Doaa El-Bey reports on the shifting focus of Egyptian-US relations When US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice met President Hosni Mubarak last Wednesday in a closed session it was only to be expected that speculation would be rife over what it was they had discussed in their hour long tête-à-tête. It is, after all, hardly a secret that US-Egyptian relations have been passing through some testing times. During her two-day visit to Cairo all the signs were that Rice was keen to project an upbeat image of bilateral relations. Her press conference with Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul-Gheit following a meeting of the so-called 6+2 states -- the Gulf Cooperation Council, i.e. Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain and Oman plus Egypt and Jordan -- was notable mostly because of the absence of any recriminations and the desire of both participants to underscore the positive aspects of Egyptian-US ties. Gone was any criticism of the progress of political reforms in Egypt. When pressed by US journalists on the issue Rice, who just once cancelled a planned trip to Egypt following the arrest of Al-Ghad Party leader Ayman Nour, said only that "the process of democracy has its ups and downs and any state going through it will. But the US will continue to speak about the importance of democracy... We do so in a spirit of friendship and respect." Nothing could have been further from the aggressive tone Rice had adopted in June last year while delivering a speech at the American University in Cairo in which she questioned the commitment of Egyptian regime to reform and criticised its treatment of those advocating democratisation. Last week Rice was careful to steer away from issues of domestic Egyptian politics, making no reference to the still imprisoned Nour or the current stand-off between the regime and the judiciary. Unlike her AUC speech, this time there were no appeals to the Egyptian government to allow the Egyptian people the freedom to choose. The only domestic issue she did address was Egypt's recently revealed nuclear ambitions, and the message was positive. "We would be pleased to discuss this with Egypt as Egypt develops its plans but I don't want to get ahead of the Egyptian government," Rice told reporters. Rice clearly was not in Cairo to enter into any confrontation with the Egyptian regime. The priorities of the US administration have shifted. Rice had arrived in Egypt with a regional and not bilateral agenda, says Manar El-Shorbagy, assistant professor of political science at the American University in Cairo. And her performance while in Cairo, El-Shorbagy argues, showed just how keen Washington now is to mobilise the support of the "moderate states" in the region in securing its own interests. "The US is hoping to use diplomacy to achieve what it failed to secure through military means. Rice still has the same goals, she is just using different tools to get there," believes El-Shorbagy. Yet there are many who feel uncomfortable with Washington's seeming determination to divide the Middle East into two axes, one of moderation, the other extremist, not least President Mubarak who, says El-Shorbagy, has clearly warned against such a reductive approach. During her visit to Cairo, Rice also found herself at odds with her Egyptian interlocutors on how to pressure Khartoum to allow for the deployment of international forces in Darfur that could then protect refugees who, says the UN, are facing an increasing number of attacks. Mohamed Bassiouni, the former Egyptian ambassador to Israel, agrees with El-Shorbagy that the visit was designed to promote Washington's regional interests, and aimed particularly at giving a boost to the long stalled peace process. But that, he says, is unlikely to come about as the result of a single visit. Rice's trip also offered an opportunity to help develop a more transparent relationship between the US and Egypt. "Discussion can produce mutual understanding and greater US appreciation of what Egypt has achieved so far. We have already taken some steps towards political reform but we need to take it step by step so that Egyptian society can accept these reforms," says Bassiouni. "Egyptian US relations have reached a degree of maturity that allows the two states to express their points of view clearly," noted an Egyptian official, who talked on condition of anonymity. "We deal with each other within a framework of friendship and mutual benefit." Officials and commentators agree that the US is now showing a greater willingness to pursue dialogue with Egypt and there is renewed interest in reviving the twice-yearly meetings at foreign ministers level that were initiated in the mid-1990s but which soon ran out of steam. Egyptian diplomats, though, remain cautious in predicting the future shape of bilateral relations arguing that it remains too early to tell on what fronts additional dialogue will help advance the interests of both Cairo and Washington. Sources say that a visit by President Mubarak to Washington early next year -- a once annual event that was abandoned two years ago -- could lend new momentum to the bilateral relationship that each side views as crucial in both the political and economic spheres.
