Originally posted by Minskaya
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They're also exploiting present differences between the US & Egypt. Where does US policy on Egypt go from here. Depends how the road map works out. 9 months its supposed to take, which will take up to next March end. US has given Egypt $76 billion since camp David, which has mostly gone to the army with the Egyptian people seeing little of it. Yet, when Hagel was in Cairo it was not enough to control the Egyptian army from cracking down on the islamists. Where was US leverage there.
I think shutting down suez is extreme, Egypt has interests in maintaining camp david and its relations with the US. Of late, they just seem to be little more uncertain as to their role wrt the US. Maybe its the Gulf money that's confusing them. Initially i thought the $12 billion infusion from the KSA, UAE & Kuwait would help keep the economy from collapsing, but i see it now as prolonging the status quo. Had the egyptian economy collapsed, it would have led to the IMF getting involved and restructuring things. This is what turned India around, we dusted off an IMF report and implemented it. There was no credible opposition. However, the Egyptian army having a hand in the economy would want to put this off for as long as possible, with gulf money.
Originally posted by Minskaya
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