Since the Egyptian military took power in a coup in the summer of 2013, the Obama administration’s policy toward Egypt has been moored in a series of faulty assumptions. The time has come to challenge them and to reassess whether an alliance that has long been considered a cornerstone of American national security policy is doing more harm than good.

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.