There are varying degrees of cooperation between nations. Is Egypt an ally on the level of say Britain? No. Is it an ally compared to Lybia? Yes. Is it an ally as compared to Iran or Syria? Sure it is.
Sadat and Mubarak were stable players willing to conduct relations with the West in a reasoned manner.
Much of what we have seen in the way of anti-Israel or anti-Western actions or comments from it’s government, have been related to necessary posturing due to radical groups within their nation.
I understand your point, and I think it’s raises a valid point. I still think the term ally does apply here.
Would we be allowed to use Egyptian airspace if need be? Could we expect Egypt to represent our views, even if watered down? Could we expect it to stay out of conflicts in the region where we felt compelled to conduct military activity? The answer to these questions would be varying shades of yes.
Believe me, that’s much better than it would be if an Iranian style government arose there.
Off Topic
This afternoon’s “document drop” oughtta be a beaute!
Never let a crisis go to waste.
....and once again....
....the amount of intel the US was able to....
...."acquire" from Egypt....
....would surely "dry" up....
In a world full of soft thinking, I do appreciate people waving the banner of realpolitik. In this case, it's not as simple as you think.
The problem with realpolitik is that after a certain point, it can turn your worst fear into a self fulfilled prophecy.
We backed Mubarak long past it was a geopolitical necessity, and well into it being merely convenient. Regardless of what you think of the Egyptian people, the Muslim Brotherhood, Islam or the West, we made the choice to cut checks to bad people and look the other way for a long time. Now their hated overlord is going down, and our very fresh fingerprints are all over the place. We probably should fear that they resent us for it. They probably will.
Propping up thugs makes us the common enemy of the people. It ensures that only the most vicious of the opposition groups survive. What's a reasonable man to do in such a case? Resign himself to living in oppression? By backing their dictator out of convenience, what impression about us did we really leave them with?
It's easy for us to say, "We needed Egypt against the Soviets." We did. We pushed off the internal problems of Egypt into the future, because the overall threat was so grave. Made sense then. Makes sense now. But a bill from the past is coming due. We probably should have paid up earlier, but we didn't. Now all we can do is hope for the best.