manager of a specialty hi quality fastener manufacturer. As such he often visited the lab I worked in to get products inspected and certified. Over the course of a few years we gradually told each other our life stories. His was way more interesting than mine. He was 16 and had almost completed his technical school training as a machinist when WW2 broke out. It didn’t take too long before the fascist Hungarian government began giving up to the Germans all the Hungarian Jews. Lucky for my friend his newly hatched skills as a machinist got him sent to a facility somewhere in Germany where he was one of many slave labor machinists making war parts instead of to one of the death camps where his parents ended up. The SS patrolled the rows of machinists. One could get shot dead at his machine for any one of many infractions, the biggest being not making the “part” to absolutely correct tolerances. “pour encourager les autres” as the French would say. But still somehow they managed to form secret groups and figure out who was machining which part meant to mate with which other part. So amongst themsleves they secretly figured out which of them would machine his part to the maximum tolerance and which would machine the mating part to the minimum tolerance to make some fit too loose or conversely too tight. Nobody got caught he recounted because parts were inspected individually and not as assemblies. As well they would deliberately overheat parts at especially critical areas that were hard to inspect during machining and then polish away the metal’s tell-tale discoloration so nobody inspecting was the wiser. Their aim was to render the part either too brittle or too soft for dependable use. Thus hopefully contributing to the early failure of a component in a plane, tank, big gun etc, etc. He said a real good machinist who understands the material he’s working with can do things to it to shorten it’s service life that nobody could detect unless the piece was tested to destruction and the results compared to those of a completely perfect piece. Having tested metallic materials for 30 years I have seen and tested this phenomenon myself during many forensic investigations. Now my friend and his fellow conspirators never knew for sure if they actually accomplished anything but they liked to think they did.
Ahhh…it would be so nice if this new Egyptian hardware were to experience some premature failures.
F16s delivered on Sunday and on Tuesday, who shows up in Egypt to meet with Mursi? Ahmadinejad and only 19 senators stood for the US and said no to the jets, the rest of our US Senators chose the MB.
I had a frustrating conversation with a Senate staffer, he tried to challenge me on my comments and I firmly countered every naive point he raised.
Our naive leaders believe that we must provide Egypt with F16s and M1 tanks, to preserve the Egyptian commitment to its treaty with Israel, and if we do not comply, Egypt might abrogate the treaty and begin military action against Israel.
Fundamental Islamic doctrine, dating from the treaty Mohammad made with the Meccans at Hudabiyyah, is that no treaty should ever last more than 10 years (this one is already overaged), and that the purpose of a treaty is to allow Islamic forces to gain military strength and resources, so that when the leaders decide that the enemy can be defeated, the treaty is abrogated and the Muslims attack. They did it to the Meccans 1400 years ago, and those guys were their relatives, not regarded as “apes and pigs”.
So in our blundering efforts to preserve the treaty with Israel, we are bribing the Muslims with precisely the resources they need to be able to abrogate the treaty and to attack.
Who’s “they” and who was celebrating the visit of Ahmadinejad? Al-Ahram has the following:
“But the Shi’ite Iranian leader received a stiff rebuke when he met Egypt’s leading Sunni Muslim scholar later at Cairo’s historic al-Azhar mosque and university.
Sheikh Ahmed El-Tayeb, head of the 1,000-year-old seat of religious learning, urged Iran to refrain from interfering in Gulf Arab states, to recognise Bahrain as a “sisterly Arab nation” and rejected the extension of Shi’ite Muslim influence in Sunni countries, a statement from al-Azhar said.”
Egyptian Shites were none too happy either as Ahmadinejad refused to meet with them.
As for jets and tanks, the more their delivery is postponed, the more it weakens the army in Egypt, at present, an army mostly opposed to the MB and Morsi. What good is an army without weapons? This strengthens the hand of the MB.
That’s in the short run. In the long run an army supplied by us is controlled by us. That means no war against Israel. Terrorists are finding no trouble getting smaller weapons so that is a phony argument. How many missiles have been fired from Gaza in the last decade – 10,000? How many missiles does Hizbollah have – 10,000?
An army equipped with the aid of political maneuverings of Islamists, money from the Gulf, tanks and jets from China or Russia, cannot be controlled by America but would in fact be now controlled by politicians, perhaps Islamist politicians, and now with a free hand. Do you want Morsi to go from asking for loans to asking for jets and planes? Jets and planes are expensive. It makes Egypt weaker and less stable.
As for intervention by the army, they are far more likely to intervene against Morsi and topple him than use live fire on Egyptians, the latter a thing I consider a zero possibility. After a couple of weeks of street fighting, the NSF is calling for rallies on Fri. to topple the regime, meaning Morsi. If the army has a choice between firing on citizens or the Presidential Palace, with the stability of the country at stake, they’ll take out Morsi, the target of all the acrimony in the street. The army’s not the target, and they don’t want to become one.
