The Egyptian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Ahmed Abu Zeid responded Wednesday to an article released by the Foreign Affairs magazine which heavily criticized Egypt’s domestic and foreign policy.
The article titled “Egypt’s Nightmare: Sisi’s dangerous war on terror” by Steven Cook was published in the 95th Volume of Foreign Affairs magazine that focused on the Egyptian policies following the 2011 uprising the toppled Hosni Mubarak.
“President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi has established an even more harshly authoritarian regime than the one Mubarak oversaw. By almost every measure, conditions in Egypt are worse now than prior to the revolution. Economic growth remains stagnant. Egypt’s reserves of foreign currency have dwindled to perilous levels,” Cook said in his article.
Attempting to analyze and explain a country’s entire domestic and foreign policy through a single, narrow lens is much like trying to “force several square pegs into the same round hole,” Abu Zeid responded in an article published on the state information services website
“The article’s purpose is to assert that the sole driving force behind all of Egypt’s policies as a state is some obsessive vendetta against the Muslim Brotherhood. Mr. Cook is a highly respected author on Middle Eastern affairs; it is thus unfortunate to see him adopt such a simplistic approach to analyzing Egypt’s policies,” Abu Zeid said.
“The Egyptian Government has made the bold decision to tackle long-term structural problems in parallel with the short-term economic imbalances that resulted from five years of political transformation and turmoil. The ambitious vision for Egypt 2030 covers sector-based plans and projects that will yield results in the short, medium and long-term. Mega-projects are being developed to respond to structural needs as well as boost the economy, creating temporary and permanent job opportunities,” said Abu Zeid.
