Rand Paul's Libertarian Egyptian Policy Is Penny Wise and Pound Foolish

American Republican Senator Kelly Ayotte and Democratic Representative Keith Ellison joined the call to suspend aid to Egypt on Sunday, after last week's crackdown on the pro-Morsi Moslrm Brotherhood by the military that left hundreds dead. Senator Ayotte said, "The United States gave the military-installed interim government time to take appropriate actions, but now it's time to use the funds as bargaining chip." Ayotte, who had supported continuing aid to Egypt after the July 3 ouster of Morsi, appeared on NBC "Meet the Press," and said President Barack Obama was right to suspend joint military exercises and condemn violence last week, but he didn't go far enough. "I think he fell short when he really didn't come out and call out the real question on the suspension of aid, because that is the real influence that we have with Egypt," Ayotte said. [Note that the Arab world's leaders have pledged to make up any funds withdrawn by the US or the EU.] Repesentative Ellison said that the United States should pull back on aid to Egypt until the bloodshed stops and the strife-torn country returns to a path toward democracy : "I would cut off aid," Ellison said on ABC's "This Week." "In my mind, there's no way to say that this was not a coup. It is. We should say so. And then we should follow our own law, which says we cannot fund the coup leaders." Ellison said the administration needs to engage in "intense diplomacy" with Egypt, and Congress needs to "suspend aid" to the country until its leaders establish a set of Democratic protocols and stop the violence. Ellison and Ayottte were joining the call made by influential Republican Senators John McCain of Arizona and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina to end the aid to Egypt. Graham warned on Sunday that Egypt could become a "failed state" and a safe haven for al-Qaida."The [Muslim] Brotherhood will go underground, al-Qaida will come to their aid, and you're going to have an armed insurgency, not protesters, on your hands in the next 60 days or 90 days,” said Graham on CBS's "Face the Nation.""We're going to have to suspend our aid because we can't support the reaction of the military, even though the Brotherhood overplaying their hand started this, we can't support what the military's doing in response," Graham said. Graham, who just returned from a trip to Egypt with McCain, said, "What would happen if we cut off the aid is that Western tourism ends in Egypt for the foreseeable future for as far as the eye can see. Western investment comes to a standstill. Egypt becomes a begger client state of the Arab Gulf states. Egypt’s future is really damned." McCain renewed his call on Sunday to stop the aid. "For us to sit by and watch this happen is a violation of everything that we stood for," said McCain on CNN's "State of the Union." "We're not sticking with our values." Kentucky Republican Senator Rand Paul said on "Fox News Sunday" that US aid to Egypt was more likely to "buy a chateau in Paris" for an Egyptian military leader than "bread in Cairo" for the poor. "I don't think we're buying any friendship with the Egyptian people," Paul said especially when people see tanks supplied by the US to the Egyptian military on the streets of Cairo."We are not winning the hearts and minds of the Egyptian people," said Paul. "The aid has to end." But Republican Representative Pete King told "Fox News Sunday" that cutting aid could reduce US influence over Egypt's interim government."I'm reluctant to cut off aid," King said. ~~~~~ Here, dear readers, we have a microcosm of the stupidity afloat in America today concerning foreign policy generally and Egypt in particular. That it was Republicans and not Democrats leading the charge against the Egyptian military makes little difference. Both parties are naive and amateurish beyond belief when it concerns the Moslem Brothethood, Egypt's and Israel's future, aw well as the desire of most peoole in the Middle East to find their way to self-government. Senator Graham's statements supoort continuing aid to the Egyptian military - how he arrived at his conclusion to stop that aid defies logic. What is shocking is that the most senior military affairs expert in the GOP, John McCain, should lead the parade. It is extremely worrying. We may take some comfort in the fact that McCain is serving his last term as Senator from Arizona and will "fade away," having already proved he cannot win a presidential election. Far more dangerous is the position being espoused by Senator Rand Paul, a heavyweight contender to be the 2016 GOP presidential candidate. The libertarian siren song Paul is singing sounds sweet to a nation tired of war and islamist plots and terrorism - and I dare say, tired of the entire Middle East and Arab world. Senator Paul's call to abandon Egypt to the Brotherhood would save money and American lives -- right up to the moment when Egypt, stripped of its military glue, implodes in civil war, and the Middle East with it, thereby also calling Israel's existence into question. On that day, America will have no choice but to engage the Brotherhood and its offspring, Hamas, directly. Senator Rand's penny wise policies will then be seen to be hundreds of billions of pounds foolish.