Elections

Obama’s surrogate champions aid to Egypt’s Islamist government

Neil Munro White House Correspondent
Font Size:

Team Obama is trying to carpet-bomb Republican nominee Mitt Romney’s foreign policy credentials, but managed to drop a bomb on itself Monday when the campaign’s chief foreign policy supporter urged continued support of Egypt’s new Islamist government.

“I find him very shallow. … If one of my students turned it in, he’d get a C,” charged Madeline Albright, a former secretary of State for President Bill Clinton, during a 20-minute Monday press call.

But Albright then denounced Romney for promising to put conditions on aid to Egypt’s Islamist government.

The aid to Egypt “is very much needed now in order to make sure that they are able to pursue what is good for us and for them in terms of getting people back on the right track and the job issues,” Albright said.

Albright’s statements were aimed at Romney’s Monday foreign policy speech, in which he said “I will use our influence — including clear conditions on our aid — to urge the new government to represent all Egyptians, to build democratic institutions, and to maintain its peace treaty with Israel.”

Egypt’s elected Islamist government is backed by the dominant Muslim Brotherhood, which is an 84-year-old, region-wide, Islamic revivalist group whose affiliates have used force and politics to win power in several countries, including Egypt, Libya and Tunisia.

The brotherhood’s Islamic ideology calls for the destruction of Israel, the creation of a region-wide caliphate, the enforcement of Islamic lifestyle via Shariah law, more Western aid and restrictions on Westerners, including curbs on free speech.

The White House is already conditioning the aid to Egypt by, for example, requiring the government to continue the peace deal with Israel. But, Albright said, “if you load conditions on [aid], you can’t get anything done because you completely lose your leverage.”

Obama’s campaign aides quickly recognized Albright’s gaffe.

“Our assistance is also already conditioned on many of the things that he listed, like Egypt meeting its obligation to the peace treaty with Israel, and to proceed with its transition to democracy,” said campaign press secretary Ben LaBolt.

Obama is slated to debate foreign policy with Romney Oct. 16 and Oct. 22.

The administration’s aid policy is increasingly unpopular in the United States, following the Sept. 11, 2012, attack on poorly guarded facilities in Benghazi, Libya.

That attack killed four U.S. officials — including an ambassador — shortly after the withdrawal of a U.S. security team. The attack was accompanied and followed by numerous riots against U.S. embassies in Egypt, Yemen, Sudan, Tunisia and other Islamist-controlled countries.

Since then, House Appropriations Subcommittee on State and Foreign Relations Chairwoman Rep. Kay Granger has frozen a planned transfer of $450 million in aid to Egypt.

The White House is trying to pass the aid to Egypt’s government amid the possibility of renewed Islamist attacks on U.S. facilities during the final weeks before the U.S.election.

Following a phone call from Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi, Obama has repeatedly blamed the attacks and riots on a video critical of Islam’s prophet. For example, he used his Sept. 25 speech at the United Nations to declare that “the future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam.”

Romney’s “speech showed no understanding in how to deal with [Egypt’s government] because they are in very serious economic trouble,” Albright said.

Islamist “extremists” will be boosted if the government fails to manage the country’s crippled economy, she charged.

“They need to create jobs … so that there are not extremist elements that then get a greater role … [and] by conditioning it so much, it looks again they are responding to our orders and not the people that elected them,” she said.

The brief 20-minute phone conference was begun by LaBolt.

If Romney wants to criticize Obama, “bring it on,” he taunted.

Romney is “erratic and unsteady” even as the president offers “tough, steady and responsible” leadership, he said.

Romney want to keep troops in Iraq, LaBolt said, but “how’s he going to turn the page on the failed policies of the past?”

GOP-affiliated foreign policy advisers say Obama’s leadership has been weak, and have repeatedly highlighted a 2011 quote from an Obama insider who characterized the president’s approach as “leading from behind.”

