As this week draws to a close, most of us are enjoying syllabus week shenanigans and gearing up to watch the Tigers rip TCU a new one. Halfway around the world, though, there are massive protests, violent clashes with authorities and large numbers of people dying in Egypt.
As isolated as we like to think we are in our bubble here at LSU, what is going on in Cairo and other parts of Egypt is going to be directly influenced by what our lawmakers decide to do in the coming weeks, and it may or may not set the stage for yet another major Middle Eastern conflict.
The Egyptian military is in power after the coup that ousted former President Mohammed Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood-led government, and we need them firmly on our side; they are our only friends left in the country. We should in no way cease our aid, military or otherwise, to the Egyptian military.
In fact, we should embrace their crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood.
Now, you may be asking yourself, “Why in the world should I care?” Well, besides the fact that it is ultimately us, the voters, who decide what we do in foreign affairs, Egypt just so happens to be a vital strategic partner in the region.
So take your eyes off Miley Cyrus twerking for five minutes and pay attention to something that will actually have lasting repercussions for the country.
In 1978, when President Anwar Sadat signed the Camp David Accords, Egypt took the first steps toward becoming a close ally of the United States. They then went on to sign a peace treaty with Israel in 1979, the first Arab nation to do so.
For a time, Egypt was our model of a “functioning” (US-friendly) Islamic democracy to the rest of the world.
Now, we all know that the regime under Morsi was forcibly removed from office by the Egyptian military in response to “the will of the Egyptian people,” which was a series of massive protests against Morsi attempting to consolidate power to himself.
Critics of the coup argue that the government was democratically elected, and should not have been removed from office regardless of what the president was attempting to do. But this was basically what the Nazis tried and got away with in Germany after they passed the Enabling Act.
So the Egyptian military stepped up to the plate and removed the would-be despots from office and arrested them. In fact, leaders are being tried right alongside former President Hosni Mubarak, the strongman that ruled Egypt for decades.
Killing two dictatorial birds with one stone, if you will.
Few things, however, are cut and dry in Middle East politics. In recent weeks, the Muslim Brotherhood has responded to Morsi’s ouster not just with mass demonstrations in Cairo’s Tahrir Square, but with several violent clashes with Egyptian security forces as well.
This string of violence is what has prompted the Egyptian military’s crackdown on Muslim Brotherhood members, particularly the leaders. These clashes have led to scores dead, and even more injured.
The political response in the US has been a mixed bag, ranging from “We’re deciding to not decide” to shrill calls for all aid to Egypt to end.
The policy makers in Washington need to commit themselves to supporting the military’s efforts to root out these extremists before they gain a stronger foothold, and the region is engulfed in a second civil war, and we, the citizenry, need to stay informed enough that we send the right people to D.C. to do just that.
Ryan McGehee is a 20-year-old political science, history and international studies junior.