THE CHEERING FROM NEOCONS AND rEALISTS...:

When President Mohamed Morsi was overthrown, senior American officials dithered on whether there was any point in calling a coup a coup and expressed hope that this would be merely a bump on Cairo's road toward becoming a democracy.

Later that year when Egypt's human rights abuses became even harder to overlook, the White House suspended delivery of military hardware, signaling that it was willing to attach conditions to the $1.3 billion military aid package Egypt has treated as an entitlement for decades.

But for the most part, Egypt got gentle scoldings from time to time from senior administration officials, who were unduly deferential to Cairo.

A year ago, as the Obama administration focused on the fight against the Islamic State, it resumed delivery of military aid, arguing that the alliance with Egypt was too crucial to fail.

Since then, Egypt's crackdown on peaceful Islamists, independent journalists and human rights activists has intensified. Egyptian authorities appear intent on putting two of the country's top defenders of human rights out of business by freezing their bank accounts after charging them with illegally receiving foreign funds.

Outraged by the escalating repression, leading American Middle East experts -- including two who served in the Obama administration -- this week urged President Obama to confront President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi.

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