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Egypt’s Arrests of Islamists Pose Test to U.S. Over Military Aid A Coup? Or Something Else? $1.5 Billion in U.S. Aid Is on the Line
(about 4 hours later)
WASHINGTON — The Egyptian government’s move to arrest dozens of members of the Muslim Brotherhood, including its leader, Mohamed Badie, and his influential deputy, Khairat el-Shater, could test the cautious response from the United States to the ouster of Mohamed Morsi, the country’s first democratically elected president, a senior administration official said. WASHINGTON — By all accounts, the generals removed the democratically elected president, put him in detention, arrested his allies and suspended the Constitution. Army vehicles and soldiers in riot gear roamed the streets, while jet fighters roared overhead.
While officials, including President Obama, have pointedly avoided referring to the military’s takeover as a “coup,” they warned that a political crackdown could imperil American military aid to Egypt. Hours after the nation’s military announced that it had detained the ousted leader, Mr. Obama released a carefully worded statement calling on the military to “move quickly and responsibly to return full authority back to a democratically elected civilian government as soon as possible” and “avoid any arbitrary arrests of President Morsi and his supporters.” But was it a military coup d’état? For the White House and the new Egyptian government, that is the $1.5 billion question.
Only subtly, in the next line of his statement, did Mr. Obama invoke America’s lever in the volatile situation. President Obama’s government on Thursday was reviewing the implications for American aid to Egypt after the ouster of President Mohamed Morsi, and under United States law it has no choice but to cut off financial assistance to the country if it determines that he was deposed in a military coup. Egyptian officials quickly argued that what happened was not a coup but a popular uprising.
“Given today’s developments,” Mr. Obama said, “I have also directed the relevant departments and agencies to review the implications under U.S. law for our assistance to the government of Egypt.” For the moment, Mr. Obama seemed content to let the debate play out in hopes of using the possibility of an aid cutoff to influence the situation without actually pulling the trigger yet. In his only public statement since Mr. Morsi’s ouster, Mr. Obama carefully avoided using the “c-word,” as some in Washington termed it, although his description of events certainly sounded couplike. But aides made clear that he would escalate his response depending on where the Egyptian military went from here.
Mr. Obama’s statement, the senior administration official said on Wednesday, was calculated to give the Egyptian military a window to stabilize the country. But if it used the takeover as a pretext to further crack down on Mr. Morsi or the Muslim Brotherhood, he said, the president would use harsher words and raise the threat of cutting off aid. The question goes to the heart of Mr. Obama’s handling of Egypt. As one of the largest recipients of American aid, Egypt has long depended on Washington’s beneficence, and the Obama administration, like its predecessors, has been reluctant to shut off the spigot, to keep the country committed to its longstanding peace agreement with Israel. While the White House doubted that the military’s seizure of power would be quickly reversed, it hoped to use its aid leverage to avoid violence.
The United States provides $1.3 billion a year in military aid to Egypt, making it the second-largest recipient of American foreign assistance, after Israel. However, the military’s actions could put that at risk, said the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Martin E. Dempsey. But some specialists said the aid cutoff provision should be invoked promptly. “The law is there for a reason,” said Tamara Cofman Wittes, the director of the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution and a former State Department official under Mr. Obama. “It’s there to incentivize governments that came in place through military coup to go back to democratic rule as soon as possible.”
“If this were to be seen as a coup, then it would limit our ability to have the kind of relationship we think we need with the Egyptian armed forces,” General Dempsey said in an interview that was taped Wednesday to be aired Sunday on “State of the Union” on CNN. In Cairo, opponents of Mr. Morsi argued that his ouster did not qualify as a military coup because it came only after millions of protesters took to the streets, an argument quickly adopted by the government. “It’s not a coup because the military did not take power,” Mohamed Tawfik, the Egyptian ambassador in Washington, told Foreign Policy magazine. “The military did not initiate it. It was a popular uprising. The military stepped in in order to avoid violence.”
General Dempsey noted that there were “laws that bind us on how we deal with these kinds of situations.” Legislation requires the United States to cut off financial assistance to nations where democratic governments are overthrown by the military or where the armed forces otherwise violate human rights. But the government’s move to arrest dozens of members of the Muslim Brotherhood, including its leader, Mohamed Badie, and his influential deputy, Khairat el-Shater, could test that argument.
In recent days, but especially after Mr. Morsi delivered a defiant televised speech Monday night, the White House had concluded that military intervention was likely. While far from ideal, the administration official said, the military’s involvement could avoid a spiral into violence that seemed possible given the unwillingness of Mr. Morsi or his opponents to negotiate. “With the entire world calling this a coup, why isn’t the American administration calling it so?” Wael Haddara, a senior adviser to Mr. Morsi, asked in a telephone interview. The administration’s “verbal acrobatics,” he added, denied the obvious. “What is a coup?” he said. “We’re going to get into some really Orwellian stuff here.”
General Dempsey telephoned his counterpart in Egypt, Lt. Gen. Sedky Sobhi, the military’s chief of staff, on Monday morning. At stake is a lot of money. Since 1979, Egypt has been the second-largest recipient of American aid after Israel. Mr. Obama’s budget for the fiscal year starting Oct. 1 proposes $1.55 billion for Egypt, with $1.3 billion for the military and $250 million for economic aid.
“I wanted to hear, get their assurance that they would protect our U.S. citizens — and they will,” General Dempsey said. “I wanted to encourage them to protect all the Egyptian people, not to take sides in any particular issue, and to ensure that they were a part of the resolution of this, but in their proper role as a military, which is to ensure stability but not try to influence the outcome.” The Foreign Assistance Act says no aid other than that for democracy promotion can go to “any country whose duly elected head of government is deposed by military coup d’état,” or where “the military plays a decisive role” in a coup. The law allows no presidential waiver, and it says that aid cannot be restored until “a democratically elected government has taken office.”
