Donald Rumsfeld greets Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi in 2002[/caption]
The lynchpin of America’s military empire is its alliance network. In exchange for the use of their air corridors and sea lanes, the US military will shower upon partner states the latest weaponry and the training to operate it, as well as technology upgrades and resupply contracts. The Pentagon does not discriminate in its largess; its military assistance programs are available to democracies like the Czech Republic, autocracies like Turkmenistan, and theocracies, both de facto and de jure, like Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Israel.
On the rare occasion the US Department of Defense is asked to explain why it invests so heavily in support of allies that are either rich enough to fend for themselves, extravagantly brutal and corrupt, or both, it describes its partnerships as transmission agents for American values. By teaching friendly armies how to to shoot straight and keep terrorists at bay, they imply, the Pentagon can convert dictatorships into civil libertarians.
Which brings us to Egypt.
This week, with his finger firmly in the dike of Egypt’s infant democracy, the head of Cairo’s military junta - it’s way too late to be calling it an “interim government” - declared the army would prevent a “certain group” from controlling the nation. It was a thinly veiled reference to the Muslim Brotherhood, the religious movement that would, had the junta not dissolved parliament and emasculated the presidency in a stealth coup, control both legislative and executive governing branches as a result of free and fair elections. Instead, President Mohammed Morsi and his Brotherhood brethren are locked in a destabilizing power struggle with a megalomaniacal general staff.
The remarks by the junta leader, Field Marshal Mohammed Hussein Tantawi, came only hours after he met with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. It was a graphic display of the imperial trap: As the American military colossus strides the world as a beacon of “values,” Tantawi and his fellow tin hats happily subvert Egypt’s democratic process cooly confident that Washington will deliver its annual $1 billion dollop of military aid to Egypt.
There are red lines, of course. If Morsi suddenly had both the means and the stated intention to scrap Egypt’s peace treaty with Israel, Congress would gleefully cut him off at the knees. Or if Egyptian troops were to shoot into crowds of peaceful protestors enough times to suggest a top-down policy of violent repression, the Pentagon might grudgingly relinquish its partnership with the generals. Short of that, however, it’s a good bet the Pentagon will let Tantawi have his junta more or less indefinitely, because the bottom line is Washington needs a friendly Egypt more than Egypt needs Washington. Specifically, it needs Egyptian air space and the Suez Canal to prosecute its Middle Eastern wars to come, particularly as it embarks on a multi-front cold war with China.
For thirty years, Washington tolerated Egyptian dictatorship at the expense of the Egyptian people for the sake of a misbegotten perception of Israeli security and regional stability. Given the choice between an obliging general staff, however inebriated with its own sense of entitlement, and an authentic but unruly democracy, it would most surely choose the former. At the very least, it would try to split the difference between the two, which is exactly what it appears to be doing now.
