Al-Ahram Weekly On-line 5 - 11 October 2000 Issue No. 502
Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875

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'Think again' Sam

By Dina Ezzat

It was a gathering of Americans, Egyptian-Americans, Americanised Egyptians, and some Egyptians that met in the Ibrahim Nafie Hall at Al-Ahram this week to discuss the present and future state of relations that bind Cairo and Washington.

The organisers of the "Egyptian-American Relations Conference" were the Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies, the Council on Egyptian-American Relations, the Egyptian Council for Foreign Affairs and the American Chamber of Commerce in Egypt.

The participants, including specialised academicians and diplomats, debated everything that had to do with the Egyptian-American relations -- military, political, economic and cultural.

The starting point of the debate was a characterisation that came in the speech addressed to the conference at its inaugural session by Foreign Minister Amr Moussa: Egyptian-American relations are neither in a state of crisis nor in a state of perfect harmony. The objective of the debate was to draw up a road map that would keep these relations from straying off the friendly path. "There is still plenty of room for improvement in our ties," Moussa argued.

"We have yet to aim for an optimal formula on how best to address [Egyptian-American] relations in present and future... This may be a difficult water to wade into," Moussa said in his speech.

But as the participating speakers were expressing their views throughout six sessions it was becoming clear that the problems that have often caused tension in relations during the past few years are unlikely to go away anytime soon.

Amr Moussa

The problems of the bilateral relations did not need much effort to be pointed out: assessing Egyptian-American relations by the yardstick of Egyptian-Israeli relations; American tolerance of Israel's nuclear facilities and its discouragement of Egypt's attempts to get Israel to abandon its nuclear option in favour of a Middle East free of mass destruction weapons; American dual containment policy on Iraq and Iran; American reluctance to sign a free trade agreement with Egypt; Egypt's support of Palestinian and Syrian negotiators in the Arab-Israeli peace process; and Egyptian sympathy towards the plight of the Iraqi people who have been suffering and dying during the past decade because of economically crippling sanctions.

"To those who think that the solidity of Egyptian-American relations depends on how far Cairo is ready to put pressure on the Palestinians to yield to Israeli demands, I say, think again; this will not and cannot happen," Moussa argued. "To those who try to hold Egyptian-American relations hostage to the state of Egyptian-Israeli ties, I say that you are amiss."

Anthony Cordesman of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington had something to say about how Egypt manages a foreign policy issue of obvious interest to both Cairo and Washington: Israel's nuclear armament.

Cordesman, who is known to be a high-caliber think-tanker on military issues in the US, criticised Egypt for halting talks about disarmament in the Middle East for the past five years to protest against Israel's refusal to discuss its nuclear status. "This is a tactical mistake," Cordesman said.

"We cannot allow hegemony or an arms race in this region," Moussa stated in his speech in a clear reference to Israel's ambivalent nuclear capabilities.

But for the most part American speakers addressing the conference did not seem willing to consider that Israel's nuclear capability signalled hegemonic inclinations. "We cannot single out Israel's nuclear [capabilities]," Cordesman said. He argued that the biological weapons "developed by Syria and Libya" and the mass destruction weapons "that are developed by Iran and Iraq to kill each other" should be discussed first. As talk about the non-proliferation of mass destruction weapons makes progress, then Israel may feel encouraged to discuss its nuclear arsenal, he suggested.

Moreover, Cordesman openly rejected a proposition made by Abdel-Raouf El-Ridi, a former Egyptian ambassador to Washington, that the conference should adopt a recommendation endorsing an initiative proposed by President Hosni Mubarak in the early 1990s to make the Middle East a zone free of all mass destruction weapons. "We shouldn't in this conference make a recommendation adopting the Mubarak initiative," Cordesman said. He added, "I don't think that Egypt knows what it means" when it talks about making the Middle East a zone free of mass destruction weapons.

Cordesman did not hesitate to criticise Egypt for being sympathetic to Syria's "stupid" insistence on having Israel withdraw back to the 1967 borders as a prerequisite for peace between Damascus and Tel Aviv. And Cordesman refused to view Israel's attempt to adjust the 1967 borders in its favour as a sign of hegemony.

Neither were issues of economic cooperation between Egypt and the US free of contention. Everybody on the Egyptian side asserted the need for a free trade agreement between Egypt and the US that would be, in the words of Shafik Gabr, chairman of Artoc Group, similar to the US-Israel free trade agreement. The argument was that such an agreement would give a good boost to the Egyptian economy. A healthy Egyptian economy, it was argued, ultimately serves the stability of Egypt which in turn serves the stability of the Middle East -- a key priority for US foreign policy.

But almost everybody on the American side was arguing that Egypt did not necessarily need a free trade agreement to improve its economic performance.

Only two things seemed to win a general consensus in the Egyptian-American relations conference. The first was the eagerness shown by everybody to speak in English -- often with an American accent -- even though there were interpreters.

The second was the need for more dialogue and more dialogue mechanisms between Egypt and the US. The objective would be to minimise the differences and underscore the points of agreement on issues of common interest.

To this end, Foreign Minister Moussa said that Egypt is planning to address the US on the need to revive the mechanism of Egyptian-American strategic dialogue that has been on the back-burner for sometime. This dialogue was proposed to former US Secretary of State Warren Christopher and lukewarmly adopted, but later abandoned, by US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright.

Organisers of the conference will issue a report on its work that should be available for the consideration of Egyptian and American decision-making and research centres.

 

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