As the newly appointed foreign minister readies to take his oath of office, his predecessor's promised transformation of Egypt's international standing looks to have been shelved Newly appointed foreign minister Mohamed El-Orabi is to take his oath of duty within daysbeforeruling Supreme Military Council chairman, Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, thus assuming the duties handed over by his predecessor Nabil El-Arabi, who held Egypt's top diplomatic job for just four months. El-Araby, for his part, will assume his post at the head of the Arab League on 3 July. Confirming that El-Orabi is to assume the foreign minister's duties before the end of the month, a diplomatic source said it was "most likely El-Orabi, and not El-Arabi, who will take part in the official delegation going to Malabo (Equatorial Guinea) for the African Union Summit on 30 June." He added that, while initially the delegation was to be headed by the foreign minister, Prime Minister Essam Sharaf later decided that he would head the delegation himself, underlining Egypt's post-revolutionary interest in promoting its relations with the rest of the continent. Egypt's new found interest in its continent is just one of what are being described as "the new parameters" of the country's foreign policy, which outgoing El-Arabi had shifted with dramatic effect in the span of a few months. According to sources close to El-Orabi, this and other key elements of El-Arabi's foreign policy agenda will be taken up by the newly appointed foreign minister for the duration of his tenure, which is expected to end once a new president is elected sometime at the beginning of 2012. Egypt's Africa focus was clearly underlined in the statements of El-Arabi during his 16 weeks in office, especially during two visits that he made to Sudan. "In fact, the renewed interest in Egypt's Africa relations had its origins during the last few months of ousted president Hosni Mubarak's rule, driven by the growing insistence of upstream Nile-basin countries that Egypt reduce its share of the Nile's water," said a foreign ministry official who follows the Africa file. He acknowledged, nevertheless, that the approach adopted by El-Arabi in pursuing this renewed focus on Africa, as well as the public diplomacy initiatives launched by Egypt post-revolution, had much greater credibility. Yet the prevalent attitude within the corridors of the Egyptian foreign ministry is that post- or pre-revolution, Egypt's foreign policy parameters are basically unchanged, a perspective that seems to be shared by much of the foreign diplomatic community in Cairo. "If you compare El-Arabi to his predecessor, Ahmed Abul-Gheit, in terms of attitude and style you will feel a great difference, but substantively, I would have to say that the parameters of Egypt's foreign policy during the past four months seem to me to be no different from what I have known them to be during the past two years of my service in Egypt," a Western ambassador told Ahram Online, on condition of anonymity. He added, however, that "in the world of diplomacy, style is often as important, or even more important than substance". But for some of the Egyptian diplomats who served directly under El-Arabi, and who spoke to Al-Ahram Online on strict condition of anonymity, it would be wholly unfair to qualify El-Arabi's performance as a sheer change of style rather than substance. "I think it would be fair to say that El-Arabi changed the concept of Egyptian foreign policy; El-Arabi wanted Egypt to be the kind of nation that he believes it should be – a leading regional country that respects human rights and enjoys a well respected standing in today's world," said one aide. In this regard, El-Arabi's aides refer to his initiative to normalize relations between Cairo and Tehran; his attempt to end the closure of the Rafah border with the Israeli besieged Gaza, and to his decision to have Egypt join the Rome Statute on International Criminal Court. This is much more than a matter of style, these diplomats say, hastening to add that though these initiatives have been for the most part subverted, this should not be understood as a failure of El-Arabi's mission, but as an indication that legacy of the years of stagnation in Egyptian international and regional posture is too heavy to eradicate within a mere 16 weeks. "It hasn't been easy; he really worked hard to secure the opening of the borders with Gaza, but a few days after the borders were opened, Israel sent an distress signal to Cairo suggesting that some wanted 'terrorists' were about to infiltrate the borders, and the Rafah crossing was immediately blocked," said a concerned diplomat. The initiative to normalize relations with Iran suffered a similar fate, according an intelligence source. "The time is not right, and we have so many security concerns; we trust that Minister El-Arabi had some good ideas but the fact of the matter is that he has not had the time to examine the national security implications of this matter fully". A national security council to decide the major foreign policy parameters was suggested by El-Arabi – but to little effect. "This would be something for the next president to look at; this government is not going to take such a decision, and the supreme military court does not want to be seen changing the structure of the state," said a source at the prime minister's office. As such, the writing is on the wall for the incoming foreign minister, 15 years junior to the veteran 75-year old El-Arabi, whose clout derived from a long and illustrious career that included sitting on the International Court of Justice between 2001 and 2005. And the message is loud and clear: there shall be no significant change in Egypt's foreign police parameters for the time being. "El-Orabi is well-aware of the nature of the transitional role he needs to play, he accepts it, and believes he can do a good job by promoting a gradual approach to change and taking well calculated initiatives," said the source at the prime minister's office. To introduce a considerable change to the foreign policy parameters, Egyptian diplomats acknowledge, there would have to be a newly elected president and a newly elected parliament. Meanwhile, they add, improving the performance of Egyptian is the most that could be hoped for now.
