White House Shields Aid to Egypt By Avoiding Talk of Coup
The Obama administration, in a move that may protect U.S. aid to Egypt, has concluded that it doesn’t have to make a formal determination on whether the ouster of President Mohamed Morsi was a coup, according to an administration official.
Making such a determination, which potentially would have required cutting off aid, wouldn’t be in the U.S. national interest, said the official, who asked not to be identified. Egypt is a stabilizing force in the region, and it’s to the U.S.’s advantage to continue providing aid, the official said.
Morsi, Egypt’s first freely elected civilian president, was ousted on July 3 by the military after days of protest by opponents of his Islamist-backed government. President Barack Obama asked U.S. agencies that day to review whether Morsi’s removal required halting about $1.5 billion in U.S. aid, of which $1.3 billion is in the form of military assistance.
A U.S. law requires denying “any assistance to the government of any country whose duly elected head of government is deposed by a military coup d’etat or decree,” or a coup “in which the military plays a decisive role.”
The official declined to provide a legal rationale for not making a determination about whether a coup occurred. The official described the move after Deputy Secretary of State William Burns briefed lawmakers in closed sessions earlier today.
The administration will work with U.S. lawmakers on ways to give assistance to Egypt that encourages the country’s interim government to make a quick transition back to civilian-elected democratic rule, according to the official.
McCain Stance
Members of Congress had differed over whether U.S. aid needed to be suspended. Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin, a Michigan Democrat, has said the law shouldn’t force a cutoff of military assistance.
Arizona Republican Senator John McCain said while he didn’t want to suspend the aid, U.S. law was “very clear” that assistance had to be withheld. Vermont Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy, chairman of the Senate Appropriations subcommittee that oversees the State Department and foreign operations, also has said the law clearly calls for a cutoff.
Burns’s visit to Capitol Hill came a day after the Defense Department said it was delaying the planned delivery of four F-16 fighter jets to Egypt because of the “fluid situation” there after Morsi’s ouster.
Supporters of Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood have held daily protests since the army’s intervention that ousted him. Almost 100 people have been killed in clashes, as the violence undermines efforts by the new army-installed government to ease tensions and revive the economy.
Street Protests
The Brotherhood has called Morsi’s removal a coup, demanded his reinstatement and objected to efforts by the interim government to forge a transition.
Egypt’s military chief, Abdelfatah al-Seesi, has called for Egyptians to take to the streets tomorrow and give the military and police a broad mandate to combat “violence” and “terrorism.”
“The Obama administration is concerned by any rhetoric that inflames tensions and could possibly lead to more violence,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters traveling today to Florida with Obama on Air Force One.
While Earnest didn’t address the coup designation directly, he said “we’ve stated publicly that it is our view, it is the view of the administration, that it’s not in the best interest of the United States of America for us to make significant changes to our assistance to Egypt at this point.”
The U.S. is “engaged in a number of conversations at a number of different levels with Egyptian officials,” Earnest said. “And part of that message is the reiteration of our view that they should move expeditiously back in the direction of democratically elected government.”
Egypt has been the second-largest recipient of U.S. foreign aid since 1979, after Israel, according to the Congressional Research Service.
Source: Bloomberg
