WASHINGTON
— Seeking to repair relations with a longtime ally at a time of spreading war
in the Middle East, President
Obama on Tuesday lifted an arms freeze against Egypt that
he had first imposed after the military overthrow of the country’s
democratically elected government nearly two years ago.
Mr.
Obama cleared the way for the delivery of F-16 aircraft, Harpoon missiles and
M1A1 Abrams tanks, weapons prized by Egyptian leaders, who have smoldered at
the suspension. In a telephone call, Mr. Obama assured President Abdel Fattah
el-Sisi of Egypt that he would support the full $1.3 billion in annual military
assistance the Cairo government traditionally receives, even as others seek to
cut it, the White House said.
The
decision signaled a trade-off for a president who has spoken in support of
democracy and human rights but finds himself in need of friends at a volatile
time in a bloody part of the world. The White House made no effort to assert
that Egypt had made the “credible progress” toward democracy that Mr. Obama
demanded when he halted the arms deliveries in
October 2013. Instead, the decision was justified as being “in the interest of
U.S. national security,” as the White House put it in a statement.
Administration
officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity to describe internal
deliberations, said the timing of the move was not directly related to the
swirling crosscurrents now roiling the Middle East, including the widening
conflict in Yemen, the rise of extremism in Libya, the battle with the Islamic
State in Syria and Iraq or the possible nuclear deal with Iran.
But
they said the broader perils of the region, particularly militant attacks in
the Sinai Peninsula, had played an indirect role. “Given that higher level of
threat, we felt it particularly important to make sure Egypt had all of the
equipment it could possibly need to defend itself from these threats,” one of
the officials said.
Beyond
Sinai, Egypt faces multiple security issues. In February, it conducted an airstrike against
Islamic militants in Libya in retaliation for the beheadings of a group of
Egyptian Christians. Egypt has also said it willsend ground troops into
Yemen if necessary to support the Saudi-led operation against
Iranian-backed Houthi rebels. And Egyptian leaders agreed in concept to create
a combined military force with other Arab states.
Mr.
Obama’s move will release 12 F-16 fighter jets, 20 Harpoon missiles, and the
shells and parts necessary to assemble up to 125 M1A1 Abrams tanks that Egypt
had previously paid for but that have been held up since 2013. The F-16s are
especially important to Egyptian leaders, who have bitterly raised the issue
with their American counterparts at nearly every opportunity.
Intended
or not, experts said Mr. Obama’s decision would be interpreted as an effort by
Washington to bolster a fragile position in the region. “The U.S. is facing
quite a few challenges, and it needs to shore up relations with allies,” said
Steven Simon, a former Middle East adviser to Mr. Obama now affiliated with
Dartmouth. “The assistance to Egypt was always predicated on its foreign
policy, not its domestic policy. That was certainly the Egyptian understanding
of it.”
But
other experts and human rights advocates said Mr. Obama had effectively
capitulated to Mr. Sisi, a former general who helped lead the military
overthrow of President Mohamed Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood government in 2013
and then won the presidency in an election tainted by wide-scale arrests of
opposition figures. They compared Mr. Obama’s decision to lift the arms freeze
to past instances when he did not live up to his own words, citing the “red
line” he drew against Syrian use of chemical weapons in its civil war.
“Unsurprisingly,
in this case you see that national security priorities, broadly defined, trump
virtually everything else,” said Sarah Margon, the Washington director of Human
Rights Watch. “And that’s a very myopic, short-term approach to fighting
terrorism. Human rights abuses are actually a very bad counterterrorism
strategy.”
According
to Human Rights Watch and an Egyptian group called the Arabic Network for Human
Rights Information, the Egyptian authorities arrested more than 40,000 people
after Mr. Sisi’s removal of Mr. Morsi and have never provided a full accounting
of the detentions.
Mr.
Sisi’s government has cracked down on nongovernmental organizations that take
foreign money and has authorized military courts to hold mass trials in
terrorism cases that the rights groups call a way of suppressing protesters.
Amy
Hawthorne, a senior fellow at the Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East at
the Atlantic Council in Washington, said Mr. Obama’s decision would be seen as
a victory by Egyptians who wore down American officials’ resistance.
“This
isn’t their intention, but it will be read by Sisi as acceptance of his
legitimacy and a desire to satisfy his demands in their relationship,” she
said. “I’m still trying to understand, how do our concerns factor in?”
Mr.
Obama’s decision does include elements that may irritate Mr. Sisi, however.
Until now, Egypt and Israel were the only countries permitted to buy American
arms by drawing credit from future foreign aid. Mr. Obama said he would halt
that for Egypt, barring it from drawing in advance money expected in the 2018
fiscal year and beyond. He will also channel future military aid to four
categories — counterterrorism, border security, maritime security and Sinai
security — rather than give Egypt broad latitude to decide how to use it.
The
change in policy is intended to wean Egypt away from large, expensive weapons
systems that signal national prestige but are not suited to fighting the sort
of insurgent and terrorist threats it now confronts, American officials said.
Without
its aid already spoken for years in advance, Egypt will have more flexibility
to make arms purchases to deal with immediate challenges. The United States will
also have more flexibility to cut it off if future actions warrant, officials
said.
Indeed,
some scholars said the end of cash-flow financing, as it is called, was the
most significant element of Mr. Obama’s announcement because the resumption of
aid had been expected eventually.
“Now
the military aid could be much more easily discontinued in the future,” said
Michael Wahid Hanna, a researcher at the Century Foundation in New York. “This
is a very far-reaching step.”
Bernadette
Meehan, a spokeswoman for the National Security Council, said the release of
the weapons did not mean that the United States would stop pressing Egypt to
ease its domestic repression of dissent.
“We
will continue to engage with Egypt frankly and directly on its political
trajectory and to raise human rights and political reform issues at the highest
levels,” she said.
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