Forgotten amid the focus on the Iran negotiations this week was the Obama Administration’s March 31 decision to fully restore U.S. military aid to Egypt. That decision, which pointedly dropped “democracy certification” required by law to resume arms sales, might provide a short-term boost to U.S.-Egyptian relations. In the medium- to long-term, however, it’s a major blow to human rights in Egypt, will likely contribute to further instability in that country, and could undermine U.S. national interests.
Consider: Since the military coup led by the former Defense Minister and now President Abdul Fatah as-Sisi in July 2013, human rights violations have only intensified. According to a new Amnesty International report, Egypt (along with Nigeria) leads the world in the number of death sentences handed out. Criticism of the President (and the military, and judicial system, and a broad variety of other actors) is off limits and punishable by jail terms. Restrictions on NGOs, particularly those that have fought for human rights, have been tightened. The courts have conducted mass trials for those accused of attacking security forces, while the security forces themselves have largely escaped punishment for mass killings, including the slayings in August 2013 of more than 1,000 Muslim Brotherhood supporters at a protest camp set up in Cairo. Witnesses to crimes committed by security forces—including the killing of activist Shaimaa al-Sabbagh by birdshot fired by police in January—are the targets of arrest and investigation, not those who are actually responsible for such abuses.
The spate of terrorism in Egypt, exacerbated by the government’s own abuses, will not be solved by the provision of anti-ship Harpoon missiles, M1-A1 tank kits, and F-16s. Over the past 18 months, the Egyptian armed forces have employed heavy weaponry (some of it U.S. made, such as Apache attack helicopters) to quell terrorism in the Sinai, at an awful cost to civilian populations and dwellings, leading to further radicalization. The harsh crackdown against protestors and critics elsewhere in Egypt risks producing similar radicalization against the government.
U.S. ratification of these abuses through resumption of arms sales, in the absence of major human rights safeguards, will not contribute to peace and stability in Egypt or elsewhere and will associate the U.S. with an abusive regime. It simply sends the message that the United States will ignore abuses if committed in the name of U.S. geopolitical goals, such as supporting Saudi efforts in Yemen. And it tells those who still believe in Egyptian democracy that the United States won’t back them up. This sense of abandonment among democracy and human rights activists has been felt since the revolution of 2011 and is especially strong among those who worked for American organizations such as Freedom House, National Democratic Institute, and International Republican Institute—whose offices were raided in December 2011 and staff convicted in a show trial in June 2013. The Obama Administration has done little to try to get those absurd convictions reversed.
To be sure, the administration’s resumption of aid includes an important and long overdue limit on the Egyptian arms program by ending the practice of cash-flow financing in 2018, which essentially allows Egypt to charge arms purchases far in excess of its yearly military aid allotment against the assumed certainty of future congressional appropriations. This will grant future administrations more flexibility in shaping and limiting Egyptian arms purchases, despite Obama’s promise to Sisi that he will request $1.3 billion in military aid yearly for Egypt – the same amount Egypt has received for more than three decades.
Other elements of the decision are even less convincing. For example, the administration claims it will now channel aid into four areas—“counterterrorism, border security, maritime security, and Sinai security”—in order to adapt Egypt’s military forces to the challenges they face, rather than building major conventional and air expeditionary forces for which Cairo has no real need. The U.S. has been trying for at least the past 15 years to guide Egypt toward weapons systems more suited to its actual needs—so far to little effect.
The administration also insists it will continue to “raise human rights and political issues at the highest levels” as part of its ongoing dialogue with Egypt. The administration’s poor track record in this area offers little reason for optimism. Indeed, simply “raising” human rights concerns is a far cry from insisting on major improvements as part of this deal. Speaking of “political reform” rather than the “democratic transition” in Egypt long touted by the administration is a telling downsizing of the administration’s expectations.
The message that the administration thinks it is delivering in Cairo is not the one heard in Cairo. The Egyptian government and the generals behind it don’t perceive a measured reaffirmation of the bilateral partnership, but an endorsement of their means and their ends, especially on the domestic front—where counterterrorism is synonymous with repression of political opponents. This message is also heard loud and clear in the capitals of regional Egyptian allies such as Saudi Arabia, which is working hard to build an Arab military and political alliance to beat back the forces of political change under cover of fighting extremism.
Returning to business as usual in the Middle East, where friendly autocrats get a free pass, is not the answer and risks repeating the policy failures of the past half-century. Supporting forces of peaceful democratic change, upheld by restrictions on aid and arms if necessary, is a better approach for the short and long term.
