"Directly Complicit": Shadi Hamid on How Obama Greenlighted 2013 Egypt Coup, Killing the Arab Spring

On the 10th anniversary of the 2013 coup in Egypt when General Abdel Fattah el-Sisi removed the country’s first democratically elected president from power, we speak with author Shadi Hamid about “Lessons for the Next Arab Spring,” in which he details how the Obama administration helped to kill the democratic uprising across the Middle East. “Washington, and Obama in particular, gave what amounted to a green light to the Egyptian military to proceed with the coup,” says Hamid. The U.S. then refused to call it a coup or to impose any consequences, while continuing to send billions in foreign aid to the military dictatorship, which continues to rule the country to this day.