16-Aug-13 World View -- Car bomb in Hezbollah Lebanon

[John]

16-Aug-13 World View -- Car bomb in Hezbollah's Lebanon stronghold kills 20

Good news is bad news on Wall Street

** 16-Aug-13 World View -- Car bomb in Hezbollah's Lebanon stronghold kills 20
** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/pg/ ... tm#e130816



Contents:
Car bomb in Hezbollah's Lebanon stronghold kills 20
Egypt and Turkey recall ambassadors, as countries pick sides
Good news is bad news on Wall Street


Keys:
Generational Dynamics, Lebanon, Beirut, Hezbollah,
Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, Brigades of Aisha,
Syria, Bashar al-Assad, Iraq,
Egypt, Muslim Brotherhood, Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan,
United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait,
Wall Street, Federal Reserve, quantitative easing, tapering

[Reality Check]

As we've recently reported, Egypt has been promised $12 billion in aid from Gulf Arab states that don't like or trust the Muslim Brotherhood -- Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates (UAE), and Kuwait.

This is significant for American foreign policy. Washington is debating whether to threaten to cut off American aid to Egypt, in order to gain leverage. But America's $1.3 billion in aid is only a small fraction of the aid they're getting from the Arab states, which means that America really doesn't have much leverage at all.

I believe we are talking apples and figs here, in terms of influence.

U.S. aid is 1.3 Billion annually that has been delivered year in, and year out over a period of over 30 years.

The promised $12 Billion has never been delivered, is a one time amount, and may be broken up into dribs and drabs, over a period of ten years, or never as is often the case with such "promises" between middle east Arab states.

The U.S. aid is targeted for maximum benefit on the Egyptian military. The other aid is general economic aid.

The largest difference however is symbolic. The U.S. has a treaty obligation to deliver this aid to Egypt, failing to do so would be a declaration that the United States considers the current government illegitimate and that the U.S. is siding with the dictorial, Islamist government that was overthrown by the Egyptian military.

The United States has tremendous power to encourage the Muslim Brotherhood to start a civil war in Egypt. Cutting off aid to Egypt would be seen as the United States siding with the Muslim Brotherhood and thus encouraging them, and elements in the Egyptian military inclined to support the Muslim Brotherhood, to start a real civil war in Egypt.

As long as the U.S. is perceived as favoring the current government, or even perceived as truly neutral, then all members of Egyptian officer corps will stay loyal to the institution that pays them well and protects them and their families elite status in Egyptian society.

Even the Muslim Brotherhood realizes that a United Egyptian military is not going to fall to mobs of military illiterates who are opposed by a vast majority of the Egyptian people living in the cities of Egypt. While the country as a whole was split 50-50 against the Muslim brotherhood in the last election, Muslim Brotherhood support is vastly stronger in the poorest rural areas of Egypt which can not serve as the military or economic base for anything but a very brief military insurrection by the Muslim Brotherhood that is doomed to failure before it starts.

[John]

I agree with most of what you say here, but I've heard several times
on al-Jazeera that most of the $12 billion has already been given to
Egypt, since these Gulf countries don't want a Muslim Brotherhood
victory.

At this moment I'm pretty pissed because al-Jazeera online has been
discontinued with the message that it will no longer be provided to
American audiences since it's going on cable on Tuesday. So Al Gore
got his $5 million, and the rest of us are screwed. What else is new?