The U.S.

and the Military Coup in Egypt

By Christine Kim
Staff Writer
The Obama administration, at time of writing, has not made the deision to delare the o!erthrow of former "resident Muhammad Morsi
a oup. #oing so would fore the U.S. to ut off the $%.& billion annual military aid to Egypt, whih would damage the alliane between
the two ountries and otherwise threaten 'merian interests in the Middle East.
On (uly ), the Egyptian military launhed a oup that dismantled the pre!iously*established go!ernment, at the e+pense of roughly %,,,,
li!es lost. Morsi-s unpopularity, largely due to moderates- laims that he fa!ored .slamists and negleted the eonomy, e!entually led to
his o!erthrowing as millions alled for his resignation.
/hile #efense Seretary Chu0 1agel has a0nowledged the nature of the situation, he has also made the laim that utting off military
assistane to Egypt would be detrimental to Egypt-s demorati and eonomi reform, as well as emphasi2ed the importane of the
relationship between the United States and Egypt. The United States 3wouldn-t neessarily agree with the forms of go!ernment, the
ditatorships, but... we would not want to see the disintegration of a relationship with a large important ountry li0e Egypt,3 he stated in a
BBC inter!iew.
The military*led go!ernment had perpetrated deidedly undemorati ations, suh as !iolently suppressing pro*Morsi protesters on the
streets and airing propaganda on national tele!ision laiming that 4protesters are terrorists that must be fored off the streets5. "resident
Obama stated on C66 that the U.S. 4an-t return business as usual5 with Egypt.
'lthough relutant to ut off aid ompletely, the U.S. has put off shipments and postponed military e+erises. .n fat, one of the first
ations the United States had underta0en onerning Egypt after the oup was delaying the deli!ery of four 7*%8 fighter 9ets. /hile some
argue that these ations are superfiial ompared to utting off military aid ompletely, others ha!e laimed that wealthier nations suh as
Saudi 'rabia would easily foot the bill that the United States lea!es.
'rab and .sraeli offiials ha!e warned the U.S. of the onse:uenes of utting off military aid to Egypt, whih would inlude the
ounterterrorism measures that Egypt supports .srael with and the balane of the 'rab*.sraeli peae tal0s. The loss of aess to the Sue2
Canal and Egypt-s airspae for military operations has also been a ma9or fator in the United States- relutane towards the uprising.