Bloomberg View: Why It's Time to Get Tough With Egypt

After Egypt’s 2011 revolution, the U.S. was at pains to emphasize to Egypt’s new leaders the value of the rule of law. So it has been discomfiting to watch the Obama administration ignore it since the July 3 overthrow of elected President Mohamed Mursi.

The military takeover was clearly a coup. Yet the U.S. has been pretending otherwise to get around a law that requires the suspension of U.S. aid to any country in those circumstances. The administration presumably worries that suspending $1.55 billion in yearly aid, $1.3 billion of which goes to the military, would threaten the peace between Egypt and Israel, as well as Egypt’s stability. The Obama administration may also fret that suspending the handouts would weaken the relationship between the Egyptian and U.S. militaries. This may be true. But if the relationship wasn’t strong or deep enough to dissuade the Egyptian brass from overthrowing an elected president, maybe it’s not all that valuable in the first place.