This shows how low the U.S.’s stock has fallen in the Middle East. The Egyptian government knows that the Obama Administration strongly favored the Muslim Brotherhood regime that it replaced and fought against. The Egyptian government knows that the Obama Administration aided jihadist elements in Libya. So it isn’t hard to see why they decided to leave the U.S. off the list of those whom they notified about this operation.
“The U.S. Had No Idea Egypt and U.A.E. Were Going to Bomb Libya,” by Adam Chandler, The Wire, August 25, 2014 (thanks to John):
Egypt and the United Arab Emirates secretly teamed up to launch two airstrikes against Islamist forces in Libya.
This development comes as little surprise, after all, both countries are waging their own internal and regional battles to stem the rise of political Islam in the Middle East and North Africa. Libya itself is an unsurprising target, an oil rich country beset by chaos since a NATO intervention helped depose Col. Muammar Gaddafi in 2011. It also happens to be right next door to Egypt.
As the Times reported, there is just one little surprise in all of this:
The United States, the officials said, was caught by surprise: Egypt and the Emirates, both close allies and military partners, acted without informing Washington or seeking its consent, leaving the Obama administration on the sidelines. Egyptian officials explicitly denied the operation to American diplomats, the officials said.