While the US and Egypt mostly agree on what the Middle East should look like, how to get there is another matter, writes Dina Ezzat By mid-June, Egypt could be hosting yet another meeting between the US and its best Arab allies along with other concerned international players to discuss ways to stabilise, if not secure, the Middle East. The expected meeting of the International Quartet (the US, EU, Russia and the UN) and the so-called Arab Quartet (Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates) would be their second this year. The first meeting of the two quartets was hosted in February in Aswan. The two diplomatic groups discussed ways to promote a political process that would allow for a settlement of the Arab-Israeli conflict and also examined matters related to short- and long-term security in the Gulf area with an eye on the Iranian plans, qualified by the US and some others, but not all, as "expansionist". Originally, the International Quartet was charged with examining the Middle East peace process almost exclusively. The US and Egypt, Jordan and the six members of the Arab Gulf Cooperation Council traditionally examined developments related to Iraq and Gulf security arrangements. As the combined import of these issues was seen by all parties to determine the future stability of the Middle East, and hence the interests of key international players therein, it was agreed that the two Quartets would take over discussion of these issues. In Aswan, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice did not confine herself to foreign minister consultations but expanded the scope of her meetings to include intelligence chiefs from four Arab states - all close allies of the US - consulted earlier in Amman in what was qualified as the first ever gathering of the sort. In mid-June, a similar sequence of meetings is expected to take place. Today, Egyptian and many Arab Quartet diplomats acknowledge that when it comes to the Middle East, the line between diplomatic and intelligence work is often quite slim, due mainly to intense US obsession with Islamist militant movements, especially in Iraq and Arab countries neighbouring Israel, along with the Palestinian Hamas movement and Lebanon's Hizbullah, which is closely affiliated to Iran. According to one senior Egyptian official, Egypt and the US are in agreement on the need to address all these issues. It's just a matter of synchronising priorities. This week in Cairo, in press statements made following an over hour-long meeting between President Hosni Mubarak and visiting US Vice- President Dick Cheney, Presidential Spokesman Suleiman Awad referred openly to a divergence of priorities. According to Awad, Mubarak tirelessly stressed the need for a breakthrough in the long- stalled Middle East peace process and on the basis of the Arab peace initiative while Cheney focussed more on the situation in Iraq and security arrangements in the Gulf. "Mubarak made it very clear that all attempts to address the present regional crisis are unlikely to bear fruit if stagnation continues on the peace process, especially on the Palestinian front," Awad said. Similar sentiment has been relayed by Jordanian diplomatic quarters. The divergence between US priorities and those of the UAE and Saudi Arabia is less clear in light of the closer geographic proximity of both to Iraq, and their concerns regarding Iran's military plans and nuclear programme. Egyptian officials say that notwithstanding differing priorities between Egypt and Jordan, and Saudi Arabia and the UAE, officials from the four countries told Cheney this week that the US must act towards establishing an independent Palestinian state living side-by-side with Israel. Aware that such a target is unlikely to be realised before Bush exits the White House in 2008, officials argued that it is possible -- if the US is serious -- to start a political process of negotiations, at least on the Palestinian front, under the umbrella of the International Quartet before Bush's term is over. In return for such a commitment, Arab countries, including a reluctant Saudi Arabia, will be willing to offer the US administration what it has been endlessly pressing for, in terms of warmer ties with the Shia-led and widely understood as sectarian government of Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki. "Egypt has already granted the US much help when it agreed to receive Maliki, who was welcomed by no less than President Mubarak himself a short while before the convocation of two international and regional meetings on Iraq in Sharm El-Sheikh earlier this month," said a senior Egyptian official. Egypt, he added, despite the confused internal political scene in Israel, also invited Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni along with Jordanian Foreign Minister Abdul-Ilah Al-Khatib for talks on the prospect of re-launching a substantive process of negotiations between Palestinians and Israelis after a seven-year halt. Egyptian officials say that while it is true that the three-way meeting that took place in Cairo last Thursday was conducted in line with the mandate accredited to Egypt and Jordan by the Arab League Committee on the Peace Initiative, it is equally true that this meeting was hosted by Cairo despite much public resentment and considerable apprehension as to its outcome. They add that by doing so, Egypt was making a calculated move out of conviction regarding the need to keep the peace process afloat. This effort, they said, should be supported by US deeds, not just by statements of US officials -- Rice included -- make during Middle East visits. "Of course, we are well aware of the fact that Rice does not have the full support of the administration behind her attempt to revive a process of negotiations between Palestinians and Israelis. And we appreciate that the American administration is very concerned about Iraq," said an Egyptian source. He added, "but we also want Washington to acknowledge our concern about the impact of a longer stalemate on the Palestinian front, especially in view of the harsh economic and humanitarian consequences of the closure imposed on the Palestinians." Meanwhile, in Brussels this week Egypt joined a collective Arab League effort to lobby EU support for action towards starting a process of Israeli- Palestinian negotiations. A meeting that convened at the EU headquarters Monday brought together the 27 foreign ministers of the European Union and EU Foreign and Security Policies High Coordinator Javier Solana along with Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa and the foreign ministers, or their representatives, of Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Palestine, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Morocco. According