Questions related to President Mubarak's last trip abroad still remain with no clear answers, writes Mohamed Sid-Ahmed President Mubarak described his reaction to the outcome of the meeting between Bush and Sharon, which was held only two days after his own meeting with the US president, as one of "shock", a choice of words signifying that nothing in his talks with Bush had led to expect such a dramatic reversal in the US position. Regular meetings between the Egyptian president and his US counterpart are an annual tradition that has been established over the years, with President Mubarak visiting Washington at least once a year, usually in March. The pattern was broken last year because of the extraordinary situation brought about by the American-led war on Iraq and, for the first time in years, the meeting did not take place. But face-to-face talks between the two leaders could not be suspended indefinitely, whatever the results of the war and its repercussions on Egyptian-American relations. Indeed, there was a pressing need for the resumption of talks. Bush had come up with a plan for the post-war regional setup he dubbed the Greater Middle East, and both he and Mubarak were keen to exchange views on the plan. Bush's decision to host the Egyptian president at his ranch in Texas seemed to indicate a desire on his part to strengthen the personal relationship between them. But that was not to be. In fact, Mubarak's use of the word shock implies not only his bitter disappointment at Bush's blatant bias towards Israel but his sudden realisation that the Bush administration gives a far higher priority to its relations with Israel than it does to its relations with the Arab world, including Egypt. This was the only possible reading of a situation in which Washington's relations with the Arab world are at their lowest ebb while its relations with Israel have never been closer. How to deal with the consequences of this new situation? Can Egypt pin its hopes on the two European nations Mubarak visited after the US? For instance, is it conceivable to replace the American-Egyptian axis with a French-Egyptian rapprochement? These are questions that are worthy of serious consideration in the light of America's unconditional adoption of Israel's plans for the region without consulting its Arab "allies" and in defiance of their wishes. Some observers believe that a change in the policy of the American administration is only conceivable if Bush is defeated in the coming presidential elections. But the choice of Kerry as the Democratic presidential candidate has disappointed many. Kerry was chosen not because he best represented the views of the Democratic Party but because he was the best placed to defeat Bush. That is, because he is the Democratic candidate whose views are closest to those of Bush. That is particularly true when it comes to Kerry's views on the Middle East. When Mubarak's visit to the US was first mentioned in the press, it was announced that he would make a short stopover in London first for talks with Tony Blair before proceeding on to Texas and that on his way back to Egypt, he would visit Germany and France. But the London leg of the trip was inexplicably cancelled, and Mubarak flew straight to the US. In Paris, the last stop of his itinerary, Mubarak gave an interview to the French Le Monde which can help explain why he decided not to go to London. In the interview, he said that "it is vital in the field of international relations to take the balance of power into consideration...driving America to oppose Europe is a catastrophe, and the opposite is equally true. We want to work with both parties, the United States and the European Union, for the sake of achieving peace." Does the decision to drop London from the president's itinerary have any special significance? Was it to avoid visiting the only important European capital whose stands on Middle East issues are invariably closer to those of the United States than they are to those of its fellow EU members? In the period preceding the war on Iraq and during the war itself, the European nations were divided into two opposing groups: one, led by Britain, backed America's decision to launch the war without waiting for the UN weapons inspectors to complete their search for hidden WMDs, and another, led by France and Germany, opposed the war and insisted that the inspectors be given more time to complete their mission. When it became clear that Iraq did not possess WMDs, and that there was consequently no legal justification for the war, the position of America and Britain became shaky, and the number of nations supporting them shrank considerably. Spain has already decided to pull its troops out, while Honduras, the Dominican Republic and even Poland are considering taking similar steps. With more countries expected to follow suit, the continued presence of the dwindling coalition's forces in Iraq is fast acquiring the nature of an illegal foreign occupation. The same logic expressed by Mubarak in his interview to Le Monde seems to be behind Chirac's call for an international conference to be held on Iraq along the lines of the Bonn international conference on Afghanistan. This is one way of ensuring that the issue is dealt with by the international community through its relevant institutions rather than by a limited number of great powers. It is also the logic behind stepping up the convocation of the Islamic Conference and accelerating the preparations for the Arab Summit, now expected to be convened in the second half of May. The Bush administration proceeds from the assumption that religion is the core issue while Mubarak proceeds from the idea that the core issue is injustice. In his Le Monde interview, Mubarak said: "We are furnishing the greatest possible effort with the two parties at the same time: America and Europe. Withdrawal should be undertaken in coordination with the Palestinians, otherwise Gaza will sink into violence and chaos. Each country has its own characteristics. That is why reform must come from within". An issue on which Mubarak insists is that reform should not be dictated from abroad. Nobody denies the validity of his position, at least as far as appearances go, and it has been endorsed by many international personalities. However, no one can deny that some form of reform is imperative, beginning with the state of emergency in which Egypt has been living since Sadat was assassinated a quarter of a century ago. While emergency laws can be applied for a short period to meet exceptional circumstances, they cannot be applied indefinitely. What can be acceptable as an exception is not acceptable when it becomes the rule. Continuing to impose emergency laws long after the emergency that entailed their imposition in the first place has disappeared is a clear violation of democracy. Thus we cannot say that there is no need for reform, only that it must emanate from inside, not outside, society, and that the specific characteristics of each society should be taken into account. Moreover, not everything attributed to reform, even if emanating from within society, is necessarily beneficial and positive. On the issue of women, for instance, things can sometimes be very ambivalent. Specific steps in the name of reform could even, in specific cases, become counter-productive. Much depends on the criteria to which we refer. By the same token, not everything imported from abroad is necessarily negative. Not all that is traditional and deeply embedded in society's behaviour is necessarily positive. In other words, the criterion by which to determine whether a given reform is desirable or undesirable is not its provenance. What emanates from inside society is not necessarily good; what emanates from outside not necessarily bad. By a quirk of fate, Mordechai Vanunu, the Israeli nuclear technician who disclosed to the British Sunday Times that Israel had a nuclear arsenal of not less than 200 bombs, has just been released from prison after serving a sentence of 18 years, mostly in solitary confinement. This is an ironic footnote to the war on Iraq, which was launched in the name of dismantling Saddam Hussein's secret arsenal of weapons of mass destruction. The harshness with which Vanunu was treated because of his revelations testifies to the truth of his accusations. This raises the question of whether Egypt can remain silent in the face of such glaring double standards, with Israel allowed to build a whole arsenal of WMDs with complete impunity and a full scale war launched against Iraq on the false premise that it had developed such weapons. This issue, which stands at the very heart of the Middle East crisis, is bound to acquire ever more critical proportions in the period to come.
