How Trump ended Obama’s progress on Egypt
The U.S. misread the Arab spring and shifted policy under Obama. Trump never saw the ingenuity.
The diplomacy between the United States and Egypt is not just another chapter in history. Enjoying a strong rapport, with the United States once conflicted over choosing Israel or Egypt to support in the Yom Kippur War (eventually choosing a complicated route of neutrality), Egypt and the United States had stable relations under the Hosni Mubarak regime. After Mubarak’s ouster and arrival of President Mohammed Morsi, who was then overthrown himself, the United States had a deeply cautious view of Egypt at the end of the Obama Administration. That caution, pushed by a progressive lens and a worldview of an Egypt and Middle East based on morality in government, has been all but thrown out the window under a Donald Trump Presidency.
During vacation in India earlier this year, I got wind of an absurd rumor that President Obama and the United States helped orchestrate the military coup that overthrew dictator-president Mohamed Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. American imperialism strikes again! According to Al-Jazeera, what actually happened was that the U.S. State Department under Hillary Clinton and John Kerry provided foreign aid to government officials and activists who were…
