What Would Happen if We Did Cut Off Aid to Egypt?
President Obama interrupted his golfing trip in Martha's Vineyard last week to condemn the violence in Egypt and to call off the Bright Star joint military exercises with the country's army.
For many, this was not enough.
"Stop paying the generals," wrote Slate columnist Fred Kaplan. He's referring to the $1.3 billion in aid the U.S. government provides Egypt's military each year, part of a deal brokered in the 70s in exchange for a treaty with Israel and, the U.S. hoped, an enduring and reliable Middle East ally.
Now that Egypt's security forces have slaughtered protesters, the Obama administration is getting flak over its continuation of the aid, which some analysts see as a sign of radical non-interventionism. Kaplan isn't alone: 51 percent of Americans support cutting off the aid, according to a new Pew survey. (However, just 22 percent of us are following the news on Egypt "very closely," so maybe popular opinion isn't the best determinant on this.)
There's obviously an important moral question here, but putting that aside, what would happen on the ground if we did stop funneling aid to a security force that now has more people than Miami and seems to do whatever it wants?
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http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/08/what-would-happen-if-we-did-cut-off-aid-to-egypt/278856/