On Iraq, the GOP experts say the president failed to ink an agreement that would have allowed a small U.S. force to stay in Iraq and fend off Iranian pressure. The negotiations failed after Obama directed the stay-behind force be reduced to 3,000 troops, which is too small to reassure the Iraqis and not large enough to defend itself from Iranian-sponsored attacks.

Since the U.S. withdrawal from Iraq, the Iranian government has continued its likely development of nuclear weapons, suppressed a popular revolt and used Iraqi airspace to fly weapons and reinforcement to defeat rebels seeking to topple Syria’s embattled dictatorship.

Follow Neil on Twitter

PREMIUM ARTICLE: Subscribe To Keep Reading

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign Up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
BENEFITS READERS PASS PATRIOTS FOUNDERS
Daily and Breaking Newsletters
Daily Caller Shows
Ad Free Experience
Exclusive Articles
Custom Newsletters
Editor Daily Rundown
Behind The Scenes Coverage
Award Winning Documentaries
Patriot War Room
Patriot Live Chat
Exclusive Events
Gold Membership Card
Tucker Mug

What does Founders Club include?

Tucker Mug and Membership Card
Founders

Readers,

Instead of sucking up to the political and corporate powers that dominate America, The Daily Caller is fighting for you — our readers. We humbly ask you to consider joining us in this fight.

Now that millions of readers are rejecting the increasingly biased and even corrupt corporate media and joining us daily, there are powerful forces lined up to stop us: the old guard of the news media hopes to marginalize us; the big corporate ad agencies want to deprive us of revenue and put us out of business; senators threaten to have our reporters arrested for asking simple questions; the big tech platforms want to limit our ability to communicate with you; and the political party establishments feel threatened by our independence.

We don't complain -- we can't stand complainers -- but we do call it how we see it. We have a fight on our hands, and it's intense. We need your help to smash through the big tech, big media and big government blockade.

We're the insurgent outsiders for a reason: our deep-dive investigations hold the powerful to account. Our original videos undermine their narratives on a daily basis. Even our insistence on having fun infuriates them -- because we won’t bend the knee to political correctness.

One reason we stand apart is because we are not afraid to say we love America. We love her with every fiber of our being, and we think she's worth saving from today’s craziness.

Help us save her.

A second reason we stand out is the sheer number of honest responsible reporters we have helped train. We have trained so many solid reporters that they now hold prominent positions at publications across the political spectrum. Hear a rare reasonable voice at a place like CNN? There’s a good chance they were trained at Daily Caller. Same goes for the numerous Daily Caller alumni dominating the news coverage at outlets such as Fox News, Newsmax, Daily Wire and many others.

Simply put, America needs solid reporters fighting to tell the truth or we will never have honest elections or a fair system. We are working tirelessly to make that happen and we are making a difference.

Since 2010, The Daily Caller has grown immensely. We're in the halls of Congress. We're in the Oval Office. And we're in up to 20 million homes every single month. That's 20 million Americans like you who are impossible to ignore.

We can overcome the forces lined up against all of us. This is an important mission but we can’t do it unless you — the everyday Americans forgotten by the establishment — have our back.

Please consider becoming a Daily Caller Patriot today, and help us keep doing work that holds politicians, corporations and other leaders accountable. Help us thumb our noses at political correctness. Help us train a new generation of news reporters who will actually tell the truth. And help us remind Americans everywhere that there are millions of us who remain clear-eyed about our country's greatness.

In return for membership, Daily Caller Patriots will be able to read The Daily Caller without any of the ads that we have long used to support our mission. We know the ads drive you crazy. They drive us crazy too. But we need revenue to keep the fight going. If you join us, we will cut out the ads for you and put every Lincoln-headed cent we earn into amplifying our voice, training even more solid reporters, and giving you the ad-free experience and lightning fast website you deserve.

Patriots will also be eligible for Patriots Only content, newsletters, chats and live events with our reporters and editors. It's simple: welcome us into your lives, and we'll welcome you into ours.

We can save America together.

Become a Daily Caller Patriot today.

Signature

Neil Patel