No, I’m not going to talk about one of The Who’s more memorable hits “Won’t Be Fooled Again” in this week’s blog. But I thought the line was pretty appropriate in a discussion about what’s going on in today’s Egypt.
As Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia, I follow what’s going on in Egypt pretty closely. Egypt is, after all, considered to be the leader of the Arab world. And keeping the peace between Egypt and our closest ally in the region, Israel, has been considered a top U.S. interest for decades now.
And what’s been happening there over the last week or so has been very disturbing indeed. Egypt’s relatively new, Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated President, Mohamed Morsi, has carried out a naked power grab of considerable proportions.
First of all, he has, by unilateral decree, exempted all his decisions from being reviewed by the Court. Next apparently not believing that his predecessor, former President Hosni Mubarak, was dealt with harshly enough by the judicial system (he only got a life sentence rather than the death penalty), Morsi has ordered the Court to re-try Mubarak and other officials (and this time let’s get it right!), and Morsi also fired the Prosecutor-General (even though he has no power to do this.)
All this comes on the heels of the Obama Administration’s lavish praise bestowed on Morsi for assisting in the Israeli/Gaza deal. He apparently felt emboldened by the praise, and took this opportunity to grab even more power for himself.
But it’s really not surprising. I had submitted an op-ed to The Cincinnati Enquirer (which was published back on February 2, 2011), during the beginning stages of the so-called Arab Spring, titled “U.S. Should Be Wary of Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt.” I wrote at that time, among other things, “I would urge the Obama Administration and the State Department to do everything within their power to avoid the most dangerous potential outcome – the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood and their Islamic jihadist allies to power. If that were to happen, rather than an ally, we’d have another Iran-like threat to world peace on our hands. We can’t let that happen.”
Well, it did happen. The people of Egypt are living with the consequences of that now. My concern is that Israel, our other allies in the region, and the United States itself, will suffer if Egypt continues down the road of a Muslim Brotherhood-dominated government. Unfortunately, I’m afraid that we’re getting closer and closer to the point of no return.
What can the United States do? The single most significant leverage we have with Egypt is the approximately $2 billion the American taxpayers give to Egypt each year in military and development aid. If Morsi continues down the road he seems to have in mind, that being an Islamist-dominated Egypt, and an agenda inconsistent with the interests of the United States, this aid should not continue.