Gamal Essam El-Din reports on what many perceive to be deteriorating Egyptian-US relations In a speech entitled "US-Egyptian relations: on track", US ambassador to Egypt Francis Ricciardone insisted relations between Egypt and the US remained a strategic asset to both partners, and are solidly on track. Ricciardone also praised President Hosni Mubarak for proposing "a historic legislative and constitutional agenda". He did, however, note that "unfortunately we are seeing some serious resistance to reforms that favour Egypt's opening to competition, change, challenge and growth". While Ricciardone insisted he was optimistic about the prospects for political and economic reform, he said he remained worried about continued government corruption and repression. In an implicit rebuke to the government of Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif and its brutal clampdown on recent pro-democracy protests in Cairo, Ricciardone said, "every country has the responsibility to pass laws to protect both freedom of expression and public order" and that "tolerance for peaceful, orderly protests is a hallmark of democratic, and democratising, governments". Ricciardone's speech took place during the American Chamber of Commerce in Cairo's (AmCham) annual meeting on 31 May; a few hours after delivering the speech and he was on his way to Washington for consultations. The remarks to AmCham came days after Ricciardone was criticised by two leftist members of the People's Assembly. Kamal Ahmed, an MP with Nasserist leanings, accused Ricciardone of having described the Egyptian opposition as "opportunist". Kamal further alleged that during a closed meeting with local pro- democracy activists Ricciardone has said, "the US has interests and pays money to the Egyptian government, which must work to achieve those interests". Mustafa Bakri, an MP and editor of Al-Osbou, complained that Ricciardone had joined Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif during a visit to the governorate of Beni Sweif. Ahmed's criticisms were met with vehement denials from the US Embassy while Moufid Shehab, minister of state for parliamentary and legal affairs, said Ricciardone had joined Nazif because the latter was scheduled to open a number of USAID- funded projects. The accusations, however, cast a new pall of gloom over already strained Egyptian-American relations. Mustafa El-Feki, chairman of the People's Assembly's Foreign Affairs Committee, dates the deterioration in Egyptian-US relations to the beginning of 2004, the official launch of George Bush's strategy to promote democracy in the Middle East. In 2005, El-Feki adds, bilateral relations received a short-term boost after President Mubarak decided to introduce multi-candidate presidential elections. "But soon after, at the beginning of parliamentary elections till now, setbacks have overshadowed the relations," says El-Feki. Most Egyptian political observers attribute these setbacks to the White House and US Congress frustration with the progress of political reform in Egypt. US officials, says El-Feki, feel that Mubarak has failed to live up to their democratic expectations, something reflected in the criticisms levelled at him in American press, which has condemned the extension of emergency law, the authoritarian tactics deployed against pro-democracy protesters and the jailing of opposition leader Ayman Nour. Some American commentators go so far as to suggest that Mubarak's policies may even have harmed US interests. Recently Newsweek accused the Egyptian regime of devoting more effort to crushing secular political opponents than to fighting Islamic extremists. At the AmCham meeting Ricciardone applauded President Mubarak for calling the first multi-candidate presidential elections but criticised the government for arresting Ayman Nour. "All we know is that the man who ran for presidency here and came in second, lost the elections by a great margin, ended up before the courts and got what appears to Americans a very harsh sentence." Ricciardone also criticised the recent crackdown on anti- government demonstrators. "When things like this happen, they appear to us to set back this great, optimistic course that President Mubarak has charted, and we are, at the very least, disappointed." Mohamed El-Sayed Said, deputy director of Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies, believes the recent round of mudslinging between Egyptian and US officials precipitated the visit of the president's son, Gamal Mubarak, to Washington three weeks ago. "It seems clear that President Mubarak has been outraged by constant US criticism of his regime's reform policies," said Said. "That criticism was exemplified by the Congress decision not to start free trade agreement negotiations with Egypt on the grounds that Mubarak had backtracked on reform". Mubarak has not been to Washington since 2004, though before that he made annual visits. Instead, said Said, Mubarak sent his son, Gamal. Gamal has insisted that his visit was not secret, and came at the prompting of the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP). According to Ricciardone, "Gamal came for private purposes but also because he did want to see us." "He came to the White House. We asked him, 'what is going on in Egypt?' And he explained what is going on in Egypt from his perspective. I hope Egyptians take that as a good thing." Said believes that rather than sweetening US-Egyptian relations, Gamal's visit to Washington did them harm. "It seems that the Americans were not fully convinced of what Gamal told them given continued repression in Egypt and the angry reaction it has provoked in the American press." While in Egypt, argues Said, there was a widespread belief that Gamal had gone to America to secure Washington's blessing for him to become Egypt's next president. "The fact that the visit was secret and that he met President Bush and Vice-President Cheney served to confirm such rumours in the eyes of many," says Said. Towards the end of his speech Ricciardone said he would be taking a number of messages back to Washington. "Our relations remain very important, very alive, very intense, very precious," he said. "They are so strong that we can overcome differences in views on numerous issues, and we can manage the differences of views on sometimes important policy issues." Said is sceptical on how useful Ricciardone's rhetoric will be in containing the tensions in bilateral relations. "The fact that the regime in Egypt remains insincere about democratic reform will cause new setbacks in the relations between the two countries," he believes. El-Feki points to the role of the media in worsening US- Egyptian relations. "While some government-controlled newspapers attack the US for allegedly interfering in internal affairs and ask the regime not to implement what they see as an American agenda of reform, the American press has painted a bleak picture of Egypt, urging Bush not to prop up the regime in Egypt with $2 billion of annual aid," he says. It was a point taken up in Ricciardone's speech. "The media," said the US ambassador, "has its role to portray the facts, not exaggerate them, not just give a small part of the picture and that's true whether we are talking about allegations regarding abuses in Egypt or allegations involving American policy."
