Follow us on social

19064739186_c2ae8ca00d_o-scaled

Congress bucks Biden, blocks $75 million in military aid to Egypt

A leading Democratic senator rejected the notion that Cairo has made efforts to improve its human rights record in the past year.

Middle East

Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) blocked $75 million of security funding for Egypt after determining that the country’s leaders have not rolled back their attack on political dissidents, failing to meet a condition that Congress put on aid to Cairo in a law passed last year, according to Reuters.

“We can't give short shrift to the law because of other policy considerations,” Leahy, who chairs the Senate Appropriations Committee, told Reuters in a statement. “We all have a responsibility to uphold the law and to defend the due process rights of the accused, whether here or in Egypt.”

The move highlights the extent to which Congress has soured on Egypt in recent years. Once considered a steadfast security partner, many on Capitol Hill now view Cairo as a serious liability for U.S. policy, especially under the authoritarian rule of President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi.

In total, last year’s law put conditions on $300 million worth of military aid to Egypt. The Biden administration recently pledged to block $130 million of that support, but the State Department said it would release $75 million following progress on Egypt’s treatment of political prisoners. Leahy rejected that finding, arguing that “the situation facing political prisoners in Egypt is deplorable.” The status of the remaining $95 million remains unclear.

Seth Binder, the director of advocacy at the Project on Middle East Democracy, applauded Leahy’s decision on Twitter.

“Ultimately, this sends a strong message to Sisi’s regime that it must address Congress’s concerns over human rights,” Binder wrote, adding that the administration’s determination that Sisi had made “clear and consistent progress” was “not credible.”

Notably, the move will only hold up a fraction of the $1.3 billion in security aid that Washington sends Cairo each year, opening up questions about how much of an impact it will really have on human rights in Egypt. 

Still, it does appear to be part of a broader increase in skepticism toward Middle East autocrats in Washington.

Just a couple of weeks ago, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates also stumbled into Congress’ crosshairs when the Saudi-dominated oil cartel OPEC+ voted to cut production despite concerns from the U.S. Following that decision, members of Congress called for a fundamental re-evaluation of Washington’s relationship with the Gulf countries, with some demanding a full-scale withdrawal of U.S. troops from their territory. Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said he would hold up any arms sales to Saudi Arabia “beyond what is absolutely necessary to defend U.S. personnel and interests.”

And President Joe Biden himself has signaled that he is on-board with a shift in U.S. policy toward Riyadh and Abu Dhabi. As a White House spokesperson recently noted, Biden is “willing to work with Congress to think through what that relationship ought to look like going forward.”


Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.). (CSIS/ CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
Middle East
Warfare movie A24
Top photo credit: (official trailer for Warfare/A24)
'Warfare': Rare Iraq film that doesn't preach but packs truth

'Warfare': Rare Iraq War film that doesn't preach but packs punch

Media

Unlike Alex Garland’s Civil War, his Warfare, co-directed with war vet Ray Mendoza, is not just another attempt at a realistic portrayal of war, in all its blood and gore. Warfare, based on a true story, is really a parable about the overweening ambition and crushing failure of empire, a microcosm of America’s disastrous adventure in Iraq.

A Navy Seal mission reconnoiters a neighborhood in Ramadi. “I like this house,” says the team commander, reflecting the overconfidence of the empire at its unipolar moment. But it soon becomes clear that the mission has underestimated the enemy, that the whole neighborhood has, in fact, been tracking the Seals’ movements. Surprised and scared, the mission requests to be extricated. But extrication becomes a bloody, hellish experience despite the Seals’ technological edge in weapons, IT, and logistics, and it barely succeeds.

keep readingShow less
vietnam war memorial washington DC
Top photo credit: Washington, DC, May 24, 2024: A visitor reads the names of the fallen soldiers at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial at the National Mall ahead of Memorial Day. (A_Kiphayet/Shutterstock)

Veterans: What we would say to Trump on this Memorial Day

Military Industrial Complex

This Memorial Day comes a month after the 50th anniversary of the Fall of Saigon, which was largely used to recall the collapse of the entire American project in Vietnam. In short, the failure of the war is now viewed as both a rebuke of the American Exceptionalism myth and the rigid Cold War mentality that had Washington in a vice grip for much of the 20th Century.

“The leaders who mismanaged this debacle were never held accountable and remained leading players in the establishment for the rest of their lives,” noted author and professor Stephen Walt in a RS symposium on the war. “The country learned little from this bitter experience, and repeated these same errors in Iraq, Afghanistan, and several other places.”

keep readingShow less
Ukraine war
Top image credit: HC FOTOSTUDIO via shutterstock.com

Should a Russia-Ukraine peace leave territorial control for later?

Europe

Since the beginning of President Donald Trump’s second term, there have been ongoing diplomatic efforts to broker a peace settlement in the three-year-long war between Russia and Ukraine. So far, however, negotiations have failed to bridge the stark divide between the two sides.

Two of the key contentious issues have been post-war security guarantees for Ukraine and the political status of Ukrainian territory claimed or annexed by Russia. Specifically, regarding territorial sovereignty, Ukraine and Russia have rejected the United States' proposal to “freeze” the war along the current line of conflict as a de facto new border. Ukraine has refused to renounce its claims of sovereignty over territories occupied by Russia (including Crimea, which was annexed in 2014). Russia, in turn, has demanded Ukraine’s recognition of Russia’s territorial claim over the entirety of the four Ukrainian regions, which Russia annexed in 2022.

keep readingShow less

LATEST

QIOSK

Newsletter

Subscribe now to our weekly round-up and don't miss a beat with your favorite RS contributors and reporters, as well as staff analysis, opinion, and news promoting a positive, non-partisan vision of U.S. foreign policy.