In Egypt, we see that the US is only interested in defending democracy as long as it serves its interests.
LAHORE: At a recent press conference by a US government official, reporters asked multiple times as to why the US does not categorise the events in Egpyt as a coup. The answer by the official was clear that the US government representatives have decided not to determine it as a coup, keeping in mind the interests of their country and that designating it as a coup will have certain limitations.
This stance has openly exposed the double standards in the US foreign policy. Gone are the days when the US would take a stance on foreign policy, followed by propaganda, and years later, people discovered that whatever the US propagated was all a lie, such as the case of the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
With the events in Egypt and the US insistence that the Egyptian military stepping in was not a coup, it clearly shows that the US has given a level of credibility to the new government and a continuation of military aid to that country, irrespective of the military’s actions. The result is directly emboldening the Egyptian military, which has now initiated a massacre of those supporting deposed president Mohamed Mursi.
In the last decade, the world witnessed Afghanistan and Iraq being bombed into accepting ‘democracy’, and in Egypt, we see that the US is only interested in defending democracy as long as it serves its interests. Otherwise, if it does not suit its interests, democracy may well be booted out and remoulded such that a country’s leadership is more palatable to the West, and only then will it be allowed to flourish. This also has a stark resemblance with the events in Pakistan, where the US supported both democratic and dictatorial dispensations as long as its regional interests were being catered for.
As rightly asked in a tweet, by famous journalist Christiane Amanpour, “And when do ‘liberals’ in Egypt start worrying about their new ‘road map’ to democracy? Surely, everyone knows you can’t kill your way back to democracy.”
Engr Sharique Naeem
Published in The Express Tribune, August 17th, 2013.
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