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September 14, 2012Twitter Facebook (31) E-mail Share Stumble Upon Reddit Linkedin Digg What is this?
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The Obama administration has stepped back from remarks by the president earlier this week in which he suggested that Egypt was something less than a firm ally.
Following unrest in Egypt and the killing of four Americans in Libya that was sparked at least in part by a film seemingly aimed at stoking Muslim anger, Obama, referring to Egypt, told the Spanish-language Telemundo: "I don't think that we would consider them an ally, but we don't consider them an enemy."
However, White House spokesman Tommy Vietor in a later statement sought to clarify the remark, saying "ally" is a legal term of art.
"We don't have a mutual defense treaty with Egypt like we do with our NATO allies," Vietor said. "But as the president has said, Egypt is a longstanding and close partner of the United States, and we have built on that foundation by supporting Egypt's transition to democracy and working with the new government."
As The New York Times notes, the remark comes at a time when ...
"In Egypt, in particular, leaders scrambled to repair deep strains with Washington provoked by their initial response to attacks on the American Embassy on Tuesday, tacitly acknowledging that they erred in their response by focusing far more on anti-American domestic opinion than on condemning the violence.
"The attacks squeezed
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