Essam El-Erian* enumerates the factors that have brought Egyptian-US relations to a crucial turning point With half-term Congressional elections approaching and the Republican Party's popularity dwindling due to the war in Iraq, the White House has become ever more aware of the danger of sustaining such a high military presence in Iraq without any commensurate political payback. Then Hamas's victory in the PA legislative elections threw yet another spanner into the works. Hamas entered the political arena proclaiming as its ultimate aim the need to "safeguard the Palestinian resistance". Should negotiations resume with the Zionist state Palestinian negotiators will be on a much stronger footing. Towards this end Hamas declared its first step would be to fight the rampant corruption in the PA. Its second step will be to revive the PLO as the voice of all Palestinian people, both inside the occupied territories and abroad and, perhaps, in the Palestinian territories occupied in 1948. Hamas's electoral victory will severely test Egypt's approach to the Palestinian issue. If the Egyptian government has succeeded in halting the assimilation of the Muslim Brotherhood into the political process, how will it handle the new situation in Palestine where Hamas swept to the fore through the ballot box? The American administration is facing a great deal of frustration in its attempts to spread democracy in the region. Its failure to furnish a model in Iraq, where the process of democratisation has degenerated into bitter sectarianism, combined with its impatience with the sluggishness of democratic transformation in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf, has led to Washington casting about for another model. Egypt, where the presidential and parliamentary elections have injected a fresh impetus into political life, appeared to offer an answer. There is no overestimating the importance the Bush administration attaches to this issue, especially in view of its conviction, aired on numerous occasions, that terrorism is fostered and inflamed by corrupt and despotic regimes. The only way to halt terrorism, goes the argument, is to foster democratic life. The argument places American policy-makers in a quandary. Should Washington refrain from attempting to influence elections in Arab countries given the near certainty that the polls will be in favour of anti-American Islamist forces? More crucially from the perspective of the White House, if America's adversaries attain power what measures should Washington take as a precaution against the possible threat they might pose to American interests? There is no question that Egyptian-US relations have been rocky of late. Vice-President Dick Cheney's visit to Egypt was a failure, according to observers; negotiations over a bilateral free trade agreement have frozen, as was reported in The Washington Post ; and, before that, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice cancelled her visit to Egypt following the furore surrounding the treatment of Ayman Nour. The declared -- perhaps even actual -- cause of the recent rise in tensions resides in a divergence of opinion between the two sides over several major issues. Firstly, Egypt refuses to send troops to replace American soldiers in Iraq. The move would be unpopular, and it requires the approval of parliament, difficult to obtain now that the Muslim Brotherhood occupies so many seats in the People's Assembly. Secondly, Egypt objects to growing American pressure on the Syrian regime and the American support for anti-Syrian forces in Lebanon that aims to sever all ties between the two. Egypt fears that the pressures will precipitate the collapse of the Syrian regime and that this will have profound repercussions throughout the region at a time when already existing crises, such as those in Iraq and Palestine, remain unresolved. If this is what American strategists envision by "constructive chaos" Egypt wants no part in it. Egyptian opposition to America's campaign against Damascus may also be motivated by another concern. If the first instance of hereditary succession under a republican government fails in Syria it will dampen the prospects of similar succession projects taking place elsewhere in the region. Thirdly, for every step Egypt takes towards democratic development it seems to take two steps back. Because steps forward raise hopes, inspire previously apathetic segments of society to take part in the political process for the first time and encourage non-Islamist forces to enter the electoral fray with greater confidence, the disappointment created by setbacks in democratic development is felt all the more profoundly. The effects of this dynamic can be seen in the fragmentation and collapse of several official political parties, and there is little hope for their effective restructuring given the absence of any real foundations for political party activity. The rampant chaos that is currently infecting Egyptian politics is not of America's making, but a product of confusion and inconsistency in domestic policy. The US, after all, wants controllable chaos, a situation it can meddle in with a certain degree of predictability, and not the mess that is currently Egypt's domestic political scene. The case of Ayman Nour illustrates the consequences of the mixed messages the government is sending with regard to the political reform process. The major rival to the president in the recent presidential elections subsequently lost his parliamentary seat as the result of blatant electoral tampering. Then he lost both his freedom and reputation when he was convicted on the trumped up charge of forging signatures in order to found his party. The result of the trial, held before a special tribunal under the shadow of the still operative emergency laws, was a foregone conclusion: Nour was found guilty and sentenced to five years in prison. In the wake of its leader's disappearance and as the result of further government intervention, Nour's party, the Ghad, began to fall apart. Although an extreme example, the Nour case underscores the fragility of multi-party plurality in a heavily security-oriented state. Naturally Nour's case drew America's ire. The US has been seeking to generate a new political climate that will permit for the rise of secularist forces that could offset the growing influence of the Muslim Brotherhood. At the same time there was an understanding between Washington and Cairo that the regime in Egypt would bring on board more members of the new generation of technocrats and entrepreneurs who are naturally inclined to identify with American viewpoints. These, Washington expected, would be promoted within the ruling party and the cabinet, with the Ministry of Economy the major prize. The purpose was two-fold -- to create a more robust and modern- looking NDP and to advance economic reforms. Evidently the new technocrats and entrepreneurs, both within the government and the NDP and without, have failed to come up to scratch. Perhaps this is because they have been more intent upon realising personal gains rather than promoting true reform, or perhaps it is because they are not in a position to take the appropriate decisions. Perhaps, too, it is because of the difficulty of promoting economic reform independently of political reform, an approach that the Egyptian government has taken for 25 years and that has repeatedly failed. It should also be added that this group was encumbered by widespread suspicion that the stage was being set for the eventual succession of Gamal Mubarak. The regime refuses to accept a process of democratic reform that will lead to a new social contract whereby the government and leadership derive their legitimacy from the people rather than from affiliation with the revolution or the October War. This attitude is undoubtedly at the root of many differences between Egypt and the US over the political reform process. For some time the Egyptian regime has been wielding the Muslim Brotherhood as a bugbear both at home and abroad. President Hosni Mubarak has often cautioned against free elections on the grounds that they would bring the Brotherhood to power. He issued a statement to this effect to the Washington Post soon after the death of the late MB Supreme Guide Mustafa Mashhour, with the obvious intent of telling the US to reduce pressures for democratic reform. Another matter over which Egypt and the US do not see eye- to-eye is the subject of Israel. Egypt's positions are clear on both the official and popular levels: it cannot accept Zionist hegemony over the region or Israeli leadership of the political and economic development process on the grounds that Israel is an oasis of democracy in the region, nor can Egypt accept Israel's monopoly of nuclear weapon, ostensibly on the same grounds. That Egypt and the US will overcome the current difficulties in their bilateral relations is beyond doubt. They both need each other, after all, at this crucial and delicate time. The important question, then, is this: When they do settle their differences it will be at whose, and what, cost? * The writer is a leading member of the Muslim Brotherhood.
