Despite strong popular discontent, the regime of General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has been sustained in power by the US and its regional allies such as the Gulf monarchies as it is willing to play a the role of a proxy in the region
On Monday, July 3, the latest military takeover of power in Egypt completed 10 years. On that day in 2013, General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, the military commander and then defense minister, led the coup against President Mohammed Morsi. Since then, the al-Sisi regime has led Egypt with an iron fist with utter contempt towards the wider needs of the common people.
Egyptians have tried to resist al-Sisi’s policies although the protests have not reached the scale of the 2011 uprising that ousted long-term authoritarian ruler Hosni Mubarak. In doing so, they have faced severe repression, with thousands of activists, journalists, and politicians jailed.
Today, Egypt is an economic mess. About a third of the country’s total population of 105 million is living in poverty. Food inflation is high while wages have been stagnant for years, creating starvation-like conditions. Meanwhile, al-Sisi’s economic mismanagement has pushed Egypt to the brink of bankruptcy.
The Egyptian economy has been kept alive by loans provided by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and crucial economic support from its imperialist and regional backers like Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
The US has provided billions of dollars in aid, both military and otherwise, every year to the Egyptian military since 1979 to keep its peace with Israel. While this aid has come under heavy criticism due to Egypt’s poor human rights record, successive US administrations have continued it, almost always without any conditions.