And yet, go to USAID’s website and find the Egypt page and you will read that, “For three decades, the United States and Egypt have collaborated closely on economic development and regional stability.” You will also read the grotesque claim that “USAID has helped Egypt become a “success story in economic development.” More specifically, the site claims particular success in improving the quality of education, and, grotesquely, in light of recent events, taken the credit for having strengthened “the administration of justice,” improved “access to justice for disadvantaged groups,” and promoted “decentralized governance and more competitive electoral processes.”
Washington seems never to have believed that any quid pro quo should have been demanded in return for the $28 billion USAID provided over the past 36 years. And yet, there is absolutely no reason why successive U.S. administrations should not have made this assistance conditional on, say, a serious attempt by the Egyptian government to curb corruption. It is not as if Mubarak would have then said, “That’s it, I’m breaking ties with Israel, lifting the Egyptian blockade of Gaza, and seeking a rapprochement with the Iranians.” But no American administration has ever attached the same kind of conditions to development aid as it has to military assistance. And today, as the end of the Mubarak regime is in sight (whether or not he succeeds in holding on to power for a while longer), the true cost of that passivity is can no longer be concealed, or wished away, or covered up by risible claims posted on the USAID website.
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