Another informative piece on Egypt (link below; see also Jul. 5 blog post) that will help bring up to date those who can only follow the developments intermittently. Worth mentioning here briefly is where the United States sits regarding post-coup Egypt.
After Egypt signed a US-brokered peace treaty with Israel in 1979, Cairo transitioned from being sponsored by the Soviets to being sponsored by Washington. Egypt's leader at the time was Anwar Sadat, who just two years later was assassinated and replaced by his vice president, Hosni Mubarak. Mubarak's leadership spanned 1981 to 2011.
For the last three decades Egypt has been a durable and dutiful US client. Its job in this role is to essentially mind its manners. Part of the expected etiquette is to adhere to the treaty with Israel, which includes (but is not limited to) helping Israel maintain its "blockade" of the Gaza Strip. When one tries to gain access to Gaza from the Egyptian border and is turned away, one is turned away by Egyptian personnel, not Israeli. (I speak from experience.) Egypt is also given $1.3 billion annually by the United States, what is called "foreign military financing," or FMF. This sum (all of it) is to be spent on American hardware, with the FMF divided into acquisitions, upgrades, and maintenance. Though precise figures are hard to come by, according to the Congressional Research Service, the FMF might account for as much as a third of Egypt's defense budget. Needless to say, this buys Washington a great deal of leverage over Cairo's military establishment. It is rather discernible, therefore, where US-Egyptian relations are centered.
The military is the locus of Egyptian political power, having deposed two presidents in as many years. And it is the military where the United States maintains its influence. For thirty years, the White House has not been particularly concerned about who manages the day to day matters of governance. And it still isn't.
Not long after the recent coup, Washington went as planned with a shipment of F-16s to Egypt. Business remains as usual. In a statement last week the spokesman for the White House said that it would not be "in the best interests of the United States to make immediate changes to our assistance programs." This is the West Wing's way of saying that under the surface, the situation for now is acceptable.
Yet, the United States is not unconcerned either. For the duration of its supremacy in the Middle East, since the 1950s, it has sought to maintain a general balance in the region. While low-level tensions are fine - even encouraged - when things get too hot there is always a risk of them boiling over. What the Obama administration is likely hoping for is a smooth transition back to some kind of stability. As mentioned, Washington doesn't much care who runs the country, as long as the military retains real power and does so reliably. When Deputy Secretary of State William Burns, who visited Cairo this week, talks about Egypt being "a pillar of moderation and regional peace," he is basically sending a message to the military to move things in an orderly direction. Whether that happens over the days and weeks to come is anyone's guess.
http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Middle-East/2013/0716/Has-Egypt-s-experiment-with-Islamism-failed-video
