Recent events in Egypt have put the Obama administration in a major quandary. While managing U.S. policy toward its longtime Arab ally has been a challenge for Washington policymakers throughout the political turmoil that has engulfed Egypt since early 2011, until eight weeks ago the circumstances had largely seemed manageable. But the military overthrow of President Mohammed Morsi in early July and the very bloody crackdown against Morsi supporters in mid-August have brought about a crisis in U.S.-Egypt relations. As a result, American political leaders are being forced to again confront a situation where U.S. interests and values appear misaligned.
Morsi’s tenure was characterized by incompetence, political polarization, and increasing authoritarianism. He was, however, also Egypt’s first democratically elected leader, and there can be no doubt that his forcible removal from power by the Egyptian military was a coup. Unfortunately, some U.S. observers have refused to call the situation what it is. Council on Foreign Relations president Richard Haas wrote that it would be “inaccurate” to describe Morsi’s ouster as a coup d’état and that foreigners should “refrain from describing what has transpired as a coup.” In an article in Foreign Policy written shortly after Morsi was deposed, Martin Indyk of Brookings (and now U.S. Special Envoy for Israeli-Palestinian Negotiations) pointedly avoided using the word “coup,” instead describing Morsi’s overthrow as part of “the ongoing revolution in Egypt.”