Quote:
Originally Posted by Lojik
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I feel like in one sense you answered my question, but on the other hand I don't. Maybe I didn't really ask the right way, or I'm not really sure what my question is. I understand that naive notions of countries ruling in entirely in their self-interest are not really true, and that whoever is in charge will make decisions based on their interests or whatever special interests they cater to. But why should we "buy" influence from this country? How does it benefit the people of the United States? Does this make them less anti-Israel? It seems like us sending aid to them is to appease them slightly since we aid another country that regularly antagonizes the rest of the region. I find it hard to believe that if we had no presence at all in the middle east and stayed completely neutral in these conflicts that Egypt would take an anti-American economic policy.
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I'm not sure what Egypt would do if America was totally absent and objective re: the Middle East. I think it's impossible to say. We're so far removed from a time when we didn't have our finger in the middle of it that there's no telling what kind of progress Egypt would have made. We undoubtedly supported a dictator that stunted progress with Mubarak. Assuming the Islamist theme was still prevalent in our absence, I don't find it hard to believe Egypt would still be at least moderately hostile toward the West.
But that's a hypothetical dream world. Reality being what it is, we can't undo what's done. We've been fixing the oil game for 35+ years, and we've propped up indefensibly backward regimes in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Iran, and elsewhere for a long time. And oil is as important or more important now than ever before. Buying influence is the cheapest way we can retain our power and ensure favorable results. Going to war is much more expensive. And backing out entirely would leave us at the mercy of whatever power source filled the vacuum.