With a civil war raging in Syria, the Israeli-Palestinian peace process at a deadlock and Iraq returning to sectarian violence, the last thing the United States seem to need is another diplomatic headache in the Middle East. Yet now the Obama Administration has announced that it will suspend hundreds of millions of dollars in yearly military aid to Egypt, this is precisely what America may get.

After a lengthy and at times confusing process that was designed to review America’s assistance to Egypt after the military removed Muslim Brotherhood president Mohamed Morsi from office in July, the administration finally rolled out its new policy: most of the aid for Egypt’s armed forces is suspended until an inclusive democracy is restored to the country.

The decision caught many lawmakers in Washington DC off guard, some of whom had vocally pressed the administration to continue sending Egypt’s military the equipment and funding it has received since it signed a peace accord with Israel in 1979, despite the ongoing crackdown against Muslim Brotherhood activists and officials.

Others, including Vermont senator Patrick Leahy, the chairman of the committee responsible for funding the State Department, complained that the policy shift did not go far enough. (more…)

Last month, Kentucky’s libertarian senator, Rand Paul, introduced a motion to suspend American aid to Egypt, proposing to divert the money to domestic infrastructure programs. A longtime opponent of foreign aid in general, Paul, a Republican, pushed the resolution at a time of immense political turmoil in the Arab country. Just three weeks earlier, the Egyptian army had unseated Islamist president Mohamed Morsi to the relief of millions of Egyptians who opposed his Muslim Brotherhood’s rule.

The amendment failed. Just twelve other senators supported it. Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire, Bob Corker of Tennessee, John McCain of Arizona and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, all of whom are influential members in the Senate when it comes to foreign policy and national-security issues, were among those voting it down.

However, after a particularly bloody week in which hundreds of Morsi’s supporters were killed by Egyptian security forces while removing demonstrations from the streets of Cairo, those four senators apparently had a change of heart.

In contrast to their positions two weeks ago, they now believe suspending $1.5 billion in annual American assistance to the Egyptian government is an appropriate response to the bloodshed. (more…)

If the United States needed a reason to suspend economic and military assistance to the Egyptian military after Mohamed Morsi’s overthrow, the past week has given officials in Washington DC a menu to choose from.

The major question in the American capital has been what to call the Egyptian army’s intervention early this month when it detained Morsi, the elected president, and installed a transitional government headed by the country’s former chief justice. Senators like Republican John McCain and Democrat Carl Levin insist it was a coup. But under American law, the military would then have to suspend assistance to Egypt’s armed forces for interfering in the political process and overrunning an elected leader.

Concerned that a slowdown or sudden suspension of military aid would endanger national security at a critical time in Egypt’s evolution, the Obama Administration decided to ignore those in Congress who were pushing for such a cut in aid. One of the reasons is that millions of Egyptians who took to the streets to demand Morsi’s resignation after a year of increasingly authoritarian and divisive rule from his Muslim Brotherhood. The Egyptian army, according to this view, only reacted to the will of the people for a fresh start and a new round of elections.

Yet it only took a few hours after that decision was made to thrust Egypt back into the foreign policy spotlight. On Friday, millions heeded the call of the nation’s chief general, Abdul Fatah Sisi, to publicly and vocally demonstrate their support for the army’s actions — and by extension, oppose the millions of Morsi demonstrators who want him to be reinstated. (more…)

With over 23 Egyptians reported dead in clashes between supporters and opponents of President Mohamed Morsi and Egypt’s powerful military ready to impose a solution to the crisis later on Wednesday, American foreign policy is once again in the throes of a dilemma.

President Barack Obama, who has taken a pragmatic approach to the “Arab Spring” uprisings in the last two years, is faced with another political crisis in the Arab world that could escalate into further violence among Egypt’s many factions.

When news broke that the Egyptian army would impose its own solution if Morsi was unable to appease the demands of his opponents, American officials quickly rushed to the phones to confer with their Egyptian counterparts. The White House released a short readout of a conversation between Presidents Obama and Morsi that took place late on Monday. While it was short on details, the message clearly exhibited American alarm that further conflict could result without a compromise that Morsi, his Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt’s secular parties and millions of protesters could live with.

Egypt has been through mass protests before. Millions of Egyptians poured into the streets of Cairo and Alexandria in January and February 2011, culminating in the resignation of Hosni Mubarak, the man who had ruled Egypt with an iron fist for thirty years. Those demonstrations, however, were not entirely peaceful. At least eight hundred protesters were killed. Thousands more were imprisoned by a police apparatus that has largely stayed intact under Morsi’s administration.

A similar scenario is unfolding today but it is occurring in an Egyptian body politic that is far more polarized than it was two years ago, when Mubarak was the target for Christians, moderate Islamists, Salafists and seculars alike. (more…)