Is US Aid To Post-Election Egypt At Risk?

With the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice party likely to play an important role in the country’s next government, some observers are concerned the US Congress could cut funding to Egypt, one of America’s most important Arab partners and beneficiaries of foreign aid. 

US foreign assistance to Egypt is set to be over 1.65 Billion dollars in 2011, 1.3 billion of which is reserved for military aid. Other major areas of funding are economic development (246 million), Education (43 million) Democracy, Human Rights and Governance (30 million) Health (20 million) and Environment ( 10 million). 

Author and Council on Foreign Relations Middle Eastern Fellow Ed Husain says domestic political considerations and lack of knowledge about the Muslim Brotherhood could lead Congress to make a push for cuts, even if the preponderance of power will likely remain with the military after the election.

In June, House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ileana Ros Lehtinen (R-FL) was quick to criticize Egypt’s military leaders for recognizing the Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party and threatened action. 

“The Muslim Brotherhood is committed to violence and extremism. Neither freedom nor justice will be advanced by any political party established by the Muslim Brotherhood.” she said in a June 8 statement . “United States policy must reflect this reality, and the Administration must not engage the Muslim Brotherhood, or allow direct or indirect U.S. assistance to benefit that organization.”

“Sadly there is a mindset and advocacy around Congress that flies in the face of facts. So the Muslim Brotherhood is being portrayed as a monolithic movement, the diverse strands of thought within the Muslim Brotherhood are not understood by most people on the Hill.” Husain said in a CFR organized conference call from Cairo. 

He says he is concerned the group’s long and often controversial history will make it an obvious target.

“Its easy to build up an argument and say “The Brotherhood supported Hamas, the Brotherhood supported the Nazi’s, the Brotherhood was a terrorist organization through out the 1940’s, the Brotherhood is an anti - US organization. Why should US taxpayers fund the Muslim Brotherhood?” Those are the kinds of arguments that are going to be thrown into the public space in the US and my fear is that it is going to be difficult to add caveat, nuance and balanced thinking amidst that storm.” 

Husein says regions of Egypt that have so far voted have done so peacefully despite a scuffle in high profile area of Cairo between an Islamist and Liberal candidate and a shoot out in the city of Asyut. He says he has visited 20 or so polling station over the past two days and that while he remains critical of the Brotherhood, its members are by far the most active and well organized.

“They are the only force out there that a) have a manifesto, b) have some kind of vision as what they want to bring about and c) have the mechanisms to do so.” 

Husain says he has been in contact with members of the Muslim Brotherhood’s three main factions and that the driving force behind its focused campaign is the faction of deputy leader Khairat el Shater, an engineer and successful banker who was imprisoned for more than ten years under the Mubarak regime. 

“He understands liberal economics, he understands capitalism, he was educated in Britain, he is not a man who is cut off from the rest of the world like some of the older leaders of the past.” Husain said of el Shater.

Husain says the Brotherhood has been consulting with the Turkish and Qatari governments and had reportedly hired a “top five” Western accountancy firm to help it devise policy mechanisms. 

“The vast majority of their leadership is dominated by people from engineering, medical and other professional backgrounds so they are by nature almost technocrats who are have given to managing large institutions.”

Hussein says the Obama administration has adjusted its policy towards the Brotherhood, since Secretary of State Hilary Clinton refused to meet with members of the group six months ago. 

He says the US is now engaging with its leaders, but the administration’s future relationship with the group remains unclear.  Husein says he believes Freedom and Justice officials will be looking for constructive engagement with the US as well as a possible free trade agreement, but that Congress’s likely hostility to the group could be a significant obstacle.

Lawmakers Pressure European Companies For Holocaust Reparations

At a House Foreign Affairs Committee on Wednesday, lawmakers increased pressure on European companies to compensate Holocaust victims who who were taken to their deaths on French trains and those who were denied insurance payouts.

“We will be discussing two situations linked by a common theme: the rights of Holocaust survivors, as American citizens, to bring legal action in federal court,” Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, said in her opening statement Wednesday.

The first of the two legislations discussed at the hearing was the Holocaust Rail Justice Act, cosponsored by Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.).

More than 76,000 Jews were transported by the French rail company, SNFC, to their deaths during WWII. Because SNFC is granted jurisdictional immunity under the 1976 Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, they have refused to accept responsibility and pay reparations to the victims’ families. Last year, SNFC bid on a $2.6-billion rail project linking the Florida cities of Orlando and Tampa as part of President Obama’s infrastructure initiative to improve rail service across the United States.

“In the almost 70 years since the end of the war, SNFC has paid no reparations nor been held accountable,” Holocaust survivor Leo Bretholz testified before the committee. “The survivors seek only to have our day in court for the first time. Seventy years is far to long to wait for a company to accept responsibility for the death and suffering it caused.” 

“SNFC is now bidding on all kinds of contracts for rail here in the United States and what my bill would do is allow [victims] to have their day in court,” Maloney told TRNS. “By finally forcing SNFC out of the shadows and by precluding SNFC from hiding behind foreign sovereign immunity, the Holocaust Rail Justice Act will finally provide some measures of justice.”

The second legislation discussed at Wednesday’s hearing was the Holocaust Insurance Accountability Act, cosponsored by Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.) and Rep. Ted Deutch (D-Fla.).

“It’s a simple bill,” Ros-Lehtinen told TRNS. “It allows the claimants a lawsuit in federal courts…[and] it forces the insurance company to open up their records to which policies they [the victims] had.”

