How does consistency matter when one governments dole out aid to another government? Many argue that consistency is key for aid to be successful. Will some of the financial or material aid (medical, military, telecommunications , radars, etc..) be misused? Yes. When transfering large amounts of financial and or material from one country to the other requires significant logistic challenges. Many questions abound, such as: How do we get the aid in question to the destination? Which government ministry or department receives the aid? Will the aid end up in Swiss bank accounts or will the aid be resold in the black market ? Who can be an effective partner with in distributing the aid? For foreign aid to be successful it requires patience and consistency. Countries such as Pakistan, Yemen, and Egypt are case studies of the art of applying material and economic aid.
In 1985, the Pressler amendment was passed, named after Larry Pressler (R- SD), which prohibited the United from giving aid to Pakistan unless we could verify that they were not working on a nuclear weapon program. In 1990, then President George H.W. Bush could no longer verify, then all military contacts and aid were suspended. The result: mistrust between the two sides. From the Pakistani perspective, not only did the U.S. abandon Afghanistan and let it implode, we sanctioned them once we did not need them. The suspension of aid not only denied contact between the two military for more than ten years, it also denied us influence and trust from the Pakistani military- the strongest institution in the country. While cooperation has deepened between the two militaries since 9/11, many Pakistanis still remember the 1990s with great bitterness and will take many years to overcome it. Yemen is another country where aid has been misused- though on far smaller scale than Pakistan
Prior to 1991, Yemen was a recipient of U.S military and civilian aid. By 199o the United States had a $42 million US aid program. On top of the civilian aid, then Northern Yemen received F-5 aircraft, tanks, vehicles, and training to counter Socialist South Yemen. As a result of Yemen supporting Saddam Hussein during the first Gulf war the Bush administration cut all non-humanitarian aid- including military aid- to Yemen. By 2006, there was an uptick in American aid to Yemen, but there was a prison-break by a high-level Al-Qaeda operative, Jamal al Badawi- a mastermind of the USS Cole bombing in 2000-as a result Bush scaled down the aid. The Obama administration, however, has significantly accelerated the aid levels to Yemen around a hundred million annually and in return Yemen has allowed U.S. special operation units to hunt down Al-Qaeda cells and use drones. Some analysts argue that if we did not abruptly cut off the aid we would have found more willing partners in the Yemeni government and Al-Qaeda may have been denied a sanctuary in the lawless tribal badlands of Shebwa, Marib, and Abyan. For the U.S. to succeed in the fight against Al-Qaeda analysts are encouraging of finding ways to bring jobs in those impoverished areas through development projects and building basic services. Egypt is another country that received large amounts of American aid, though, with more encouraging results than either Pakistan or Yemen
After Israel, Egypt has been the second largest recipient of American aid for the past thirty years due to Egypt signing a peace treaty with Israel in 1979. For the past thirty years Egypt has played a vital role in mediating the peace process between the Israelis and the Palestinians and the Egyptian security apparatus cooperates with the CIA in counter-terrorist issues. Despite the frustrations some American officials hold about transparency, many credit the aid with keeping the relationship through the tension following the American invasion of Iraq and the Bush administrations pressure on democracy. Hosni Mubarak, the Egyptian President, reportedly has much better relations with Obama than Bush and is cooperating with the U.S. and Israel in pressuring the violent Hamas movement to renounce violence and join the peace process and he is helping international efforts in containing Iran's nuclear program. While the immediate impact of foreign aid is often frustrating and tedious, long-term it can yield hefty dividends in the form of goodwill, or cooperation, and/ or influence.
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