President Obama is loosening restrictions on $1.3 billion in annual military aid to the junta government in Egypt as reports circulate that Cairo is preparing to target Iranian-backed forces in a ground invasion of Yemen.
The White House is lifting a hold on heavy weaponry, including a prohibition on fighter jets and tanks, in place since 2013, when Egypt’s incumbent leader, Gen. Abdel-Fatah al-Sisi, overthrew the country’s only democratically elected leader, Islamist President Mohammed Morsi.
The White House has not declared Egypt compliant with human rights standards on foreign aid—the so-called Leahy Amendment. It has cited national security exemptions to the law, according to the Associated Press.
While the AP reported that the White House is concerned about the situation in Libya, particularly with respect to Islamic State-sympathizers, and militancy in the Sinai Peninsula, Egypt is also considering the possibility staging a major intervention against Iranian interests to its southeast, across the Red Sea.
An active naval partner in the Gulf monarchs’ intervention in Yemen, Egypt is reportedly considering sending ground forces alongside their Saudi partners, to face off against Houthi rebels backed by Tehran.
The coalition has since Monday been blockading Yemeni ports. Its airstrikes against the Houthis are believed to have already killed 29 people and wounded 34 others, with four airstrikes reported to have hit a refugee camp, according to a Monday report in The Wall Street Journal.
The State Department, currently heavily occupied with the multilateral negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program, on Friday said that it sees its support for the campaign in Yemen consistent with the resumption of the Houthi-involved Gulf Cooperation Council “initiative process, of course, with President Hadi as the legitimate president.”
At a daily department press briefing, Department spokesperson Jeff Rathke repeatedly refused to comment directly about the level of American support for the initiative, reiterating simply that the US doesn’t want “an open-ended military campaign.”
The US has said its offering intelligence assistance and “advisory and logistical support” to the Saudi-led coalition.
On Friday, Rathke repeatedly refused to answer reporters’ questions about requests from GCC member states for American help.
He also noted that Secretary of State John Kerry has raised the issue of Yemen with Iran’s foreign minister, Javad Zarif, on the sidelines during breaks from multitlateral discussions—otherwise focused on Iran’s nuclear program.
On Thursday, Senate Armed Services Committee chair John McCain (R-Ariz.) raged at the administration for its purported lack of involvement in planning the intervention in Yemen. He claimed the inaction “authenticates” the idea that “it’s better to be an enemy of the United States than a friend” under President Obama.
Gen. Lloyd Austin, the leader of US Central Command, told the committee, of the Saudi-led alliance, that he did not know “the specifics of their goals and objectives.”
“They’re great partners, and I think they’ll be very much appreciative of the help that we’ll provide them,” Austin remarked.
Washington sees Egypt as a key ally in the region–a fact Cairo was eager to prove last year, when it helped enforce Israel’s brutal blockade of Gaza, as Israeli bombs fell on refugee schools.
In recent weeks, the US praised the military leadership in Egypt on the same day that it denounced the democratically-elected government in Venezuela for alleged human rights abuses.
“The United States is committed to stregnthening its long term strategic and economic partnership with Egypt,” State Department spokesperson Jen Psaki said, amid an economic development conference in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt.
Last November, the US Chamber of Commerce and the State Department also led an American business delegation to Egypt, billed as the largest foreign delegation ever assembled by the Chamber.
