Egypt, one of the most powerful U.S. allies in the Arab world, is sitting on a political volcano ready to erupt at any moment. The upcoming presidential elections will be a potential watershed in Egyptian politics and a fierce battle for Egypt’s soul.
President Barack Obama’s speech in Cairo to the Muslim world marked a welcome departure from the Bush administration’s confrontational approach. Yet many Arabs and Muslims have expressed frustration that he failed to use this opportunity to call on the autocratic Saudi and Egyptian leaders with whom he had visited on his Middle Eastern trip to end their repression and open up their corrupt and tightly controlled political systems.
President Barack Obama’s much-anticipated Cairo speech reflected a significant shift away from the ideological framework of militarism and unilateralism that shaped the Bush administration’s war-based policy toward the Arab and Muslim worlds. His "not Bush" focus was perhaps most sharply evident in his public denunciation of the Iraq War as a "war of choice." Obama’s call for a "new beginning" based on "the truth that America and Islam are not exclusive and need not be in competition" was followed by a move to shift the official U.S. discourse toward something closer to internationalism — particularly by pointing to parallels between historical (and some contemporary) grievances and treating them as equivalent. This included his reference to the U.S. "role in the overthrow of a democratically elected Iranian government," along with Iran’s "role in acts of hostage-taking and violence against U.S. troops and civilians."
While much of the world is focused on Bush’s attempts to demonize and isolate Iran, the Islamic Republic is forging new ties with an unlikely partner, Egypt. Egypt is among the largest recipients of U.S. aid and the only Arab country that equals Iran’s international stature. It is also the only one without an embassy in Tehran. Although the north African nation is not among Iran’s neighbors, its historic influence in the Persian Gulf makes it enormously important in Tehran’s strategic planning in response to American and Israeli pressure.
Like a gambling addict who has to keep betting more to cover his previous losses, the Bush administration’s recently announced plan to provide some $65 billion worth of advanced weapons to Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Israel over the next 10 years represents a reckless, poorly considered attempt to mitigate the consequences of its ill considered invasion of Iraq. The deal also represents an admission of failure of several of the key elements of U.S. security policy in the Middle East, and, perhaps most significantly, it represents a clear abandonment of President Bush’s democratic reform agenda in the region.
The fiftieth anniversary of the Suez Crisis came and went this past November without much notice. That’s too bad because the Bush administration could learn a lot from the crisis, which ensued when the armed forces of Great Britain, France, and Israel invaded Egypt, then under the rule of Gamal Abdul-Nasser. In a move that earned the United States respect around the world, the administration of Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower denounced the tripartite invasion as a violation of international law and used America’s considerable diplomatic leverage to force a withdrawal of these American allies.
Key Points
The devastating bombings which struck the Egyptian city of Sharm al-Sheik on July 24 underscore both the extent of the threat from Islamist terrorists and the failure of the United States and its allies to effectively deal with it.
The United States’ recent stance on the case of Saadeddin Ibrahim is the first time since the signing of the Camp David Accords 25 years ago that America has made its aid for Egypt conditional upon a human rights issue. This decision has raised many questions within both Arab and international circles. What position do human rights occupy in U.S.-Egyptian relations? Or in the policies of the United States itself? Is the attempt to link human rights to the case of Ibrahim a sincere decision, or some sort of fabrication? If the latter, what is its goal? And what is the impact of this move likely to be, both on the future of U.S.-Egyptian relations, and on the future of Ibrahim himself?