Gulf Arabs Learn What It’s Like to Be America

[Valin]

Via Meadia:

Walter Russell Mead

Feb 9 2015

 

Well, this is embarrassing. Somebody pushed the record button while high-ranking Egyptian military officials shared their real feelings about the Gulf Arabs who have bailed Egypt’s military government out. As The Financial Times reports:

 

An audio recording released on Saturday purportedly chronicles Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, Egypt’s president, and two deputies deliberating over ways to convince Gulf Arab leaders in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait to cough up billions of dollars in aid.

 

“There should be no compromises, especially with half-states,” Mr Sisi’s chief of staff, Abbas Kamel, allegedly said, dismissing concerns by a Gulf state that there be some measure of accountability for aid payments to Egypt.

(Snip)

 

It is hard for military patriots in both Egypt and Pakistan to reconcile nationalist military pride with the reality that each country can only get by with the international equivalent of food stamps. In both cases it points to the central failure of decades of military control: the failure to develop a modern and efficient economy that can meet the needs of citizens as well as provide for defense.

 

The current situation in the Middle East is so explosive that the Saudis and their friends are likely to continue doling out the cash. However, we’d advise Egypt’s military leaders to refrain, even in private, from making obscene remarks about the mothers of rich foreign rulers. One never knows when people are listening.

 

______________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

http://youtu.be/xqijGwausV0

Published on Feb 7, 2015