A few days before the 30 June Revolution, Anne Patterson, the US ambassador to Cairo, sent a message to the Egyptian people from the podium of a well-known think tank. She said the street choice is not a good choice and would result in more chaos. Patterson could not catch the essence of the demonstrators' demands, which focussed primarily on early presidential elections in the Tamarod (Rebel) campaign, but more deeply in Egyptian society was about Egyptian identity. The close relationship between the US administration and Muslim Brotherhood for almost a year had blurred the vision in Washington and pushed President Barack Obama to deal cautiously with the possible change in Cairo. Policymakers in the US capital failed, for months, to realise that the Muslim Brothers were not the force of real change and their policies were working against the “constitutional democracy” that US statements kept calling for since the 25 January Revolution. US officials and think tank experts stopped short of criticising the Muslim Brotherhood since US interests would be put at risk if the forces of political Islam in the Middle East turned against US policy. In Washington, the idea prevailed that the Muslim Brotherhood would establish a prolonged and unrivalled rule for several decades — all official contacts and statements promoted this premise, aiming to deepen the relationship with different factions of Islamists in the region. With the success of the 30 June Revolution, unprecedented in numbers of protesters in Egypt's history, toppling Morsi and his clan from power, and supported by the army, the US government found itself in an uncomfortable position. How to be seen supporting democracy while maintaining its strategic interests in the region? The early US decision not to describe what happened in Egypt a “military coup” matched the long-time pragmatic approach of American foreign policy, but many US officials and media outlets have denied the Egyptian people the right to rise against the failed regime. The new revolution has been under US media bombardment for several days due to the influence of the Muslim Brotherhood lobby and the ability of the group's propagandists to reach their friends in US news networks and newspapers. For almost a couple of years, the Muslim Brothers have managed to build a vast public relations network, away of traditional state institutions. This network plays a major role in the anti-revolution campaign in the West now. In such a pro-Muslim Brotherhood atmosphere, the White House endorsed the elections that brought a Muslim Brotherhood-led government to power, but failed to address the undemocratic policies of Morsi. US reactions have been tailored to reflect the idea of not abandoning completely the Islamists. On Saturday, President Obama denied that Washington was supporting any political group or movement: “We remain committed to the Egyptian people and their aspirations for democracy, economic opportunity and dignity. But the future path of Egypt can only be determined by the Egyptian people.” This ambivalence in the face of tens of millions in the streets could backfire on US interests. Already vocal protests have been directed against the Obama administration. People who signed the Tamarod campaign petition refused the current constitution and called for real changes that assert the “civic” nature of the state against the Muslim Brotherhood project, supported by other Islamic factions, of turning Egypt into a “theocratic state”. In an insightful article in The Washington Post, Marc Thiessen argues that the US administration misread the situation. “The popular uprising against the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt represents one of the most hopeful and promising developments in the Middle East since the Arab Spring began. When millions of Egyptians take to the streets to make clear that they do not want to trade a secular dictatorship for an Islamist dictatorship, that should be a positive development for America.” Some key members in the US Congress, too, ignored the unprecedented marches against Morsi. One of them, Republican Senator John McCain, said: “Let me put it this way — we cannot repeat the same mistakes that we made at other times in our history by supporting the removal of freely elected governments, and so I believe that aid has to be suspended, that the Egyptian military has to set a timetable for elections and new constitution and then we should evaluate whether we should continue aid or not.” The White House developed its position by issuing a statement Monday, saying, “Cutting off aid immediately to Egypt would not be in the best interests of the United States.” A remarkable reaction came from the House of Representatives' Committee on International Relations supporting the ouster of Morsi. At the same time, the US administration and US Congress are pushing the Egyptian army to stick to its word to return a democratically elected government as soon as possible. “When elected institutions with some support on the ground are removed by force, the outcome is almost never friendly to democracy. Outright military dictatorship, military domination of politics, civil war or a mix of all are all possibilities,” Omar Ashour, a non-resident fellow at the Brookings Doha Centre, wrote in The Observer last Sunday. Meanwhile, the Pentagon issued more than one statement, assuring the US public that Egyptian army leaders have confirmed to their counterparts in Washington that they will transfer power to an elected government in due time, and that the army is working for stability not chaos. The military relationship between Cairo and Washington has been a key element in defining the strategic approach of the United States in the region. The failure of US diplomacy to predict the course of events would have serious repercussions on the internal US debate. The Republicans would intensify criticising Obama's policy on Egypt and the whole Middle East and this is expected to leave a scar on the face of the Democratic Party in the next presidential elections. Critics are accusing Obama of compromising US national interests by trying to make friends among Islamists, working closely with the Muslim Brotherhood and ignoring the real forces of change — liberals. The administration is also under criticism from different parties for its policy in Libya and Syria, and the inability to build a reliable strategy to counter, or stop, the spread of Al-Qaeda affiliates in the Middle East and Sub-Saharan Africa. The US administration had built an approach on empowering the Muslim Brotherhood and giving the most popularly organised Islamic group in the Arab world a chance to play a role in the regional order, despite the fact that key regional powers — namely Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates — rejected this role and worked hard to convince the US government not to play such a wild card. One of the reasons the Egyptian public and some regional powers felt threatened by the policies of the Muslim Brotherhood and the failure of the US to read the future consequences of them is the role of the group in increasing tension between Shia and Sunnis in the region, especially following Morsi and his hardline supporters' statements calling for jihad in Syria. According to sources in Washington, the Obama administration will proceed with a serious review of US policy in the region in an effort to contain internal criticism following the collapse of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and the expected repercussions in other countries — including Tunisia and Syria. The head of US diplomacy in Cairo is likely to pay the price of a failed policy in the short-term. The only way to stay relevant to the situation is to build realistic understandings on what is going on and to stop meddling in the political scene. Approaching Salafis is a choice, but not realistic, in face of the course of events and ascending liberal and moderate voices in the Egyptian street. The US will doubtless encounter difficulty talking to liberals and leftists in the aftermath of the revolution against Islamists, but the pragmatism of American policies may prevail. There is a golden opportunity to help the new moderate generation in the country. “A popular uprising against Islamist rule in Egypt should have been a major victory in the ideological struggle against Islamic extremism. Yet Obama managed to squander that victory by standing with the pharaoh instead of with the people,” wrote Thiessen.
