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“Ultimately, they’re willing to deal with it. They’ll work with it,” Brown said. “Calling it a coup would disrupt relations, especially in this absolutely poisonous environment in Egypt.”
Some members of Congress were less willing to avoid the word, in spite of its potential impact on Egyptian aid.
“It is difficult for me to conclude that what happened was anything other than a coup in which the military played a decisive role,” Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona said Monday in a statement on his website. “Current U.S. law is very clear about the implications for our foreign assistance in the aftermath of a military coup against an elected government, and the law offers no ability to waive its provisions. I do not want to suspend our critical assistance to Egypt, but I believe that is the right thing to do at this time.”
Many members of Congress already had advocated cutting aid to Egypt over that country’s conviction on criminal charges of 43 Americans and Egyptians for working for international pro-democracy organizations. A Congressional Research Service report released just a week before Morsi’s ouster noted that aid to Egypt, “which was contentious during the reign of former President Hosni Mubarak,” was continuing to spark debate between various lawmakers and the administration.
Brown, the Carnegie analyst, said he doubted the Obama administration was eager to wade into a semantics war in which any terminology it chooses will be seen as partisan. One possible U.S. strategy, he said, is drawing out the legal review long enough that some form of elected leadership is in place, in hopes of avoiding a ruling with potentially serious implications for U.S.-Egyptian relations.
“Any time you get the lawyers involved, especially with a situation that’s extremely sensitive, it’s going to take a while,” he said.
The lawyers would have to drag their considerations out only until February, the month Egypt’s transitional president, Adly Mansour, said Monday would be the deadline for parliamentary elections.
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