The lawmakers’ reluctance contrasts sharply with the eagerness with which Congress extended economic aid to Eastern Europe after the fall of the Berlin Wall.
With all the strains on the U.S. budget, few expected a Marshall Plan for the countries emerging from the political tumult known as the Arab Spring. But critics say the U.S. response to the revolutions has been too tepid.
“It’s very important how these transitions turn out,” said Stephen J. Hadley, national security adviser to President George W. Bush, noting that Iran’s revolution also started out proclaiming democracy before producing an authoritarian state. “By the time the situation has clarified, we’ve lost a lot of opportunity for influence. We’d better start using whatever influence we have now.”
Egypt’s outcome crucial
The outcome of Egypt’s transition is particularly critical to the U.S. government. Its peace treaty with Israel has underpinned regional stability for decades. And as the most populous Arab country, it is a trend-setter; if democracy fails there, it could discourage progress in other parts of the Middle East and North Africa.
The country’s economy has been battered by a drop in tourism and foreign investment since the February revolution that ousted President Hosni Mubarak.
Obama has proposed setting up the kind of economic “enterprise” funds that bolstered Eastern Europe’s small businesses after the collapse of communism. When President George H.W. Bush called for such funds in 1989, lawmakers not only approved his request, they tripled it.
But Congress rebuffed the Obama administration’s effort last spring to get such funds for Egypt and Tunisia into the 2011 budget. Lawmakers are worried not only about spending but about the possibility that Islamists could dominate in elections in those countries. Their concerns were heightened by the recent attack by demonstrators on the Israeli Embassy in Cairo.
“Assistance to Egypt has benefited our national security interests in the past, but much has changed in that country in the last few months,” said Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.), head of the Foreign Affairs Committee. The committee hasn’t decided whether to authorize the Arab aid programs for 2012, but Ros-Lehtinen expressed skepticism.
“Many questions remain about the nature of the new Egyptian leadership, their agenda, their commitment to peace . . . and, most importantly, about their commitment to a strong relationship with the U.S.,” she said. “Yet, the Obama administration is rushing to offer all sorts of incentives.”
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