From whatever angle one views the current political crisis in Egypt, the spectre of an unchanging United States foreign policy returns an unflinching stare. The truth is that it mattered little to Washington whether the events of July 3 that removed Mohamed Morsi from office amounted to a military coup or otherwise. What mattered was whether Morsi’s removal from office was consistent with Washington’s foreign policy interests. As far as the US was concerned Mr Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood would have been unreliable allies in circumstances where Egypt has always been Washington’s most reliable ally, so that in the final analysis the removal of his government was simply a matter of the ends justifying the means.
When Under Secretary of State William Burns travels to Cairo at the weekend his visit there would mark a definitive foreign policy pronouncement on the part of the Obama administration regarding what happened in Egypt two weeks ago. The agenda for Under Secretary Burns’ visit will not include a salient truth ‒ that the Egyptian military forcibly removed the country’s democratically elected President from office, curtailed his freedom, detained many of his supporters and installed an interim civilian president in his place; and that is likely to be Washington’s last word on that particular matter.
Was Morsi’s removal a military coup or was it ‒ as is being repeatedly asserted in sections of the western media ‒ a “response” by the military to a popular uprising against a “tyrannical” ruler? The moral debate matters little. Morality has never been at the core of US foreign policy. The constant, usually, has been vital interests.
Burns, the US State Department says, is heading to Cairo to “meet with interim government officials as well as civil society and business leaders,” again an unmistakable signal from Washington that as far as the Obama administration is concerned the matter of the legitimacy or otherwise of the process that ousted Mr Morsi is closed. The US is already looking ahead to a more pliable, more reliable regime in Cairo, one that is likely to be more mindful of what Washignton wants.
Never mind the fact that the State Department’s pronouncement ahead of Burns’ trip to Cairo declares that part of his mission will be to “underscore US support for the Egyptian people.” That is a less than ingenious pronouncement which, apart from being a convenient circumvention of the matter of how Mr Morsi was removed from office, speaks volumes about a predictable US foreign policy which has always subsumed every other issue – including the issue of morality – beneath the issue of vital interests.
What mattered most in this instance as in the various other instances of US support for military coups over the years – was the need for America’s vital interests to be secured. In the case of Egypt that is a matter of overwhelming importance to Washington. Egypt and Israel, are by far the most strategically important players in the Middle East as far as United States interests are concerned.
Last weekend, for the first time, the Obama administration called for Morsi’s release and criticized the ongoing wave of arbitrary arrests of members of the Muslim Brotherhood. Not surprisingly, those pronouncements appear less than sincere precisely because they have come after an interregnum of the most distasteful dithering in Washington. The posture of the Obama administration went a long way towards its seeming validation of the July 3 coup in Cairo so that the Egyptian military has no good reason to heed the call for the release of Morsi and an end to the witch-hunt against the Muslim Brotherhood.
Washington’s inability to pass judgment on the circumstances of Morsi’s removal from office had nothing to do with its failure to recognize what occurred as a military coup. There was a much bigger issue at stake here. Had the actions of the military in Cairo been deemed a coup Washington would have been compelled to impose a freeze on a US$1.5 billion military and economic aid package to Cairo. That as far as US Middle East interests are concerned, was, quite simply, untenable. Contextually, therefore, the manner of Morsi’s removal from office became very much a secondary matter.
The situation in Egypt, continues to be an evolving one. The manner of Mr Morsi’s removal from office has triggered a civil upheaval which will almost certainly rob any successor civilian administration of the full popular legitimacy that it will doubtless require if it is to govern effectively. A weak civilian government in Cairo will leave the military fully in charge and that is unlikely to create a longer term condition of comfort either for the Egyptian people or for the US and its Middle East foreign policy interests.
