An unchanging US foreign policy

GEORGETOWN, Guyana - From whatever angle one views the current political crisis in Egypt, the spectre of an unchanging United States foreign policy returns an unflinching stare. The truth is that it mattered little to Washington whether the events of July 3 that removed Mohamed Morsi from office amounted to a military coup or otherwise. What mattered was whether Morsi’s removal from office was consistent with Washington’s foreign policy interests. As far as the US was concerned Mr Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood would have been unreliable allies in circumstances where Egypt has always been Washington’s most reliable ally, so that in the final analysis the removal of his government was simply a matter of the ends justifying the means. When Under Secretary of State William Burns travels to Cairo at the weekend his visit there would mark a definitive foreign policy pronouncement on the part of the Obama administration regarding what happened in Egypt two weeks ago. The agenda for Under Secretary Burns’ visit will not include a salient truth ‒ that the Egyptian military forcibly removed the country’s democratically elected President from office, curtailed his freedom, detained many of his supporters and installed an interim civilian president in his place; and that is likely to be Washington’s last word on that particular matter.