US policy in Egypt motivated by competition with Russia for arms sales not justice

An Egyptian court has upheld the death sentence against the first elected president of Egypt, Mohamed Morsi. He was sworn in as president in June 2012.

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Just over a year after taking office in July 2013, Morsi was removed from office after mass protests and a military coup led by commander of the military, Abdel el-Sisi. El-Sisi would later be elected president. Morsi was held without charge for some time but later was charged with a number of crimes. He and five other defendants have been sentenced to death by hanging for a mass jail break. This jail break happened as part of the Arab Spring revolution against Hosni Mubarak.

The military-supported government initiated a crackdown on opponents of the regime, including Morsi supporters, members of the Muslim Brotherhood and other opponents of the regime. The repression continued when el-Sisi became president. There were mass trials that made a mockery of the Egyptian judicial system. Hundreds were sentenced to death in mass trials. The US did react to these violations of human rights by freezing some military aid.

However, in March of this year Obama unfroze the aid:The White House says the U.S. is supplying Egypt with 12 F-16s, 20 Harpoon missiles and up to 125 M1A1 Abrams tank kits – delivery of which was suspended in 2013 after a military-backed coup ousted President Mohammed Morsi and cracked down on his supporters. A White House statement also said President Obama directed the continued request of an annual $1.3 billion in military assistance, in the form of foreign military financing.The el-Sisi regime has not changed its repression of opposition. If anything, it has become worse with arrests of journalists and more trials that are judicial farces and almost universally condemned. What happened was that Egypt decided if the U.S. was going to try and use military aid to force reforms then it would seek arms elsewhere.

In September of 2014 Russia and Egypt signed a preliminary deal to buy $3.5 billion in arms from Russia. Later in February of this year when Putin visited Cairo on Feb. 9 arms deals were discussed and military officials from the internationally recognized Libyan government discussed purchase of arms from Russia as well. Since there is a ban on direct sales to Libya under a UN resolution, Egypt could "mediate" any purchase. It is hardly surprising that in March suddenly the el-Sisi regime had reformed sufficiently to receive billions from the U.S. again.

The U.S. has a long history of supplying arms for Egypt even under the dictatorship of Hosni Mubarak. It has a generous "cash flow" arrangement that only one other ally of the U.S., Israel, is able to use:Since the early 1980s, the United States has granted Egypt an extraordinary ability to place orders with American defense contractors that are worth far more than Congress has appropriated for military aid, according to U.S. officials. Under the mechanism, called cash-flow financing, Egypt can submit large orders for equipment that takes years to produce and deliver, under the assumption that U.S. lawmakers will continue to allocate the same amount in military aid year after year.From 2008 to 2012 Egypt ordered $8.5 billion in military aid while the U.S. Congress only allocated $6.3 billion for military aid to Egypt. In effect, Egypt has a credit card for US military purchases with a spending limit of billions.

The U.S. has called the death sentence against Morsi "deeply troubling." Josh Earnest, the White House spokesperson, delivered a sentence of a few tongue-lashings against Egypt: "We are deeply troubled by the politically motivated sentences that have been handed down against former president Morsi and several others by an Egyptian court today..We are concerned that proceedings have been conducted in a way that is not only contrary to universal values but also damaging to stability that all Egyptians deserve,"He did not suggest that the U.S. would now again freeze military aid to Egypt. An appeal of the sentence can still be made. Egypt may or may not feel the need to show some mercy.

US continues aid and support to Egypt in spite of its repressive policies

In spite of the fact that since the overthrow of elected president Mohamed Morsi led by then army chief Abdel al-Sisi, the regime has become even more repressive since his election as president and the Obama administration has become more supportive.

In September President Al-Sisi met with Bill and Hillary Clinton as well as former Secretaries of State Henry Kissinger and Madeleine Albright. In late September, Obama also met with al-Sisi and "touted the longstanding relationship between the United States and Egypt as a cornerstone of American security policy in the Middle East." In June, Human Rights Watch claimed that the post-coup era in Egypt has included "the worst incident of mass unlawful killings in Egypt's recent history". The situation became even worse as: “judicial authorities have handed down unprecedented large-scale death sentences and security forces have carried out mass arrests and torture that harken back to the darkest days of former President Hosni Mubarak’s rule.” Even the New York Times in an editorial said: “Egypt today is in many ways more repressive than it was during the darkest periods of the reign of deposed strongman Hosni Mubarak.”
 Yet even back in April US officials promised to ensure that some of the $1.5 million in aid to Egypt, most of it military, would be released including 10 Apache helicopter gunships to be used in operations in the Sinai against militants. In June, Secretary of State John Kerry also met with al-Sisi and US officials announced that $572 million in aid that had been frozen after the crackdown last October, has now been released.
 An Egyptian court recently dismissed all charges against previous president Hosni Mubarak. The charges involved the killing of 239 protesters in 2011. Mubarak's interior minister and six aides were also cleared. Mubarak was also cleared of two corruption charges. Although one charge was upheld it will not likely entail any more prison time. While Mubarak was cleared of charges a total of 188 members of the Muslim Brotherhood were found guilty and sentenced to death en masse for the killing of 11 police officers during an ant-Sisi protest. This is the third mass sentencing of hundreds in the last year. Sarah Leah Whitson of Human Rights Watch said: “It is just one more piece of evidence that the judiciary is just a political tool the government uses to prosecute its enemies and free the people it wants to be freed,”
 Al-Sisi refused to condemn the dropping of charges against Mubarak. He said that Egypt should "look to the future" and "cannot ever go back" echoing President Obama's justifications for not prosecuting any of the torturers and others from the Bush era black site times.Obama had said that "we need to look forward as opposed to looking backwards". No doubt Egypt can look forward to further repression and mass sentencing.
 During the Tahrir Square demonstrations, the US applauded the drive towards democracy even though they had for years supported Mubarak and even used his torturers to extract information for them on occasion. In March of 2009 Hillary Clinton said: “I really consider President and Mrs. Mubarak to be friends of my family.” Perhaps if Hillary becomes US president, President Al-Sisi will become friends of her family. Expect that Al-Sisi will also be friends with Putin and even with Israel.