Anything to be said for Eqypt's miltary?

Submitted by John in Michigan, USA (United States), Feb 3, 2013 at 22:26

The irony of delivering advanced fighters while Egypt struggles to find the hard currency it needs to import food is profound. Probably, the jets are paid-for by US export credits, rather than hard currency...but still...

The Kerry/SOS rhetoric is of course over the top, but I wonder if there isn't something to be said for going ahead with the sales anyhow. Cancelling the sales at this time would be seen as a blow to Morsi, but moreso, a blow to Egypt's military establishment. Even though that establishment chose to ally itself with the Muslim Brotherhood after the coup (aka the Arab "spring"), my understanding from reading Dr. Pipes and others is that the Egyptian military, or at least part of it, was the least anti-US institution in Egypt.

I wish Dr. Pipes would talk more about the pros and cons of continuing normal military-military relations, including arms sales that are in the pipeline, as a way of bolstering up the possibly sympathetic elements within the military.

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