‘US funds ME unrests to achieve goals’

The White House says the nearly 800-million dollar fund is needed to boost political and other reforms in Arab countries. Unnamed officials say that the fund could be used for countries such as Syria, Yemen, Tunisia and Egypt.

US Deputy Secretary of State, Thomas R. Nides, has said the money will provide Washington with necessary tools and flexibility to fund its initiatives in the Arab countries. Obama budget has retained the 1.3 billion dollars in military assistance for Egypt. However, several US lawmakers have called for a halt to US aid to Egypt over Cairo’s recent crackdown on American NGOs operating in the country.

Press TV has conducted an interview with Ali Al-Ahmed, director of the Institute for (Persian) Gulf Affairs (IGA), to further discuss the issue. What follows is the transcription of the interview:

Press TV: Mr. Ahmed, we see the US funding Arab countries for reforms to be implemented there. What kind of reforms could the US be after, and where is this money going to be spent?

Al-Ahmed: Well, most of this money is going to be spent against regimes that are at odds with the United States such as the Syrian government or now maybe the Egyptian government. In the past, even during the Bush administration, the US government did not support any efforts for human rights for example in the [Persian] Gulf countries.

They did very limited amounts of assistance and when they did, they did it with the coordination with the government, for example with the Bahrain government or the Saudi government. So instead of, for example, assisting the status of the women in Saudi Arabia, they funded a program for breast cancer.

So to them, that is one way of not having to play at all in empowering the people of the region or supporting their rights. The same thing was in Kuwait after 18 years of the liberation of Kuwait from Saddam Hussein.

During all these years, the United States did not expand [its] efforts to support the women’s rights in Kuwait. Of course, Saudi Arabia is, I think, a better example of the women’s rights and the religion freedom. The United States has not expanded a single dollar to support these rights or the people in Saudi Arabia or any government that is pro United States.

Press TV: Just to add to that, if the US is so concerned about problems in other countries, why should not it be concerned about its own domestic problems? Take the Occupy Wall Street movement for instance; it is demanding more help to the 99 percent poor, but of course no answer from authorities in Wall Street?

Al-Ahmed: I think there is not a strong connection between the two, between domestic and foreign policy but it is very important to realize that most of this money will not go to aid the rights of the people of the region.

Most of it will be spent supporting the foreign policy initiative or goals of the United States which does not include supporting the human rights at least in the countries that the United States has strong and friendly relationship with vis-à-vis the issue of domestic protests in the country.

It is absolutely right. There are a lot of short forms in terms of the rights and accessibility of the wealth in the United States to many people in the United States. There is a huge gap, an increasing huge gap, between the upper class in the United States and the average Americans which is going to, at one time, come to a clash.

This situation cannot be continued without some kind of friction and the Occupy Wall Street is one of those frictions or signs of that friction.