Is US policy on Egypt shifting?
Michele Dunne, a former administration official, argues that it may be.
Michele Dunne, a former administration official, argues that it may be.
Michele Dunne, who spent 17 years at the State Department focused on the Middle East and ended her government service as a staffer on President George W. Bush's National Security Council, took issue (kindly) with parts of a story I wrote this morning about the Obama administration's actions on Egypt not matching its words.
The following are comments Ms. Dunne, now a senior associate in the Middle East program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, emailed to me with some minor changes (completing abbreviated words, mostly).
The Los Angeles Times article in question begins "The Egyptian military recently used American-made Apache helicopter gunships to fire rockets into houses in the Sinai Peninsula, the latest in a series of lethal raids targeting a little-known Al Qaeda-inspired group that has bombed civilians." It continues:聽
The Egyptian security services are generally not delicate about collateral damage and civilians, and foreign armies generally treat US rules that military equipment not be used against civilians on a wink-wink basis. For more on the potential downside to America's terrorism-first, democracy-meh policies, have a look at this post from earlier today.聽