Aftandilian in The Arab Weekly on U.S.-Egypt Relations
Gregory Aftandilian, Lecturer at the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University, published a recent Op-Ed on the effect that Donald Trump’s victory in the 2016 United States presidential election could have on relations between the U.S. and Egypt.
Aftandilian’s Op-Ed, entitled “Trump’s Victory Likely to Improve US-Egyptian Ties,” was published on November 20, 2016 in The Arab Weekly.
From the text of the article:
Tellingly, reportedly the first foreign leader to congratulate US President-elect Donald Trump was Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. Although the two had met only once, they seem to share a similar outlook about threats facing Egypt, the Middle East and the larger international community.
From Sisi’s perspective, Trump represents the anti-Barack Obama and the anti-Hillary Clinton. Much of the hostility towards these leading Democrats stems from the time of Muslim Brotherhood leader Muhammad Morsi’s election as Egyptian president in 2012 and the aftermath of his ouster from power in 2013.
In the summer of 2012, when it appeared that Morsi had won the presidential vote, the Egyptian military was reluctant to announce the winner; earlier, the ruling military council had issued a decree stripping the presidency of real power. Clinton, then US secretary of State, urged the Egyptian military to respect the outcome of the election and publicly declared that the military should return to a “purely national security role” — meaning it should go back to the barracks.
The following summer, Obama, as US president, criticised the severe crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood by Sisi, then Defence minister, and the security services and two months later suspended a large portion of US military aid to Egypt.
You can read the entire Op-Ed here.
Aftandilian spent over 21 years in government service, most recently on Capitol Hill where he was foreign policy adviser to Congressman Chris Van Hollen (2007-2008), professional staff member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and foreign policy adviser to Senator Paul Sarbanes (2000-2004), and foreign policy fellow to the late Senator Edward Kennedy (1999). Learn more about him here.