Abu Muqawama: Post
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Guns vs. Scholarships
[The United States] gave Egypt’s military $1.3 billion worth of tanks and fighter jets, and it gave Lebanese public-school students a $13.5 million merit-based college scholarship program that is currently putting 117 Lebanese kids through local American-style colleges that promote tolerance, gender and social equality, and critical thinking. I’ve recently been to Egypt, and I’ve just been to Lebanon, and I can safely report this: The $13.5 million in full scholarships has already bought America so much more friendship and stability than the $1.3 billion in tanks and fighter jets ever will.
I am more than sympathetic to arguments that U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East must go beyond military partnerships, but this Tom Friedman op-ed is nonsense. First off, no where in this op-ed is there any discussion of U.S. interests in the region, which are, according to the president:
- Countering terrorism and stopping the spread of nuclear weapons;
- Securing the free flow of commerce and safe-guarding the security of the region; (read: access to hydrocarbon resources)
- Standing up for Israel’s security and pursuing Arab-Israeli peace.
That $1.3 billion in annual military aid? That is the price the United States pays to ensure peace between Israel and Egypt. For three decades, it has been a fantastic bargain.
Second, I am a proud graduate of the American University of Beirut, but do you know who else counted the AUB as their alma mater? The two most innovative terrorists in modern history, George Habbash and Imad Mughniyeh. U.S. universities and scholarship programs are nice things to do and sometimes forge important ties between peoples and future leaders, but they can also go horribly wrong and do not necessarily serve U.S. interests. There is certainly no guarantee a U.S.-style education leads to greater tolerance or gender and social equality.
Third, I'm glad Tom Friedman is traveling, but after a few weeks (days?) in Cairo and Beirut, he can "safely report" nothing about the relative effectiveness of U.S. activities in Egypt and Lebanon.
Fourth, the military aid we give to Egypt does not come out of the International Affairs budget, so it's not a simple matter of moving some cash around. Tom Friedman will want to speak to the U.S. Congress about this. I was wrong about this! See this Congressional Research Service report (.pdf) for more. Also, Gulliver wrote in to add that "ISA (which includes Foreign Military Finance – particularly the earmarked Israel and Egypt money – and International Military Education and training) is a separate budget line to the humanitarian aid and educational exchange stuff. Congress specifically appropriates that money and would have to be the ones to change it."
Fifth, in 1975, Lebanon was arguably the best educated and most cosmopolitan population in the Arabic-speaking world. I don't need to tell the guy who wrote this book
"From Beirut to Jerusalem"
"From Beirut to Jerusalem" was an eye-opener for me when I read it 20 years ago - such an excellent explanation and analysis of the region. Nothing he has written since then, in my opinion, measures up to this work, and I have found his last few books to be unreadable.
Actually, military aid to
Actually, military aid to Egypt does come out of the IA budget.
http://www.state.gov/t/pm/ppa/sat/c14560.htm
Friedman is really just a
Friedman is really just a giant parody of himself at this point. His columns are basically the same shill over and over again, occasionally featuring the sage taxi driver or the timid hotel concierge asking for reassurance from the wise American about the future of Egypt.
I agree, Ex. Post Camp David
I agree, Ex. Post Camp David aid is a great deal.
One quibble: Velupillai Prabhakaran, founder and leader of LTTE, has to be in the conversation of "most innovative terrorists." Scuba diving suicide bombers...
Brian, there really should be
Brian, there really should be a Center of Excellence for Innovative Terrorism.
I see your Velupillai Prabhakaran and LTTE and raise you Provisional IRA's propaganda of the deed events designed for TV consumption in the UK and Black September's Munich operation.
Well played, Carl. Well
Well played, Carl. Well played.
ETA's assassination of PM Blanco in 1973 was creative as well: dug a tunnel under travel route to plant bomb.
Check this out: http://www.nps.edu/Academics/Centers/CCC/Research/Terrorist_WME_Spotligh...
Mo Hafez is one of the best researchers out there...
While I'm often the first to
While I'm often the first to jump on the bash Tom Friedman bus, this response is just as devoid of any substance. How on earth are our interests, as outlined above, served by offering billions of dollars worth of military aid and equipment to countries like Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Israel? Putting more weapons in the hands of religious extremists (whether Muslim or Jewish) and autocrats with a penchant for torture doesn't strike me as being very intelligent or a good deal.
Your points about Mughniya and Habbash don't really prove anything. Yes, sometimes our non-military efforts do not produce the desired results. So what's the response? More military efforts? Because that hasn't really worked out that well, has it?
Ex, I think referring to Mr.
