Food for Thought: An Interview with an Egyptian Christian on U.S. Foreign Policy (Part 1)

So everything is gearing up for the presidential election next fall here in the US. Republican candidates are trying to distance themselves from President Obama while trying to bash each other simultaneously. I kept up with most of the debates held between the Republican candidates over the past few months and got to thinking about something really interesting. The candidates go back and forth about what the US foreign policy should be. But what do people think of the US foreign policy? In particular, what do Middle Easterners think of US foreign policy? Another question I had been thinking about is if you are a Christian and subscribe to the commonly held belief of just war theory, how does the current US foreign policy compare? Can a Christian (read conservative Republican if you are from the southern US) blindly support every US military engagement? I have talked to friends from all over and had an idea of what the typical Middle Easterner thought, but one night while I was on vacation in Malaysia, I had an idea. So I interviewed one of my friends in Malaysia, who is a Egyptian college student studying over there. Here is the text of the interview from the first three questions. One thing to keep in mind as you read. I did not fact check every single thing in this. I was obviously not born during the time a lot of it happened. But I hope that everyone sees that regardless of factual accuracy, if people really do think like this (which is what is important), how can the US improve? More importantly, how can we as American Christians show the God of the Bible effectively to people we come across given certain predispositions towards Americans?

Question 1: To provide some context when we get to foreign policy, briefly tell me about the background you grew up in.

“I’m an Egyptian. I was born in Egypt and brought up in Egypt. And then I moved to Saudi Arabia because my father found a better opportunity there for work and here I am studying in Malaysia. I believe in Christ. I’m a Christian. I was born in a Christian family. Any my family always have had an interest in news. That’s why I watch a lot of news.”

Question 2: Excluding foreign policy, generally, what do people in the Middle East think of America?

“What people there in the Middle East think about the US. In fact all of them, most of them look up to the US. The US has given the world a model of progress, a model of good ideals, it has always inspired the world and everybody looks up at that. Apart from foreign policy and all that, people think about American people as people who have ideals, they have principals, they’re hard working. They’re just great. But another thing on the side, they don’t really think they are religious at all. They believe that the US is totally irreligious where atheism culture is prominent. Of course you can guess from where they got such an impression, from of course Hollywood and all these movies. And then they never know that actually quite a number of Americans are very committed and conservatives. I was really surprised to meet a lot of Americans who are so committed to Christ. They just gave their lives to Christ. I was really astonished by that. And then apart from that, apart from foreign policy people think they are creative and great."

Question 3: What do people think about American foreign policy, especially in the Middle East?

"Concerning American foreign policy in the Middle East, I think it’s terrible the way that the American leadership has dealt with was bad, unfriendly, and it brought, I think a lot of problems to the Middle East and of course to the US itself. Let me give you an example on that. The problem with the American leadership, it didn’t update its mentality after the fall of the Soviet Union. In that sense, it has divided the world. It has always divided the world into two parts: Pro-American and Anti-American. Let’s say for example, during the 1979, the Soviet Union decided to invade Afghanistan. Of course the US could not allow Afghanistan to turn into a communist state and that’s why they started to fund all these mujahedeen. And in 9/11 there was mujahedeen who were viewed as freedom fighters. In just one night they turned into terrorists, but unfortunately Americans are fooled by American propaganda that Osama bin Laden is made in the USA. He is someone who was made; he was given power by the USA itself. And my evidence on that again is the mujahedeen part and the freedom fighters who were praised, funded by the US itself as part of the Reagan doctrine. That is, the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Reagan doctrine was applied to Afghanistan and I think during the invasion of Panama and that’s exactly the problem with the American leadership. It never tries to have friends. It never tries to view itself as someone; it shows itself as a hypocrite all the time. I really don’t know why. Another part I would like to talk about is now we are living, I have lived the Arab Spring. Despite the fact I am studying in Malaysia, I have lived the Arab Spring, I have lived the revolution in my country and the American attitude toward this is they were really diplomatic. They really did not take a firm stance against Mubarak. Nobody can argue with me that the US has always supported dictators, has always supported dictators. Mubarak killed many Egyptians for no reason. Mubarak and his regime violated many articles of human rights and yet the US used to fund him, used to give him money, and it supported him all over the world. As if he is so unlike Gaddafi. But keep in mind that he was doing exactly the same thing that Gadhafi. The only difference was he was acting for US interests. As far as I think that’s really hypocritical of the US government. Saddam Hussein, again made in the US. He cooperated with the US against Iran and in the end, when he decided to try to invade Kuwait which of course is an American territory, they decided to go against him. That’s terribly hypocritical. He has always been a dictator ever sense he came to power in 1979. He has always been a dictator. Third part I would like to talk about is the Israeli-Palestinian issue. You can never, you can never have a good ray to consider America’s image as long as this problem is there. They feel like a part of their land is being ripped off. What do you think? Fourth part is, American bases are all over the world. They’re in Japan, Germany, Qatar, they were in Saudi Arabia but they moved, Iraq, Afghanistan, everywhere. I would like to know your feeling if you were an American. If my country for example tried to establish a base in the US, I would love to know how you were going to react to this. Of course you won’t just accept such an idea. I don’t think so. So back to the Arab Israeli conflict here. The thing is Americans think that they should stand for Israel and they don’t know why. I am going to ask every American why the US is supporting Israel. I’m not saying that we should kill all Jews. No, No, No. I’m not that person. Never. None of the Arabs are like this. None of the Middle Easterners are like this. We are not people who like want to kill as it’s emphasized in the American propaganda. No that’s not true. It’s just that we want our piece of land back and that’s it. That’s exactly what we want. Why I say that this is true is that when Egypt had a peace treaty with Israel in 1979 and I believe that this was signed in the US, I think during the time of Carter, it’s preserved till now. All the establishments of Egypt try and they try really hard to keep that treaty. And they are working on it and they are making it and they can. It’s not like there can’t be peace. No that’s not true. As long as you keep upon this attitude that is being stubborn about it, of course they are going to retaliate. What do you expect? So concerning also the bases that the US has all over the world. This is I think scratching the sovereignty of the states for example Saudi Arabia and all the Gulf. Of course they won’t be happy about it. They will never be happy about it. They’re being funded by peoples’ money. That’s another thing. About the Iraq War, I challenge any American to tell me what is the reason behind the Iraq War. Just give me one reason. Weapons of Mass Destruction, which was presented by the Secretary of State Colin Powell. He gave so called irrefutable evidence that was not true. There were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and there was no reason for the invasion of Iraq. President Obama himself gave some sort of a confession that the Iraq War had no reason by saying, “but now Iraq is better off.” As if this is a better compromise of the death of thousands and thousands of Iraqis. And now the state of Iraq is like nothing, I mean Iraq is not now way better off. That’s not true. There’s no real democracy there. People do not understand anything. Infrastructure is destroyed. Corruption is really high. And people who are supported by Iran, for example Al-Maliki, is still there in power. If you observe Iraqi politics you’re going to find many funny things such as like liberal people and secular people such as Ayad Allawi. He is not being elected. He can’t come to power just because of political corruption as far as I think. And the US is unable to do; I know don’t know if it’s unable to do anything, or that’s exactly what it wants to do. I really don’t know. But I feel like this war was not justified and I believe that a lot of Americans did not feel that it was justified, and I can think like that because most Americans want their troops to come home again."

Well, that is it for today. Stay tuned for answers to more questions including how the US could improve relations, a nuclear Iran, and why terrorists want to attack the US.