U.S. is prime suspect in escalation of crisis in Egypt

The unprecedented escalation of the crisis in Egypt has raised many questions about the role played by foreign states and their support for the military’s heavy-handed crackdown on protesters.
Many political analysts say that the unrest is not only the result of deposed president Mohammed Morsi’s poor performance while in power and that other factors, especially the machinations of the United States and its silence about the coup d’état against Morsi, should also be taken into consideration.

A brief glance at Washington’s contradictory positions toward developments in Egypt shows that it is really not interested in promoting democracy in that country, or anywhere else. The U.S. government is currently viewed as the prime suspect behind the unrest since it refused to call Morsi’s removal from power a coup. U.S. president Barack Obama’s appointment of Anne Patterson to the post of U.S. ambassador to Cairo, who is known for her conspiracies in the Middle East, proved that the United States is using everything at its disposal to dismantle the democratic process in Egypt.

As one of the main powers in the Arab world and a country with great influence on Islamic culture, Egypt has always been one of the main priorities of Washington’s Middle East policy. Moreover, it has played a major role in maintaining Israel’s security in the face of major regional threats over the past few decades.

But after Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood took power in democratic elections in 2012, Washington became very concerned about the future of the country and how its government would interact with Israel. This was the main reason why U.S. officials remained silent about the military’s ouster of Morsi, who was Egypt’s first democratically elected president. Other U.S. allies in the region, especially the oil-rich Arab states of the Persian Gulf, never delivered the financial assistance they pledged to the country, and thus Morsi was unable to meet the people’s economic needs, which caused a massive amount of discontent.

Washington’s role in supporting the bloody crackdown on the Egyptian people is becoming increasingly evident.

And many political analysts say that prolonged unrest may gradually morph into an all-out civil war that seriously affects the balance of power in the region.

This is undoubtedly another plot devised by Washington that is meant to shore up Israel’s fragile security and to thwart the efforts of the Muslims of the region, who have become much more self-aware over the past two years.

Nosratollah Tajik is a political analyst who formerly served as Iran’s ambassador to Jordan.
This article originally appeared in Persian on the website Khabaronline.ir.