Ex, I think referring to Mr. Friedman's piece as nonsense is a bit harsh, and I don't think your point-by-point response is necessarily opposite to the piece. In other words, IMHO you are both correct. To the amateur's eyes, I think the point of Mr. Friedman's piece was to say delivering non-military assistance directly to civilians (instead of through government agencies) with a conspicuous "Made in America" stamp may prove to be more helpful to our long-term interests that balances out the weaponry support. For many years, the only "Made in America" stamps the people in most of those countries have seen are the ones that appear on the bullets, the guns, helicopters, etc.
Regards,
Alan
Perhaps intoxicated by SWJ's
Perhaps intoxicated by SWJ's "disruptive thinkers" spiced rum, I was mulling much larger and more daring innovations, Brian.
Something like 500 million people worldwide watched Black September execute Israeli athletes, putting the violent Palestinian ideology before the globe and in a metaphorical sense also holding the Olympics, Germany and the international media hostage to the unfolding events.
I think Maurice Tugwell was right about the Provisional IRA (perhaps because in doltish fashion I was trying to study them in the Six Counties), and would cite as an innovation in terror the brilliant twin bombings in Hyde Park and Regent's Park. The televised images of bleeding horses from the Household Cavalry and soldiers from the Royal Green Jackets were a propaganda of the deed innovation from Black September's Munich operation.
Metaphorically, I'm thinking grand strategy, although I probably should be considering tactics.
We'll hash this out at the next PowerPoint presentation on the Army's Center of Excellence in Terrorist Innovation.
While I agree that Friedman's
While I agree that Friedman's piece is simplistic, to call it nonsense is unfair. He does gloss over the fact that, as you point out, US military aid to Egypt has helped preserve Egyptian-Israeli peace for more than thirty years, but his frustration about the US too frequently overlooking the potential of non-military aid is perfectly understandable. I'll bet anything that most Egyptians would rather see Washington spend more on helping them develop their economy, and less on equipment for a military that, in many Egyptian eyes, is standing in the way of democratization.
I'm all for continuing aid to Israel and Egypt if that's the price of continued peace (although I'm skeptical that America really needs to give more than a billion dollars per year to each country), but surely there are other, more cost-efficient ways for the US to improve its standing in the Middle East. Surely the US can do all it can to preserve the peace while also, as Friedman puts it, helping young Arabs "realize [their] full potential."
As an aside, I'd like to offer my theory as to why so many academics who focus on international affairs don't like Tom Friedman. It's not merely because he generalizes too much in his op-eds (although he does more than his fair share of that). It's because he's not one of them. He's not an academic writing for an academic audience; he's a journalist writing for a reasonably intelligent middle class audience that wants to learn more about the world, but doesn't have time to delve into Foreign Policy or The National Interest. Friedman may not get it right as often as people like Dr. Exum do, but how many other US foreign affairs journalists strike as good a balance between good reporting and reaching a large audience? The only others I can think of are Robert Kaplan and Fareed Zakaria.
I was under the impression
I was under the impression that the last thing many of these Middle Eastern countries needed was more college graduates expecting jobs that do not exist. You have to do quite a lot to keep people from engaging in job-creating commerce. The catalyst for that are elites who siphon off the nation's wealth for their own purposes.
Anti-corruption efforts, transparency in government, forums for people to speak out, access to capital - those are things that the U.S. should be supporting including the $1.3B Egyptian aid. The U.S. should not be a co-conspirator with the Egyptian military to live as parasites on the Egyptian people (and the U.S. taxpayers).
(Come to think of it, I might be talking about the U.S. itself, not Egypt.)
Off topic a bit, but speaking
Off topic a bit, but speaking of your time in Lebanon - is there anywhere a policy geek can download a copy of your doctoral dissertation on Hezbollah?
Great insight! Just one minor
Great insight! Just one minor quibble. You write: "That $1.3 billion in annual military aid? That is the price the United States pays to ensure peace between Israel and Egypt. For three decades, it has been a fantastic bargain."
That "peace" was more than just the product of being bribed with $1.3 billion a year from Uncle Sam. After the Yom Kippur War, Sadat turned toward a more insular policy within the region. Egyptians have little love for Israel, but their country lacks the will to fight yet another war with a militarily superior adversary, much less the means and economic resources to muster the ability to do so.
Abu, you're wrong, wrong,
Abu, you're wrong, wrong, wrong....
& for once Tom Friedman is right. We haven't bought peace -- peace came about during & after the Yom Kippur War, when the Egyptian Army regained a measure of its honor & self-respect, & eventually Egypt recovered the Sinai. The "status quo" was reestablished, and no Egyptian general would dream of upsetting it. All the M-1 tanks and F-16s, whatever else we've given them over the subsequent decades, has not put them into a position where they might challenge the IDF, and they have no pretext to do so. There is no other conceivable military threat that justifies this continued largesse. We've poured a lot of defense money into Egypt for no reason, and it's time to stop. That money should have gone into something like what we did in Lebanon.
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