The tsunami of anti-American rhetoric swamping Egypt has been justified as a legitimate response to Washington's supposed support for the now-deposed Muslim Brotherhood government. There is no doubt that many Egyptians on both sides are indeed enraged with U.S. policy toward Egypt. Nor is there any doubting the intensity of the anti-Brotherhood fever to which Washington has so effectively been linked. Nor, finally, could anyone really disagree that the United States has failed to effectively engage with or explain itself to the intensely polarized and mobilized new Egyptian public.
Still, there is clearly more going on than just a response to current U.S. policies. Hostile media campaigns and anti-American sentiments long predate the rise of Mohamed Morsy and his Muslim Brotherhood. Mubarak's regime made an art form of using the state media to bash America while pliantly going along with American policies.
While this virulent Egyptian populism has many targets, Washington remains a distinctly valued target. Denouncing the United States is politically useful to every Egyptian faction. The SCAF, like Mubarak, finds anti-Americanism useful in masking its strong relationship with Washington. Secular elites and felool ("remnants" of Mubarak's regime) find it useful in deflecting attention from their own return to grace. The Muslim Brotherhood finds it useful in returning to the movement's own anti-American comfort zone. Anti-Brotherhood activists find it useful as a way of appealing to nationalist public opinion to justify support for the coup.
The Obama administration should certainly engage more broadly with a wide cross-section of Egyptian opinion and craft a more compelling narrative to make sense of its seemingly contradictory policies. It should do so even as it understands that little it says or does will make any immediate difference in Egypt's highly polarized, intensely politicized public sphere, where anti-Americanism is a surefire and cost-free political winner.
どうも、エジプトにとって、米国というのは、中国韓国にとっての日本みたいなもので、右から左まで、どの派閥も反米反米といっていれば、政治的に利益があるようですね。
フィフィさんなんかかなり反米的な発言が多いですけど、しかし、その背景がいまいちわかりにくい。
