Losing Egypt

Recently Vladimir Putin was given a hero’s welcome to Egypt. He got very positive front-page headlines in the local press. He was given the red-carpet treatment by Egypt’s leadership. Deals were made in trade, weapons, and the development of a nuclear power plant in the north of Egypt.

When I was teaching about the economic history of Egypt at the American University in Cairo I showed how Egypt was damaged by the economic policy prescriptions it took from the then Soviet Union during the time of Nasser. The development of Arab Socialism based in part on the soviet system of economic governance pretty much crushed the economy of Egypt and drove many of its wealthiest and brightest out of the country. Egypt is still trying to recover from its “Leipzig on the Nile” phase of economic “development”. The power of state control over markets still is a powerful influence.

{mosads}When the Soviet advisers were tossed out of Egypt during Sadat’s time attempts, with the help of the US, at opening the doors of the economy were started. Egypt also gained from US and other aid and trade. The US military started to develop long and important relations with the Egyptian military.

I have had many senior Egyptian officers as students at NDU. Many of the military leadership in the country went to our service schools, including the Army War College graduate, President El Sisi. Many of their diplomatic, business and academic leaders also went to school in the United States. The US was well on the way to even better relations with Egypt, if we chose to do the right things.

Along the way to today we lost our way. Some things that added to this loss of proper course included the Iraq wars, dropping Hosni Mubarak like a rock after working with him for decades, being all too warm to the Muslim Brotherhood and “President Morsi’s” extremist and abortive regime and more.

When we cut off the military aid to Egypt the Egyptians were in Moscow in about two days. They are also turning more towards China and the GCC than ever before and away from us as a result. The Egyptian military is also looking more to France for its systems and equipment. We still have considerable clout, but it is a lot less than it was and it is dropping quickly.

The recent visit to the State Department by Muslim Brotherhood-related persons caused an uproar in Egypt. The Muslim Brotherhood is listed as a terror organization in Egypt and is banned. Yet, we meet with them and they have Facebook pictures of them making the Muslim Brotherhood hand signals in the halls of our Congress. What are we thinking?

The US is losing its credibility and its clout in the region. It is losing it in Egypt — rapidly. Losing Egypt would be a massive diplomatic defeat for the US. We have ourselves and our mixed messages, our diplomatic dyslexia, and our bipolar international behavior to blame. It is time to turn this around. If we do not all the efforts that went into developing our relations with Egypt could be for naught. We could lose a very important partner in an increasingly unstable region.

Sullivan is a professor of Economics at the National Defense University and adjunct professor of Security Studies at Georgetown University. All opinions expressed are Professor Sullivan’s alone.