Washington Increases Pressure on Cairo To Respect Human Rights

But strategic considerations and Egypt’s stability come first, analysts say

[Cairo] The United States has put Egypt on notice that it will not receive a third of its annual aid allocation unless it improves human rights in the country.

US President Joe Biden signed into law a 2,741-page, $1.5 trillion appropriations bill on March 15. The 2022 spending package allocates $1.3 billion in aid to Egypt, with $320 million conditioned on improving specific human rights situations. The total aid that could be forfeited is up $20 million from the amount related to human rights that could be withheld in last year’s bill.

“Fundamentally, nothing has changed in the American position. Rather, it is to reiterate the conditions which Egypt has so far not implemented. Thus there is no change in the quality of the policy but rather a change in the amount,” Kamal el-Sawi, an expert on the Middle East and Egyptian affairs, and a retired senior analyst for the US Defense Department, told The Media Line.

“This gives an indication that the American administration means business. In other words, last year the US administration threatened to cut off part of the aid, and the Egyptian administration did not take this threat seriously. They thought that the American administration and Congress would waive the conditions. This is a slight escalation in the amount to assert the fact that they are serious about the linkage between releasing the funds and the American demands,” Sawi said.

Also on March 15, Marine Corps Gen. Kenneth F. McKenzie, Jr., head of US Central Command, told the Senate Armed Services Committee that the US is likely to sell F-15 fighter jets to Egypt. “In the case of Egypt, I think we have good news in that we’re going to provide them with F-15s, which was a long, hard slog,” he told the committee.

Sawi noted that: “It is in the interest of the United States, not only from an economic point of view, to support the aircraft industry, but also in expanding and strengthening the ability of the Egyptian Armed Forces to provide logistic support, supplies and services.”

“The Egyptian Air Force is supposed to augment the American Air Force as a reserve to the American strategic military effort in the region, especially with Egyptian airports facilities to support American transport operations. This is in preparation for conducting Bright Star exercises, joint operations in the region, and military build-up that may be needed to support US military operations in the region and beyond. This contributes to supporting the US strategic interest in the Middle East,” Sawi said.

Exercise Bright Star, combined and joint training exercises led by US and Egyptian forces and including as many as 11 allied nations and 70,000 personnel is held in Egypt every two years.

This gives an indication that the American administration means business. In other words, last year the US administration threatened to cut off part of the aid, and the Egyptian administration did not take this threat seriously. They thought that the American administration and Congress would waive the conditions. This is a slight escalation in the amount to assert the fact that they are serious about the linkage between releasing the funds and the American demands.

Conditions on aid to Egypt generally include a waiver allowing the American administration to release funds by reporting to Congress that it is vital to the “national security interest of the United States.”

Last year, for the first time, Congress removed the option for the administration to waive $75 million of a total $1.3 billion in assistance, requiring Egypt to make clear and consistent progress in releasing political prisoners and providing detainees with due process of law. This year, Congress has increased that amount to $85 million. In the 2021 bill, an additional $225 million was dependent on Egyptian progress on human rights and democracy. This year that figure was increased to $235 million.

In July 2020, then-candidate Biden criticized Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi for human rights violations, saying in a tweet about a political dissenter: “No more blank checks for Trump’s ‘favorite dictator.’”

Amr Bakly, a democracy and peace activist, told The Media Line: “I think that the United States is more interested in stability in Egypt than democratization, but at the same time the United States believes that democratic and economic reforms lead to a more stable situation, and in the long run it secures sharp transformations in the political system, as happened in Iran after the revolution of 1979, when the political system turned from an ally regime to a completely hostile regime led by [Ruhollah] Khomeini, as the United States always feared that the Egyptian army, with its strength and equipment, would fall under the control of an extremist government.”

On March 10, Rep. Ted Lieu, D-California, said in a tweet that “The UN must do more to address the human rights crisis in #Egypt.” In a letter to the US ambassador to the UN, Lieu and 14 other members of Congress’ Egypt Human Rights Caucus called for the establishment of a monitoring and reporting mechanism on Egypt at the UN Human Rights Council.

After a call with Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry on January 27, Secretary of State Antony Blinken tweeted: “The United States is committed to strengthening our partnership with Egypt to bolster regional stability and respect for human rights.”

In an interview with the Al-Ahram Weekly and Ahram Online on February 10, McKenzie said that “Egypt has also taken strong action in Sinai to prevent the resurgence of ISIS. We will continue to work with Egypt and all other like-minded countries in the region to prevent ISIS from gathering itself back and carry[ing] out high-profile attacks in all our homelands, whether that is Egypt, the US or other nations, and it is very much in our best interest to do that.”

The Egyptian experience between 2011 and 2013 “may have worried the United States because it had negative results for the United States on three levels,” Bakly also noted.

The first level, he said, was that “the Egyptian situation was unstable internally and threatened its neighboring countries, primarily Israel.” The second level, was the “sharp rise of political Islam hostile to modern values, which is disturbing.” Finally, he said, was “a complete suppression of political Islam,” which Bakly said “is also troubling, as the United States tends to contain political Islam within opening political space,” such as in Egypt before 2011 and in the Jordanian and Moroccan political systems.

Bakly also points to the rise of direct military rule, “which the United States believes is always short-term, as the excessive use of force usually provokes popular anger against [the military ruler] in the long run.”

“That is why the United States may be interested in democracy, but it is now more interested in stability,” Bakly said.

“The United States of America is very keen on stabilizing military relations between the Egyptian army and the American army, regardless of the Egyptian government’s policies regarding human rights, because strategic considerations in this regard outweigh humanitarian considerations,” Sawi concluded.