to Hesham Youssef, Arab League chief of staff, the Arab delegation lobbied for an international meeting aimed at inexorably re- launching the peace process. The idea of an international conference -- some say "meeting" or "mechanism" -- to re-launch peace talks, especially on the Palestinian front, is being firmly backed by Egypt as the best -- perhaps the only -- way to resurrect the Arab-Israeli peace process in view of Washington's obsession with Iraq. During the Egypt-Jordan-Israel meeting in Cairo last Thursday, Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul-Gheit prompted his Israeli counterpart to consider the idea. "And contrary to previous stances, Livni did not immediately turn down the idea," said one informed source. Abul-Gheit again proposed the idea to the Organisation of the Islamic Conference in Islamabad Tuesday. The US remains lukewarm towards the idea, however, if Rice's reaction at an informal gathering held in Sharm El-Sheikh on the fringe of the Iraq meetings is anything to go by. For now, Foreign Minister Abul-Gheit is contemplating a visit to Israel in the coming few weeks, possibly in a joint mission with Al-Khatib, to entreat Israeli decision-making quarters to respond positively to Arab proposals of setting confidence-building measures (mostly related to easing the embargo imposed by Israel on the Palestinians for over a year) in return for a wider Israeli political gain that may include the participation in Arab delegation meetings with Israel of Morocco, Tunis, Qatar and Bahrain. Commercial relations started between Israel and these Arab countries in the late 1990s but were suspended when former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon started his wide-scale offensive on the Palestinians in 2000. Regarding Iran, Egypt and the US are not seeing eye-to-eye. Some Egyptian officials are concerned that a desperate and frustrated US administration might attempt to trump an angry Congress by engaging in a military attack on Iranian nuclear targets. This, the officials say, would be a catastrophe for the security of the region. "It would unveil endless terror attacks against US targets and US allies. It would be a disaster, and we are trying to explain this to the Americans, but we are not sure they are listening," said one Egyptian source. According to Awad, during talks with Cheney in Cairo last Sunday, President Mubarak repeatedly stressed that diplomatic dialogue was the best and wisest way to approach the standoff between Tehran and Washington. Egyptian officials say that concern about a military nuclear programme in Iran is well appreciated, but that the issue of nuclear non-proliferation in the Middle East is more about Israel, already a nuclear state. "This is precisely why we insisted during the first round of preparatory meetings for the 2010 review conference of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) held in Vienna earlier this month to give adequate attention to resolutions adopted during previous NPT conferences on the need to free the Middle East of nuclear weapons," commented an Egyptian diplomatic source. He added that this was not something that the Americans welcomed very much, "in view of the obvious reluctance of Israel to revive this matter". Egypt had to lobby the support of the Arab Group and the Non-Aligned Movement to secure in the 2010 NPT conference agenda reference to a resolution adopted in 1995 calling for a Middle East free of nuclear weapons and to a resolution adopted in 2000 that demands Israel join the NPT. In 2005, an NPT review conference was hijacked by the US reluctance to accommodate such demands and its obsession with the Iranian file. It is widely foreseen that as preparations gear up for the 2010 NPT review conference, confrontation between Cairo and Washington over a nuclear free Middle East is likely to surface again. "The problem is that the Americans do not acknowledge that sooner or later Israel will need to come clean about its nuclear programme, or else the non- proliferation regime will be seriously challenged in the Middle East," said one Egyptian official. This said, Egypt has remained apprehensive about signs of rapprochement made by Iran. Egyptian-Iranian diplomatic relations were severed by Tehran with the declaration of the Islamic Revolution in Iran to protest the refuge offered by former President Anwar Sadat to the toppled Shah of Iran. Ever since, Egypt has been apprehensive about what it feared were Iranian plans to "export" the Islamic revolution to Egypt and the ties that were at times depicted between Tehran and some of the Islamist militant groups operating in Egypt. However, with the accession of former moderate Iranian President Mohamed Khatami to power in 1997, relations were less tense. In fact, there were points where the resumption of diplomatic relations was coming round the corner. But security warnings bombarded all diplomatic moves despite the continuous improved coordination in forums of multi-lateral diplomacy and cautious bilateral consultations. On Monday, while on an Arab tour described by many political commentators as a parallel trip to that of Cheney, the Iranian president expressed public interest in resuming relations with Egypt. "If the Egyptian government announced its readiness (to restore relations), we will immediately open an embassy in Cairo," Ahmadinejad said. "We have been waiting for years for the Egyptian side to announce it." Foreign Minister Abul-Gheit described Ahmadinejad's remarks that his country is willing to restore full diplomatic relations with Egypt as "positive." Speaking to the national news agency MENA on Tuesday, Abul-Gheit said he would discuss the matter with the Iranian foreign minister who is with him in Pakistan for a meeting of the foreign ministers of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference. The statements of the Iranian president, along side his Arab tour that included the first visit in 27 years by an Iranian head of state to the United Arab Emirates -- with which Iran has a conflict over three Gulf islands -- are perceived to be part of a new Iranian exercise that aims to improve ties with mainly Sunni Arab nations who have been deeply concerned over Tehran's increasing power in the region, especially in Iraq. Arab US allies, especially the members of the Arab Quartet, have been open with their concerns that Iraq's Shiite-led government will tip that country toward Iran's sphere. A resumption of Egyptian-Iranian relations is not something that will happen overnight. However, should it happen, it could constitute another point of disagreement between Egypt and the US on what it takes to stabilise the Middle East and, in this very context, to contain Iranian regional ambitions.