“In the long run an (Egypitan) army supplied by us is controlled by us.”
Have you gone completely mad?
Read the story of the 1973 War and then look up the words “attrition” and “refit.”
If the Egyptian Army ever follows the paradigm of Iran, they’ll have a free hand. Right now, the Egyptian Army can do nothing without our say so.
Ask Israel how they enjoyed a Soviet-armed Egypt.
Any article titled Why Obama Should…….. is probably not worth reading.
It would be more practical, security wise, to issue those tanks to the american ranchers down on the southern border…..
Rand Paul had it right. He tried to stop the sale of F-16s and tanks to Egypt, only to have it shot down by the Senate. The vote wasn’t even close. The official reason was that Congress wanted to maintain its influence over the Egyptian military by providing them with the weapons to kill their own people and Israelis and this was a “good” way of doing it. Congress also said that if we don’t give them the weapons, some less scrupulous country like Russia will, thereby erasing what little influence we have in Egypt. Newsflash to America: The Muslim Brotherhood and the salafists are in control of Egypt and we have LOST most of our influence there. If we had so much of this “influence,” then why did Morsi allow our embassy to be attacked in Egypt without lifting a finger to stop it? He finally reacted to the attack several days AFTER the fact, probably under direct threats from Washington. Some “friends” we have there and some “influence” we still have there. God only knows what the Muslim Brotherhood is doing that we don’t know about, like supplying weapons and supplies to Hamas in Israel.
I think this has precious little to do with maintaining our “influence” in Egypt and it has A LOT to do with keeping our weapons manufacturers in business. All of this military “aid” eventually gets spent on AMERICAN warplanes, tanks, and equipment, making it a very profitable business for weapons manufacturers in this country. This military “aid” is a boom for our weapons industry and keeps a lot of people employed, a fact that is not lost on most people in Congress (especially if these factories are in the congressional district of powerful Congressional leaders). So there is even less of an incentive to cut off this aid because it would mean cutting American jobs, and in this economy that wouldn’t be such a good idea.
In short, Americans have almost as much to gain giving weapons to the Egyptians as the Egyptians do in reaceiving those weapons. This foreign military “aid” is almost like corporate welfare for weapons manufacturers in this country. So don’t expect to see it end anytime soon. Money talks, espcially in Washington. And a lot of it is being made by Americans when giving foreign military “aid” to some of our worst “allies.” I guess we just have to deal with it.
The Egyptian Army is not and has not been killing their own people. What deaths have occurred in Egypt in street fighting the last two years of sporadic violence have been by the police and their security force offshoot. The weapons used have been shotguns and rifles. The Egyptian Army is not killing Israelis.
Perhaps 850 people died during the 18 days of the revolution (compare that to Syria). Maybe a couple hundred, or more, have died in the 2 years since.
The Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafis are not in control of Egypt any more than the Democrats are in control of America or a local mayor is in control of an American city. Each rams through law if they can. Sometimes they cannot. Morsi has tried to ram through laws, and been stumped on occasion by protests. He was voted in, so were the Salafi Parliamentarians. Egypt is a Muslim and conservative country. Sometimes the two intersect.
There is a struggle for an expression of a view of political life in Egypt right now, most of it peaceful, some of it not. Ironically, the street violence the last 2 years is almost 100% non-Islamist and anti-Islamist.
There is a clear difference between maintaining an influence over the military and Morsi. You mention the difference, and then ignore it. Morsi is MB; they don’t think much of America or the West. Read your Sayd Qutb.
American weapons manufacturers may very well be lobbying for this. Eisenhower warned of as much.
We are not looking at ourselves and Egypt with open eyes. While the Dem Party and liberals congratulate themselves for hating ignorant hillbilly Sarah Palin, they elected a man who dwelt in a racist cult for 2 decades; a cult that gave its highest honor to a man even the SPLC deems the leader of an anti-white hate group. It doesn’t come any stupider than that from a group of erstwhile anti-racists.
At least Salafis know which end of their bodies are their hind ends. It would be like anti-gay Salafis electing a gay President. We also have racial, and racist, caucuses squatting on Capitol Hill and not a single congressman calls them out. This is from fear. The same fear that enables violent black flash mobs and illegal immigration. We cannot exert full sovereignty over the state of AZ because of Mexican nationals, who kill more Americans than Hamas and Hizbollah combined does Israelis.
“As for Jordan, is Obama going to preach the glories of the “Arab Spring” to a country whose monarchy has been America’s most consistently faithful Arab ally and fears being overthrown by a similar movement which would only turn the country over to the Muslim Brotherhood and almost certainly lead to its embroilment in still another war against Israel?”
June 4th 2009…Cairo university.
P.S. Thanks for the Free Books Project at the Gloria Center. Most helpful.