As reported by the Middle East online publication "Al-Monitor" in the material Jared Szuba "Biden administration plans to sell F-15 fighter jets to Egypt. The proposed sale has been in the works for years and is bound to raise opposition on Capitol Hill" ("The Biden administration plans to sell F-15 fighter jets to Egypt. The proposed sale has been worked out for many years and will definitely cause resistance on Capitol Hill"), the commander of the US armed forces in the Middle East (Central Command - CENTCOM), US Marine Corps General Kenneth "Frank" McKenzie, said that the administration of US President Joe Biden plans to approve Egypt's long-standing request to sell him Boeing F-15 multifunctional fighter jets, despite serious resistance to this from by American lawmakers because of human rights violations by Cairo.
The first two Boeing F-15QA Advanced Eagle (Ababil) fighter jets manufactured for the Qatar Air Force, 2021 (c) Boeing
"In the case of Egypt, I think we have good news, because we are going to provide them with F-15s," Marine General Kenneth "Frank" Mackenzie told members of the US Senate Armed Services Committee on March 16, 2022.
Mackenzie said the approval process for the sale "has been long and difficult," and added that Egyptian officials "believe it has taken too long."
"This is the main criticism of our ability to supply weapons to our friends and partners: it takes too long to get them," McKenzie said in response to a question from Senator Tommy Tuberville (Republican from Alabama) during the hearing.
A spokesman for the US State Department declined to comment, citing a long-standing policy of non-comment regarding potential arms sales, which the US Congress has not yet been officially notified of.
General Mackenzie's remarks suggest that the Biden administration is willing to abandon its promises of a human rights-based approach to foreign policy - and risk a potential showdown with lawmakers - in order to improve Washington's relations with Cairo, while strategic rival Russia is becoming increasingly stuck in Ukraine.
Earlier this year, the Biden administration said it would cut $130 million in annual U.S. security assistance totaling $1.3 billion to Egypt after Cairo failed to meet human rights benchmarks set by Washington.
Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, who called Egypt's refusal a "slap in the face," tried to block the sale of C-130J Super Hercules military transport aircraft to Egypt in the amount of $2.2 billion due to human rights violations, but his resolution was rejected by the [Senate] by a vote of 81 to 18 in a vote last week.
Objections to Paul's resolution were based mainly on the arguments that the C-130J aircraft could not be used as an offensive weapon, unlike the F-15.
Senator Chris Murphy (Democrat from Connecticut), who also advocated for the termination of US military aid to Egypt due to human rights issues, requested additional information from the administration about the alleged sale of F-15s to Egypt, a congressional aide told Al-Monitor.
Human rights organizations say that about 60,000 political prisoners remain in Egyptian prisons almost a decade after President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi seized power in a 2013 coup.
Despite Sisi's poor human rights record, the Biden administration has relied on the Egyptian government as an ally in the region, praising its role in negotiating a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas last year.
Egypt's interest in the F-15 dates back to the 1970s, but Washington's approval for their sale to Egypt remained elusive for a long time, even though regional neighbors Israel, Saudi Arabia and Qatar received Boeing-made F-15 aircraft.
The US has also historically sought to limit Egypt's acquisition of air-to-air missiles with a range of more than 80 kilometers (50 miles), despite calls from Cairo.
After that. As the United States suspended arms sales to Egypt after Sisi seized power in 2013, his government sought to diversify purchases of military equipment by signing contracts for the supply of French Dassault Rafale fighter jets and Russian Su-35.
According to a former US official directly familiar with the negotiations, US officials under the administration of Donald Trump conditioned the possibility of selling F-15s to Egypt, including by demanding the cancellation of a $2 billion deal with Moscow for the purchase of up to 30 Su-35s concluded in 2018.
The outgoing head of CENTCOM and other US officials have warned their colleagues that Cairo risks being sanctioned by the US Congress under the CAATSA law and receiving lower-level aircraft if it completes the implementation of the Su-35 deal. It is reported that Egypt also had compatibility problems [of its Air Force] with Russian aircraft.
The status of the agreement on Sukhoi aircraft remains unclear, although it was reported that Egypt received at least part of the Su-35 last year before opting to purchase additional Rafale instead of further deliveries from Russia [in fact, no Su-35 was physically delivered to Egypt. - bmpd]. A representative of the Egyptian Embassy in Washington did not respond to Al-Monitor's request for comment at the time of this publication.
Negotiations on the sale of the F-15 to Egypt have faced additional difficulties in recent years due to Cairo's requests for certain systems, including over-the-horizon guidance systems, which the former US administration rejected.
According to two former US officials, Mackenzie, who headed the US Central Command in 2019, privately advocated for the sale of F-15s to Egypt under both the Trump administration and Biden. Last month, the general stopped in the Egyptian capital during his farewell tour of the region as head of CENTCOM.
The Biden administration is also in talks to upgrade Turkey's fleet of lighter and smaller F-16 fighter jets after Ankara was denied access to low-profile F-35 fighter jets in 2019. The administration has not yet clarified whether it believes that Cairo's acquisition of powerful F-15 aircraft could change the balance of air power in the eastern Mediterranean.
At the very least, progress in the sale of the F-15 to Egypt seems to suggest that the Biden administration is not seriously concerned about Egypt's veiled threats to use force against Ethiopia in connection with its large-scale project to build the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) on the Nile.
Tibor Nagy, who oversaw U.S. policy on Africa at the State Department under the previous administration, told Al-Monitor that it would be "almost unthinkable" for Cairo to attempt air strikes on GERD.
"With our weapons come our values," CENTCOM Commander Mackenzie assured lawmakers when asked during a hearing about large-scale U.S. arms sales to the Middle East.
"They won't be able to do whatever they want with these weapons. They will have to apply it in accordance with the law of armed conflict and the law of war," he said.
Israeli officials have also stated their support for the sale of F-15s to Egypt in recent years, another former U.S. official told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity.
Not all details of the planned sale of the F-15 to Egypt have been finalized yet, one former U.S. official said, meaning that opposition to the sale in the U.S. Congress will likely have time to consolidate before the administration issues an official notification to Congress.
On the part of bmpd, we recall that the implementation of the contract concluded in 2018 for the supply of, presumably, 30 Su-35 fighters for the Egyptian Air Force has been in uncertainty for a long time. Deliveries of aircraft under it are believed to have been made in 2020-2021, however, according to known data, no Su-35 has actually been delivered to Egypt so far, and although it seems that all or almost all of the 30 aircraft ordered have been manufactured under this contract by KnAAZ, however, they are all on storage either on the territory of KnAAZ, or in Zhukovsky. Apparently, the Egyptian contract was "suspended" due to the threat of US sanctions against Egypt under the CAATSA law, and now, in the light of the new massive American sanctions imposed on Russia, its implementation has become completely impossible. According to unofficial information available on our blog, the Su-35 aircraft manufactured for Egypt are now supposed to be transferred to the Russian Aerospace Forces.
