14 - 20 June 2001
Issue No.538
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Al-Ahram Weekly Online 14 - 20 June 2001 Issue No.538 |
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On Egyptian-American relations
The strong ties between Washington and Cairo do not mean that the two capitals see eye to eye on every issue of common interest. Mohamed Sid-Ahmed casts light on issues that can be the subject of discord
Last week, I was invited to deliver a talk in Washington on Egyptian-American relations. My host was not an official American agency, but the Arab-American Anti-Discrimination League, an NGO led by prominent activist Hala Maksoud, which firmly defends Palestinian rights. I received the invitation before these relations were put to the test by the highly vociferous defence of Saadeddin Ibrahim launched by the American press following his seven-year prison sentence, which was accompanied by what many saw as a smear campaign against Egypt.
While the "war of articles" over Saadeddin Ibrahim is not the reason for the crisis, it is definitely symptomatic of a deep malaise that warrants closer scrutiny. The mutual recriminations and virulent arguments exchanged by the two sides reveal a degree of bitterness and animosity that can only be explained if we recognise that elements of discord already existed in the relationship. It is important to try and identify these elements.
An argument often repeated in the American press is that although since it signed a peace treaty with Israel a quarter of a century ago Egypt has been receiving American economic assistance to the tune of $2 billion a year, it is now thumbing its nose at American values upheld by an Egyptian citizen who is also an American citizen. This leitmotif confirmed what Egyptians have for long suspected, which is that Cairo's relationship with Washington is in reality a trilateral one in which Israel is the undeclared but all-important component. It seems that American dealings with Egypt are informed exclusively by the peace treaty it signed with Israel and that it is Israel which determines the temperature of Egyptian- American relations. Does this mean that these relations are doomed to cool whenever the peace process runs into difficulties, as is now the case on the Palestinian-Israeli track?
Until recently there was a complacent belief that while the road to a Middle East settlement was a long and bumpy one, with detours and dead ends along the way, the peace process launched in Madrid could only move forward. Even if it proceeded at a snail's pace, even if it suffered setbacks and reversals, the momentum it generated was bound eventually to propel it to the end of the road. There was some justification for this optimistic view as, in the years since the first seeds of the process were planted with the Egyptian-Israeli Camp David accords, more and more parties had climbed onto the peace bandwagon and the momentum towards peace had been fortified with the addition of more and more agreements.
But the second round of negotiations held in Camp David 22 years later between Clinton, Arafat and Barak exposed the belief as more wishful thinking than a realistic assessment of the situation. The peace negotiations collapsed and, with them, the belief that the peace process just had to move forward, whatever the zigzags on the way. It seems to me that it is the breakdown of this belief that stands behind the present problems in Egyptian-American relations.
The failure of the peace process had far-reaching repercussions. In the Palestinian ranks, it triggered the Intifada; in Israel, it led to Sharon's election; on the American side, it prompted Bush's decision to turn away from the Arab-Israeli peace process and concentrate his efforts on issues more likely to reap fruit.
Sharon ran on a platform of security before peace, and the Israeli electorate voted him to power to ensure that Israel's security would be given precedence over peace with the Arabs, i.e., that peace will be sacrificed if Israel's security is threatened -- of course, according to Sharon's interpretation of what constitutes a threat to Israel's security, that is, any challenge to its right to build new settlements, widen the existing ones, continue to deny the Palestinians the right of return, refuse to return to them any more land than they have already received (which is less than 50 per cent of what was previously offered) and refuse any Palestinian sovereignty over Muslim holy places. Moreover, Sharon does not see Arafat as a 'partner' in a peace process but as an "enemy" who, in the best of cases, should be neutralised. As Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher put it, Sharon seems bent on dismantling the Palestinian Authority and destroying its infrastructure.
Cairo is aware that the longer Israel's repression of the Intifada goes on in the absence of a negotiating process, the greater the threat of destablisation to the entire region. There are already signs that unless negotiations resume and some progress is achieved, disturbances will not remain confined to the Palestinian theatre alone. We have seen how vigorously the Jordanian police repressed the mass demonstrations held in Amman on Friday 11 May in support of the Intifada. Then there is the threat of a showdown between Hizbullah and Israel over Shebaa, which could escalate into a confrontation between Lebanon and Israel, eventually even between Syria and Israel.
Meanwhile, Cairo and Washington differ over who represents the greatest danger to regional stability. The Bush administration has cast Saddam Hussein, not Ariel Sharon, as the villain of the piece. The American president's concern, not to say obsession, with the Iraqi leader is not fortuitous, but touches on the very essence of his political line. Indeed, his quarrel with Saddam Hussein has become one of the cornerstones of his administration's strategic thinking. A legitimate question here is why, with the Palestinian-Israeli confrontation spiralling out of control, Washington still insists that Iraq is the worst enemy of peace.
On May first, Bush presented his plans for a controversial anti-missile system and urged America's friends and other major powers to join in forging a broad new approach to mutual security that would no longer revolve around the Cold War notion of nuclear deterrence. Bush said this entailed a strategic rethinking of the role of nuclear deterrence, and that the US had to build an army in keeping with the revolutionary changes now underway in war technology. In his opinion, attention now has to be focused on developing higher-precision, longer-range weapons. The political changes the world has witnessed since the breakdown of the Soviet Union are forcing the United States to deal with new kinds of weapons. The epicentre of military tension has moved eastwards, towards China in particular. The US can also get rid of much of its present nuclear arsenal, because of the decline of the threat that the Soviet Union formerly represented.
The best site to test the new American weapons is Iraq. It is an enemy that does not, unlike China, possess the means to retaliate. Moreover, Saddam Hussein's regime does not enjoy sympathy on the world arena. The American administration describes Iraq as a rogue state. And because Iraq is the main testing ground for America's new weapons, and because these weapons are the instrument by which Bush hopes to reactivate the sluggish US economy, he is unlikely to stop treating Iraq as an enemy. Indeed, if Iraq did not exist, it would have to be invented!
Thus while Egypt needs to focus on Sharon and guarantee that he is neutralised, Bush needs to focus on Saddam Hussein and guarantee that the embargo against him is consolidated. How to reconcile these two positions and ensure that the different priorities of the two sides do not lead to a clash between them?
Cairo has come forward with the Egyptian- Jordanian initiative. Despite his reluctance to endorse anything initiated by his predecessor, Bush has finally agreed to the Mitchell Commission report. The initiative, like the report, is based on three fundamental elements: first, steps to end the current crisis between Israel and the Palestinian Authority; second, confidence-building measures; third, resuming the negotiation process on the Palestinian/ Israeli track. However, the initiative mentions Security Council Resolution 242 as the frame of reference and the report does not; and the initiative calls for the participation of Russia, the European Union, Egypt, Jordan and the secretary-general of the United Nations as sponsors of the process, while the Mitchell report seems to advocate that the US alone assume the role of sponsor.
The test for Egyptian-American friendship is the ability of that friendship to stand up to the challenges in conditions where acute problems arise between the two sides, especially in conditions where the Egyptian-Israeli relations that initially triggered close American-Egyptian relations deteriorate. With the present breakdown in Palestinian-Israeli relations, Egyptian-American friendship is now up against the most critical test it has ever had to face.
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