America Secretly Approves $1.3 Billion Worth of Military Aid to Egypt

In a May 9 memo publicized last week, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry wrote that the American government will continue to provide its annual $1.3 billion military aid package to the Muslim Brotherhood government of Mohamed Morsi in Egypt.

The aid package has been in place since 1979 under former President Anwar Sadat. Back then, Egypt was a close U.S. ally in the Middle East. In fact, Sadat’s Egypt was the first Arab nation to sign a peace treaty with Israel in 1978. Egypt provided stability in a volatile region dominated by avowed anti-Israel and anti-American forces. Egypt somewhat continued in that path under Sadat’s successor, Hosni Mubarak.

But today, Egypt is vastly different. Under Mohamed Morsi Egypt is no longer a U.S. ally, admitted President Barack Obama in a September 2012 interview with American Spanish-language tv network Telemundo. While Mr. Obama also said the U.S. doesn’t consider Egypt an enemy, the fact of the matter is that the relationship between the two countries has changed.

Remarkably, the military aid package remains the same, even though relations are now greatly strained. “[W]hat we’ve seen is that in some cases, they’ve said the right things and taken the right steps,” said President Obama in the interview. “In others, how they’ve responded to various events may not be aligned with our interests.”

In 2012, Congress introduced new conditions on military aid to Egypt to ensure that assistance would be provided only if Egypt upheld American interests. Before receiving aid, Egypt must be, by U.S. law, “supporting the transition to civilian government, including holding free and fair elections, implementing policies to protect freedom of expression, association and religion, and due process of law.”

That has never happened under President Morsi.

In 2012, then Secretary of State Hilary Clinton waived these pre-conditions and approved the aid package, publicly citing U.S. national security interests—an option the law allows, provided there is detailed justification for the waiver.

On May 9 this year, Secretary Kerry similarly waived the required pre-conditions and approved military aid to Egypt for the sake of U.S. national interests. But unlike Clinton, he did so without any public discussion.

John Kerry’s memo, a copy of which was obtained by the Daily Beast’s Josh Rogin, cited American interests such as countering terrorism, and increasing security in the Sinai Peninsula, the Suez Canal and the Gaza Strip. However, these same U.S. interests are being attacked by Morsi’s allies in Iran and Hamas. And the Muslim Brotherhood itself is a terrorist organization whose motto reads: “Allah is our objective. The Prophet is our leader. Qur’an is our law. Jihad is our way. Dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope.”

Mr. Kerry wrote in his memo that “we are not satisfied with the extent of Egypt’s progress and are pressing for a more inclusive democratic process and the strengthening of key democratic institutions.” Even as recent as last Tuesday, 43 pro-democracy advocates, including 16 Americans, were sentenced to up to five years in prison by Morsi’s government.

The U.S. seems to have completely lost its leverage to influence policy in Egypt. It appears there are no negative repercussions to Morsi’s actions. Tamara Cofman Wittes, director of the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution, said that “by issuing a waiver without any public discussion, [the U.S.] has at the very least missed a significant opportunity to … raise its concerns about the political trajectory in Egypt.”

America’s decision to continue supporting its apparent adversary, and at an annual cost of $1.3 billion that it obviously has to borrow, defies logic. It’s only logical in the context of Bible prophecy, which says that God has broken the pride of American resolve and power as punishment for its national disobedience (Leviticus 26:19). That prophecy means that God—as the one who “ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever he will, and setteth up over it the basest of men” (Daniel 4:17)—is punishing America by allowing weak-willed leadership to guide the nation.