A state of flux

Aziza Sami examines items likely to top the agenda during President Mubarak's visit to Washington
As it reassesses its priorities, both domestically and internationally, the US administration appears keen to distance itself from its predecessor's policies. And in this regard the Middle East is no exception.
Confronting the Iraqi regime has become a top priority, while at the same time, according to US Secretary of State Colin Powell, Washington does not wish to be involved as a third party in any negotiations that might be held between the Palestinians and Israelis. Which effectively pulls the carpet from beneath the Taba accords, and puts the whole peace process back to square one.
A new and comprehensive trade strategy is also being worked out by the US government, with President George W. Bush particularly interested in promoting NAFTA, and concluding free trade agreements with several Latin American countries.
It is against this backdrop that President Hosni Mubarak, the first Arab leader to visit the US since the elections, will arrive in Washington on 2 April, hot on the heels of Israel's prime minister Ariel Sharon.
Reports that during his visit Sharon had lobbied for the ending of US military aid to Egypt triggered a strongly worded reaction from Mubarak and were subsequently denied by US officials.
"The Middle East is going through a very volatile period," said Egyptian ambassador to Washington Nabil Fahmy, "and it is important to exchange views -- especially since this will be the first time the two presidents sit down together and have a long discussion about policy issues."
Securing some commitment from the Americans to help defuse the explosive situation in the occupied territories is likely to top the Egyptian agenda in Washington during the meeting between the two presidents on 2 April.
Secretary of Commerce Donald Evans and the US Trade Representative Robert Zoelick, are also scheduled to meet with President Mubarak and members of the cabinet's economic group. The American Chamber of Commerce in Egypt, which is on its 18th "doorknock mission" to the US, has also arranged for a meeting between the president and CEOs of 300 American companies.
Over the last two and a half decades economic ties between the two countries, including $24 billion extended through USAID to Egypt -- can hardly be described as dynamic. Last year US foreign direct investments in Egypt remained stagnant at $2.5 billion, half of which, as usual, was accounted for by petroleum investments. And while promoting a free trade agreement remains a priority for Egypt, President Bush's concentration on securing a fast track approval from Congress giving his administration carte blanche in negotiating FTAs is likely to detract from the possibility of the US embarking on such negotiations with Egypt in the immediate future.
Other casualties of the re-shuffle undertaken by the Bush administration, as US officials have been quick to point out, include the Gore-Mubarak Partnership and the US-Egypt Presidents' Council, both established during Clinton's tenure in the White House and intended to promote trade. Which leaves trade at the mercy of the ineffectual Trade and Investment Framework Agreement (TIFA), signed in 1999 to provide a legal framework for trade negotiations but which was effectively born dead on its feet.
Before leaving Cairo for Washington, US ambassador Daniel Kurtzer admitted differences between the Egyptian and American sides on the importance of TIFA. "The argument against TIFA [by the Egyptians] is that it will be seen as a substitute for an FTA. The argument for, is that we have used it as a stepping stone to an FTA in the case of Morocco, and of Jordan".
Mubarak's visit also follows the furore triggered inside Egypt by the 20 March visit to Cairo of the US Commission on International Religious Freedom, an independent body that acts in an advisory capacity to the US government. In Egypt "to consult with government and religious officials on issues of religious freedom," the Commission was widely seen as meddling in Egypt's internal affairs. And on Tuesday the Coptic patriarch, Pope Shenouda, published an open letter asking Coptic expatriates in the US to refrain from "ill-advised actions" that might compromise the president's visit. The Kosheh verdicts, said Shenouda, are a judicial, not an executive issue, and do not involve the president.
"Nothing confrontational, nothing controversial" will be allowed to mar the meeting between the Egyptian and US presidents is how one observer sums up the mood in Washington.
"We will give them a comprehensive perspective on the situation in the region," Mubarak told the Middle East News Agency (MENA) "We live in the Middle East and have a better knowledge of it than anyone else."
Additional reporting: Nevine Khalil in Cairo Thomas Gorguissian in Washington
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