Is Obama Lying When He Says The U.S. Wasn't Complicit In The Egyptian Coup?

Obama won't even acknowledge the military takeover from a legitimately-elected government in Egypt was a coup. And he claims the U.S. had nothing to do with it. U.S. allies and puppets in the region-- other than Israel-- aren't hiding their participation though. From a report by the right-wing Israeli military intelligence website, DEBKAfile:

The lightening coup which Wednesday, July 3, overthrew President Mohamed Morsi put in reverse gear for the first time the Obama administration’s policy of sponsoring the Muslim Brotherhood movement as a moderate force for Arab rule and partner in its Middle East policies. DEBKAfile reveals that the Egyptian military could not have managed their clockwork coup without the aid of Saudi and Dubai intelligence and funding.

Saudi Arabia and the UAE threw their weight and purses behind Egypt’s generals aiming to put their first big spoke in the US-sponsored Arab Revolt (or Spring), after they failed to hold the tide back in Libya, Egypt and thus far Syria.

...The coup leader, Defense Minister and army chief Gen. Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, had two more Saudi-Gulf commitments in his pocket, say DEBKAfile's Middle East sources:

1. Should the Obama administration cut off the annual US aid allocation of $1.3 billion, Saudi Arabia and the UAE would make up the military budget’s shortfall;

2. The Saudis, UAE and other Gulf nations, such as Bahrain and Kuwait, would immediately start pumping out substantial funds to keep the Egyptian economy running. The Egyptian masses would be shown that in a properly managed economy, they could be guaranteed a minimal standard of living and need not go hungry as many did under Muslim Brotherhood rule.

According to our sources, the Saudis and the UAE pledged to match the funds Qatar transferred to the Muslim Brotherhood’s coffers in Cairo in the past year, amounting to the vast sum of $13 billion.

This explains President Barack Obama’s caution Thursday morning, July 4, in his expression of deep concern over the ousting of the Egyptian president and the suspension of its constitution. He urged the military to restore government to civilian hands-- without accusing them outright of a coup d’etat-- and to “avoid arresting President Mosi and his supporters.”

...The removal of Muslim Brotherhood rule in Egypt has far-reaching ramifications for Israel. In the immediate term, it gives Israel some security relief-- especially, easing the dangers posed from Sinai to its southern regions. The radical Palestinian Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood offshoot which rules the Gaza Strip, has suffered the most damaging political and military setback in its history with the loss of its parent and patron in Cairo.

DEBKA is a mouthpiece for the Israeli intelligence community and its not always easy to read between the lines and understand what they're pushing and what they're hiding. Over the weekend, though, David Kirkpatrick at the NY Times filed a report from Cairo that made it crystal clear that Obama's claims that the U.S. wasn't involved with the coup or putsch or whatever he wants to call it are blatantly false. When an Arab foreign minister called Morsi with a final offer before the tanks rolled out of their barracks, Morsi sent his response-- a rejection of the terms-- to Anne Patterson, the U.S. ambassador and Susan Rice, Obama's national security adviser. The State Department told the Times it would have no comment on the report.

Some people couldn't help recalling how the British and American intelligence services orchestrated-- and paid for-- populist street protests in Tehran in 1953 when they wanted to justify a coup to overthrow the popular government led by the very independent-minded Prime Minister Mohammed Mosaddegh. The CIA paid Iranian Organized Crime to set the coup right when it foundered on the first day causing the weak American client, the Shah, to flee the country. Take a look at Bill Moyers' report for PBS in 1987 about what happened in Iran... and how it turned out:



Now, back to Kirkpatrick's report in the Times:

The abrupt end of Egypt’s first Islamist government was the culmination of months of escalating tensions and ultimately futile American efforts to broker a solution that would keep Mr. Morsi in his elected office, at least in name, if not in power.

A new alliance of youthful activists and Mubarak-era elites was driving street protests. A collapsing economy put new pressure on Mr. Morsi and his allies in the Muslim Brotherhood, the once-outlawed Islamist group that had finally come to power after the ouster of the former president, Hosni Mubarak. And an alliance between Mr. Morsi and the nation’s top generals was gradually unraveling.

Senior Brotherhood officials said Mr. Morsi’s adamant response to the last proposal-- a combination of idealism and stubbornness-- epitomized his rule. It may also have doomed his presidency.

As long ago as the fall, he had spoken fatalistically of the possibility of his own ouster, his senior advisers said. “Do you think this is the peak?” he asked a visibly anxious aide during his first major political crisis. “No,” Mr. Morsi said with resignation, “The peak will be when you see my blood flowing on the floor.”

That was just after what his advisers and Muslim Brotherhood leaders now acknowledge was the defining blunder of his one-year presidency. After Mubarak-appointed judges dissolved the Islamist-led Parliament, Mr. Morsi in November declared his own authority above the courts until a constitutional convention could finish its work.