Members of Congress have also focused on the question of aid in their public statements after the ouster of Mr. Morsi. As a practical matter, there would be no immediate impact if Mr. Obama concluded that the Egyptian crisis constituted a coup, because Washington just disbursed this year’s aid in May and presumably would not deliver more until next winter or spring. But it would convulse a relationship long predicated on the flow of American money.
Senator Patrick J. Leahy, Democrat of Vermont, who leads a Senate subpanel on foreign aid spending, was critical of Mr. Morsi’s governance but warned the Egyptian military of the risk in delaying a return to a democratically elected government. “The law by its terms dictates one thing, and sensible policy dictates that we don’t do that,” said Howard Berman, a Democrat who is a former chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. “That’s why the executive branch gets to decide whether it’s a coup or not. Under the plain meaning rule, there was a coup.” But with regard to aid, he added, “I wouldn’t cut it off,” and he urged the administration to “be more assertive” in using the financial assistance to pressure Egyptian officials to protect or restore freedoms.
“Our law is clear: U.S. aid is cut off when a democratically elected government is deposed by military coup or decree,” Mr. Leahy said in a statement on Wednesday. “As we work on the new budget, my committee also will review future aid to the Egyptian government as we wait for a clearer picture.” Washington cut off aid in the past after military officers overthrew civilian governments in Ivory Coast, the Central African Republic, Fiji and, at one point, Pakistan. More recently, and more relevantly, the Obama administration declined to see a coup when the Egyptian military helped push out the longtime president Hosni Mubarak in 2011, a move that likewise had broad popular support.
In Washington on Thursday, President Obama met with his national security team in the Situation Room to discuss the events, while Secretary of State John Kerry and others called a variety of Egyptian officials urging them to restore democracy. But Mr. Mubarak had never been the choice of a genuinely free election, while Mr. Morsi’s subsequent election, although disturbing to many in Washington because of his affiliation with the Muslim Brotherhood, was widely deemed democratic.
“Members of the president’s national security team have been in touch with Egyptian officials and our regional partners to convey the importance of a quick and responsible return of full authority to a democratically elected civilian government as soon as possible; a transparent political process that is inclusive of all parties and groups; avoiding any arbitrary arrests of President Morsi and his supporters; and the responsibility of all groups and parties to avoid violence,” said Bernadette Meehan, a White House spokeswoman. “Military coups are often driven by popular mobilization and received by popular acclaim, but this does not change what they are,” said Marc Lynch, a Middle East scholar at George Washington University. “It is possible, of course, that this will be the sort of coup which ‘resets’ the political arena and quickly restores civilian rule. The military can’t help but to have learned the lessons of 2011 when their direct rule went so badly. But it’s still a coup.”
The United States has repeatedly threatened to revoke aid to Egypt since the 2011 Arab Spring revolution. That year, Mr. Leahy said he was prepared to halt all aid to the country if President Hosni Mubarak did not step aside and allow a transitional government to take over. In 2012, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton warned the Egyptian government that the trials of 43 employees of international organizations could lead to the loss of American funds. The process of determining whether a coup is a coup usually falls to the State Department’s legal adviser, and it can take weeks or even, as with Honduras in 2009, months. “State might be able to avoid sanctions by finding that a civilian government (the judge) is still in control, although that would appear to be a stretch,” John B. Bellinger III, who held that job under President George W. Bush, said by e-mail.
Congressional Republicans this week have expressed less of an appetite for threatening to revoke aid. In the meantime, the White House may not come under much pressure from Congress to cut off assistance. While Senator Patrick J. Leahy, Democrat of Vermont and the head of a foreign aid subcommittee, said he would “review future aid to the Egyptian government,” other Congressional leaders expressed little appetite for that, in part because the Muslim Brotherhood is not a favorite in Washington.
“In determining the future of U.S. assistance, the administration should look at the regional picture with our vital national security interests in mind,” Senator Bob Corker of Tennesee, the ranking Republican on the Foreign Relations Committee, said Wednesday. “Our long-standing cooperation with Egypt, which is essential for stability in the region, should remain a priority.” “Our longstanding cooperation with Egypt, which is essential for stability in the region, should remain a priority,” Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee, the ranking Republican on the Foreign Relations Committee, said in a statement.
Mr. Corker added that he believed that “Congress would stand ready to work with the administration to address any restrictions that stand in the way.”
During the Arab Spring uprising in Egypt, Mr. Obama remained noncommittal about his desired outcome until it became clear that Mr. Mubarak’s administration had become unsustainable. After Mr. Mubarak stepped aside on Feb. 11, 2011, Mr. Obama threw his support behind the Egyptian people, vowing to back them through a democratic transition.
“The people of Egypt have spoken,” Mr. Obama said at a news conference. “Their voices have been heard, and Egypt will never be the same.”
“We stand ready to provide whatever assistance is necessary — and asked for — to pursue a credible transition to a democracy,” he added.
That democratic transition included a presidential election in June 2012, with Mr. Morsi taking 51.7 percent of the vote in a runoff. Although Mr. Morsi quickly took steps to consolidate his own power, ultimately prompting the widespread street demonstrations that began on Saturday, the Obama administration again appears wary of letting revolutionary sentiment drive changes in power. Rather than endorsing the military’s decision to remove Mr. Morsi, Mr. Obama on Wednesday claimed allegiance to the “democratic process.”

Erin Banco and Thom Shanker contributed reporting.