When holocaust victims’ families attempted to claim their life insurance after the war, they were rejected for lacking death certificates, which were not available for those murdered in concentration camps, and other documentation that was lost during deportations.

“It is so outrageous that an insurance company makes a legal contract and all of a sudden decides he is not going to pay and that our government is going to protect them instead of us,” Holocaust survivor Renee Firestone told TRNS. “This is what it is all about: we feel that our government should protect us first.”

If this new legislation is passed, European insurance companies who intend to do business in the U.S will now be liable to lawsuits brought by victims’ family members.

“The bottom line is that all these folks are asking for is for their day in court to be able to present their lawsuit,” Ros-Lehtinen continued. “It doesn’t mean they will win.”

House Raises Questions Over Troop Deployment To Africa

By Adrianna McGinley

Department of Defense and State officials faced stiff questions from the House Foreign Affairs Committee over the deployment of roughly 100 U.S. troops to central Africa in an effort to train African forces to combat the Lord’s Resistance Army, a known terrorist group in the region.

Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Donald Yamamoto and Assistant Defense Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs Alexander Vershbow did their best to fend off questions from both Democrats and Republicans on the committee over the role U.S. troops will have in the mission and the cost to tax payers.

“The cost is really an important factor because the United States can’t afford to pay the price to win everyone else’s freedom in the world,” Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.) said.

Members agreed the organization and its leader, Joseph Kony, needed to be taken down, but expressed concern regarding the total estimated cost and duration of the mission, the possibility of U.S. troops being engaged in combat and the lack of a concrete exit strategy.

“The president has demonstrated leadership in Libya and the fight against terrorism,” Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.) said. [But] what is the strategic interest of the United States in doing this? I mean, there are lots of unpleasant people in the world. There are lots of insurgencies and terrorist movements in the world. The United States obviously cannot try to dethrone every one of them.”

Vershbow defended the mission saying the “advise and assist” model is well established and has proven successful in the past. The Defense official assured that there will be a clear exit within a reasonable amount of time.

“We have made very clear that this is not an open ended commitment. As part of the decision to deploy our advisers, we agreed that there would be a review after several months in order to assess whether our advisers are making sufficient progress toward our objectives,” Vershbow said. “Continuing this deployment is contingent upon a number of factors including a sustained commitment and sustained cooperation by the regional governments in addressing the LRA threat.”

Even with insecurities over specific logistical concerns, the members of the committee agreed on the importance of dismembering the group deemed a terrorist organization by the United States in 2001.

“Kony’s removal won’t guarantee peace, but it is the one thing that makes peace possible in that region,” Rep. Ed Royce (R-Calif.) said.

UN Funding Targeted in Vote by Congressional Committee

The House Foreign Affairs Committee today voted for a bill to overhaul  American funding to the United Nations and to open the door to cuts of up to 50 % in US dues to the world body.

The vote broke along party lines, with 23 Republicans in favor and 15 Democrats against. 

It is unclear when the bill would be put forward to the House, but Secretary of State Clinton has already indicated she would recommend President Obama veto it.

 Under the proposed bill, the US would fund UN programs and operations on a case by case voluntary basis rather than the current dues based system. 

Committee Chairman Ileana Ros Lehtinen argued that only a move to a voluntary contributions system could lead to significant reform and improvement of the United Nations system. Lehtinen says the new funding mechanisms would increase US leverage on UN programs and policies that too often work against the interests America and its ally Israel.

The bill would withhold half of the US contribution to the United Nations if the organization failed to fund 80% percent of its budget through voluntary contributions over the next two years. 

Democratic opponents of the bill said it sets up the UN for failure by creating unattainable goals, hoping to force the US to withdraw from the international organization.

“This so-called reform legislation is being marketed as a way to combat efforts for by the Palestinians to gain statehood at the UN and put a stop to some of the repugnant anti-Israel practices at the world body. But that’s really false advertising.” said Howard Berman (D-CA) ranking Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee “The true purpose of the bill is to end US participation in the UN and in the process deal a fatal financial blow to the world body.”

U.S. Must Adopt Political Strategy In Afghanistan, Says AEI Expert

By Meagan Wiseley - University of New Mexico/Talk Radio News Service

In a hearing before the House Foreign Affairs Committee Thursday, Dr. Frederick W. Kagan, a Resident Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, called on the Obama administration to develop a political strategy in Afghanistan as an accompaniment to General Stanley McChrystals request for additional troops and a counterinsurgency campaign.

“We need to know what the administration’s political strategy in this crisis is going to be. Of course it’s not in General McChrystals plan, because it’s not his remit to develop a political strategy,” Kagan said.

“In order to conduct an effective counterinsurgency campaign you have to address the problems of the illegitimacy of the government that fuel insurgency...if the government was seen as legitimate you wouldn’t have an insurgency,” explained Kagan.

Gen. McChrystal’s assessment on the war in Afghanistan called for a “surge” of approximately 40,000 troops, and said protecting the Afghan populations is its highest priority. His assessment also included the key element of partnering with the National Afghan Security Forces (NASF). The assessment concluded that a partnership with the NASF would therefore hold the Afghan government more accountable.

J Alexander Thier, Director for Afghanistan and Pakistan at the United States Institute of Peace said, “I believe apart from the troops, we need to focus much more intensively on this effort to create government accountability and capacity particularly at the sub-national level.”

“Gen. McChrystal has done his homework...what we need to see is the homework for the rest of the effort, which is a political strategy to go along with this,” Kagan added.