...Through it all, Mr. Morsi never believed the generals would turn on him as long as he respected their autonomy and privileges, his advisers said. He had been the Muslim Brotherhood’s designated envoy for talks with the ruling military council after the ouster of Mr. Mubarak. His counterpart on the council was Gen. Abdul-Fattah el-Sisi.

The Brotherhood was naturally suspicious of the military, its historical opponent, but General Sisi cultivated Mr. Morsi and other leaders, one of them said, including going out of his way to show that he was a pious Muslim. “That is how the relationship between the two of them started,” said a senior Brotherhood official close to Mr. Morsi. “He trusted him.”

The two grew so close that Mr. Morsi caught his advisers by surprise when he promoted General Sisi to defense minister last summer as part of a deal that persuaded the military for the first time to let the elected president take full control of his government. Mr. Morsi kept relations with the military as his “personal file,” and worked out the deal without consulting his aides, one adviser said.

...Morsi insisted to his aides that he remained fully confident that General Sisi would not interfere, almost until the end of his presidency. He was the last one in the inner circle to acknowledge last week that General Sisi was ousting them.

United States officials had repeatedly urged Mr. Morsi to compromise with the opposition and include it in government. In December, President Obama met with Mr. Haddad, Mr. Morsi’s foreign policy adviser, in the Oval Office to deliver that message, Mr. Morsi’s advisers said. At one point, they said, Mr. Obama offered to intervene with the opposition leaders, either Mohamed ElBaradei, the former United Nations diplomat, or Amr Moussa, a former foreign minister under Mr. Mubarak. But Mr. Morsi declined.

Embassy officials tried to act as intermediaries, Morsi advisers said. They said Secretary of State John Kerry suggested naming Mr. ElBaradei as prime minister. But this year, Ms. Patterson pointedly told Mr. Morsi’s aides that some in Washington were running out of patience with her defense of Egypt’s new Islamist leaders, his advisers said.

By June, the economy was sputtering, with gas shortages and blackouts. Young organizers tapped into the growing discontent with a petition drive calling for Mr. Morsi’s removal, and it was set to culminate in a demonstration on the anniversary of his inauguration, June 30.

The first alarms went off in Mr. Morsi’s inner circle on June 21, when General Sisi issued a public statement warning that the growing “split in society” between Mr. Morsi’s supporters and opponents compelled the military “to intervene.”

Mr. Morsi was given no warning, his advisers said. But when Mr. Morsi called the general, General Sisi told the president that “it was to satisfy some of his men” and that “it was nothing more than an attempt to absorb their anger,” one of Mr. Morsi’s advisers said. “So even after that first statement, the president didn’t think a coup was imminent.”

The day before the protests, General Sisi called Mr. Morsi to press him for a package of concessions, including a new cabinet. But Mr. Morsi refused, saying he needed to consult first with his Islamist coalition.

When the protests came last Sunday, demonstrators were energized by the general’s suggestions of a possible intervention. Millions poured into the streets.

Inside Mr. Morsi’s office. Mr. Morsi’s team checked the official crowd count, sent its own observers, monitored the gathering on Google Earth, and even compared the numbers of mobile phone signals in various public squares, one adviser said, and mistakenly concluded that the pro-Morsi rally in Cairo outnumbered the protests against him.

“We felt a sense of relief,” the adviser said.

The next day, on Monday, General Sisi gave political leaders a 48-hour ultimatum to reach a compromise. A shaken Morsi adviser, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said at the time the president’s team considered it “a military coup.”

Mr. Morsi’s advisers had meetings with Ms. Patterson and her deputy as well as a phone call with Ms. Rice, the national security adviser. Mr. Morsi’s advisers argued that ousting the president would be “a long term disaster” for Egypt and the Arab world because people would “lose faith in democracy.” They said it would set off an explosion in the streets that they could not control.

And they argued that the United States was implicated: “Nobody who knows Egypt is going to believe a coup could go forward without a green light from the Americans.”

At a meeting with General Sisi at 2 p.m. the next day, Mr. Morsi’s advisers said that they had their coalition’s blessing to accept the earlier concessions the general had suggested before the protest.

But when the general returned to the Republican Guard building at 6 p.m., he said “the opposition” had balked, the advisers said.

Mr. Morsi’s team did not know who the general actually consulted and the young protest leaders and some other opposition leaders said they did not know either. But that night Mr. Morsi delivered a fiery address denouncing his opponents as traitorous conspirators.

General Sisi later publicly cited the speech as a turning point in his decision to act.

On Wednesday, the generals convened a four-hour meeting at military headquarters with protest and opposition party leaders. The head of Mr. Morsi’s Islamist party, now jailed, was invited but did not attend.

In Washington, officials stepped back and said little.

This is going to be a real disaster in the long run, probably as bad as the one the CIA triggered in Iran in 1953. I'll go to my grave glad I didn't vote for Obama in 2012. Congress is already splitting between those who want to keep giving away billions of taxpayers dollars to Egypt's military and those who want to obey the law and cut off the aid. And everyday, this is looking more and more like a civil war could break out.