Sorry, wrong video. This one's from the future.
Thursday, September 13, 2012
So Now That Egypt Is No Longer An Ally, They Can Get Down To Business
Well, that had to be a relief. All that public restraint and police protection of Americans and their embassies is a real drag. It's the price you have to pay for having an ally, though. Now that Egypt isn't our ally any more, the Egyptians can concentrate on more important things and let nature take it's course.
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3 comments:
Was Egypt ever really an ally? According to this article from 2000, we didn't have a formal alliance with Egypt then either, and people were arguing about whether they could be considered an ally or not.I was under the impression that it was more of a case of their agreeing not to be our enemy in exchange for some cash, and occasionally cooperating with us when they thought it was in their interest to do so.
The Egyptians were the first of the Arab states to lay down their arms and recognize Israel. By doing so, they reduced Israel's strategic problem dramatically, likewise reducing our collateral strategic problem. They did so at our behest and since then, up until the misguided Arab Spring nonsense, they've been pretty compliant with what we've asked of them.
That they did so out of some amount of self-interest was just normal for diplomacy, no?
I think the key point here is that we don't have a relationship with the new owners like we did with the previous management. It is going to require starting over and trying to find common interests. I took the statement of "not being allies" as a reflection of significant tension behind the scenes.
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