The people responsible for the murder of Ihab El-Sherif are the people who killed him, writes Abdel-Moneim Said* Egypt is downsizing its diplomatic mission in Baghdad, reversing an earlier decision to upgrade the country's representation. As if this was not enough tensions have surfaced between the Egyptian and Iraqi governments over whether Ihab El-Sherif was holding contacts with Iraqi opposition groups. The icing on the cake, though, is that many in the Egyptian and Arab media have started to cast about to blame anyone and everyone for El-Sherif's murder, except the people who killed him. Al-Zarqawi-led group, Al-Jihad Base in the Country of the Two Rivers, has claimed responsibility for the murder of the Egyptian diplomat. As the tragedy began to unfold accusing fingers were pointed at the Egyptian state which was blamed for upgrading diplomatic relations with Iraq. This, said those doing the pointing, was an act of recognition of occupation and of the "unlawful" government of Iraq. Fingers were also pointed at the US and the Iraqi government, denounced for creating and presiding over the state of chaos in the country that has given rise to "resistance". Some even blame El-Sherif himself for going out to buy a newspaper without adequate security. Everyone is to blame for his murder, they say, except the people who killed him. Everyone, apart from the killers, is a culprit. The fact that a specific group of people abducted and murdered El-Sherif has become a minor detail. But those who offer such a lopsided view overlook two facts. One is that Egypt has been at war with terror for three decades in the course of which one president was assassinated and another almost. Some 1,500 Egyptians have been killed by terrorists, including a People's Assembly Speaker and several ministers. Economic installations and our diplomatic mission in Islamabad were bombed before the Americans went to Iraq and before 11 September attacks took place. The other fact that is ignored by those determined to accuse everyone apart from the murderers is that Egypt's relations with Iraq are based on ties that have nothing to do with the US. These ties existed before the occupation and will continue to exist long after it ends. Iraq, a major Arab country with undeniable influence in the region, has a long history of close economic ties with Egypt. There are 120,000 Egyptians living in Iraq and in need of diplomatic support. Egypt has no choice but to maintain a presence in Iraq, a country with which it shares the bonds of Arabism and religion. Even after the Iraqi invasion of KuwaitEgypt retained a care-taking mission in Baghdad, headed by a high-ranking diplomat. El-Sherif was the last envoy to head that mission. Not only have the wrong people been blamed for El-Sherif's murder, not only have the perpetrators been spared any blame, the entire Egyptian struggle against terror has been ignored, even though the bombings in Taba and Cairo are a recent memory. There are those writers who seem determined to overlook Egypt's interests in Iraq; so desperate are they to reduce Egyptian-Iraqi bonds to a strand of Egyptian-US relations. Egypt, we are told, "obeyed" US orders. It is a claim many opposition newspaper in Egypt continue to make, and traces of the accusation can also be found in state-affiliated papers. Ultimately, even the government seems to have bought it. Its decision to scale down our diplomatic representation in Iraq can only be construed as an admission of error. The same people who accuse Egypt for subjugating its policy to US dictates are ironically pushing it to bow to the wishes of Al-Qaeda and similar groups. When the group calling itself Al-Jihad Base in the Country of the Two Rivers claimed responsibility for abducting and killing El-Sherif it mentioned, by way of justification, that he came from an apostate state, one that maintains ties with the Jews and the Crusaders. Follow such absurd reasoning to its conclusion and you reach the position where Egypt would have to abandon all relations with the Christian world, go to war with Israel, and turn the Egyptian state into the kind of entity of which the Taliban would be proud. Otherwise its diplomats will be abducted and murdered, and deservedly so. It is regrettable that the Foreign Ministry has decided to downsize Egypt's representation in Iraq. Doing so can all too easily be construed as a victory by Al-Zarqawi's supporters and this could conceivably lead to the abduction of yet more diplomats as the terrorists attempt to bounce Cairo into making concessions. * The writer is director of Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies.
