The consensus on U.S. assistance to Egypt is that it has delivered bang for its buck: The $1.3 billion in annual defense aid has stabilized a key ally and strengthened America’s profile in the Middle East.
But in the wake of massive unrest that unseated Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, the question now emerging is whether sustaining the aid to the current regime would advance a democratic agenda or squelch it — or whether that should be an American concern at all.
It is a debate that pro-Israel groups will be watching closely.
Assistance to Egypt is rooted in the 1979 Israel-Egypt peace deal and has become a cornerstone of preserving the quiet along Israel’s southern flank. The question that Israel and its allies in Washington will be considering as the Egyptians shape a new government is whether continuing such assistance sustains the peace treaty or bolsters its detractors, chief among them Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood.
In a paper anticipating such considerations, the Congressional Research Service said last week that the day might finally have come to recalibrate assistance to Egypt, which for more than 30 years has gone mostly to the military.
“Although U.S. assistance has helped cement what many deem to be a successful 30-year Israel-Egypt peace treaty, as time has passed, critics of continued U.S. assistance to Egypt have grown more vocal in arguing that U.S. aid props up a repressive dictatorship,” the paper said.
The problem with that formulation, said Graham Bannerman, who for years lobbied for U.S. assistance to Egypt, is that it ignores how deeply woven the military is into Egyptian life.
“They are the ultimate preserver of life and stability,” he said, noting the army’s role in calming the recent protests and separating antagonists.
The assistance to Egypt, along with years of training by and alongside U.S. forces, has created a military loyal to American interests, analysts say. For example, Egypt waives for the U.S. the restrictions on traveling the Suez Canal that are imposed on other nations. Without Suez access, the United States might have to double its naval presence around Africa, Bannerman said.
The signature U.S. military assistance to Egypt is the co-production of the Abrams tank in Egypt, in place since 1988. Some parts are manufactured on the outskirts of Cairo, and the product is assembled there.
The program is typical of how the Egyptian army functions — not just as a defense force, but as a major property owner and public employer.
However, a 2008 memo from the U.S. Embassy in Egypt notes that while “the military still remains a potent political and economic force,” its power has diminished in recent years, rendering it vulnerable to corrupt overtures of co-option by Gamal Mubarak, the Egyptian president’s son and, until last month, his designated political heir.
That complex interface and a natural American tendency to kick against militarized societies in the past have led to congressional efforts to move funds from military assistance to democratization.
In 2008, Rep. David Obey (D-Wis.), then the chairman of the Appropriations Committee of the House of Representatives, led the passage of such a law, but the Bush and Obama administrations have waived it.
Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.), another advocate of moving military assistance earmarks to democracy development, is now in a position of influence. As the newly installed chairwoman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, she scheduled two days of hearings this week on assistance to Egypt and Lebanon.
It is “incumbent upon us to assess United States aid to Egypt, and find effective solutions to resolving the freedom deficit there while providing for our security priorities and ensuring regional stability,” she said at a 2006 hearing.
Now, as developments continue to unfold, Ros-Lehtinen has yet to say where she stands on military assistance, but she has suggested its continuance depends on a government dedicated to bottom-line U.S. agenda items, including support for Israel.