Relations between Cairo and Washington are as ambiguous as ever, writes Mustafa El-Feki* Many Arabs imagine that Egypt's relationship with the US is extremely close and that Washington regards Cairo as a strategic ally and not just a partner in the Middle Eastern regional order. Yet there is a great deal to suggest the opposite holds true: certainly, throughout the modern period, the nature of US- Egyptian relations has fluctuated widely. There is nothing immutable about the ties. Under the monarchy Egypt enjoyed relatively stable, albeit low key, relations with the US. By virtue of proximity and history, the Mohamed Ali dynasty was much closer to European ruling houses while the US, far across the Atlantic, had little to do with the Middle East, stuck as it was in the Monroe doctrine of isolationism. It was not until World War I that views in Washington began to change. We should also note in this context that neither King Fouad nor King Farouk were particularly keen on relations with Britain, or sympathetic to Anglo- Saxon culture in general. Farouk, in particular, may have been corrupt but he was deeply patriotic. He loathed the British and sympathised with their enemies. Under the late monarchy Egypt made little effort to strengthen or diversify its relations with the US even though the latter had established full diplomatic relations with Cairo following the nominal independence granted Egypt on 28 February 1922. The major shift in the tenor of US-Egyptian relations began with the revolution of July 1952. Henceforth there would be dramatic turns in the balance of interests between Egypt, a major Middle Eastern power, and the US, a superpower that had begun to extend its reach across the globe and steer it into the age of "Pax Americana". Documents show that on the eve of 23 July 1952 the Free Officers charged Wing Commander Ali Sabri with the task of contacting the American air force attaché in Cairo to seek American guarantees to protect the revolution and prevent British forces from advancing from the Suez Canal towards Cairo or Alexandria. In The Game of Nations, in which Miles Copeland assesses Washington's dealings with Egypt in the early phases of the revolution, he argues that America saw the political shift in the most populous Arab state as a harbinger of its inheritance of British and French influence in the Middle East. This attitude was later fleshed out in the theory of the "Middle Eastern power vacuum", the Eisenhower Doctrine and the various alliances Washington sought to forge in the region, most notably the Baghdad Pact. It was, perhaps, inevitable that sparks would fly between Washington and Cairo. There was an almost instinctive antipathy between Nasser and US Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, author of the policy of brinkmanship. Dulles could barely conceal his contempt for the Free Officers. He regarded them as too hot-headed to serve as American allies. The Arab nationalist agenda they espoused was, by definition, hostile to any foreign colonial presence in the region and, by extension, to America's bid to extend its sphere of influence. Tensions reached an unprecedented height in 1956 when the US instructed the World Bank to withdraw its offer to fund the construction of the High Dam. Nasser responded by nationalising the Suez Canal on 26 July of that year, triggering the tripartite invasion of Egypt by Britain, France and Israel. If Washington told the three to back off it was in part because it was miffed that it had not been let in on the conspiracy and, more substantively, because it had no intention of allowing Britain and France to reassert their influence in the region. Relations continued to deteriorate between the US and Egypt, sinking to a new low when Nasser turned to the Soviet Union. Israel also began to play an instrumental role in sewing acrimony between Washington and Cairo; indeed, it can be argued that Israel engineered the events that led to the flare-up of regional conflicts in the 1960s almost single-handedly. Following the death of Nasser in 1970 and the rise to power of Anwar El-Sadat, Egyptian foreign policy underwent a U-turn. "The US, alone, holds 99 per cent of the cards" for any solution to the Middle East conflict, Sadat famously said. He steered Egypt back towards a Western alignment. Approval of his application for fresh political credit, however, was dependent on instituting radical changes at home. He inaugurated the Open Door policy that set Egypt on the path of economic deregulation, production-oriented on the surface but consumer- oriented at heart. Then he instituted a policy of "political platforms" as a way to gradually coax the country from a single state party system towards political plurality. Sadat clearly succeeded in achieving one foreign policy objective. When he died four former US presidents took part in his funeral procession. While equilibrium had been restored to Egypt's relationship with Washington there were still ups and downs, fluctuations that have been contained within a framework of mutual understanding based on the acceptance of differences on some issues. Given such a formula it should come as no surprise that US-Egyptian relations under Hosni Mubarak have been characterised by considerable ambiguity. A few examples will illustrate: Washington's blind support for Israel and its knee-jerk readiness to justify Israeli crimes has long presented a major bone of contention between the US and the majority of Arab regimes, and is largely responsible for the declining popularity of the US among Arab publics. Nor is there any doubt that Israel acts in the way it does because of its confidence in absolute US support. When Mubarak, shortly after coming to power, asked Israel to implement its obligations under the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty signed on 26 March 1979, the US Secretary of State Alexander Haig asked for no more than a declaration of intent. This is only one of many instances of Washington's tendency to be more pro-Israeli than the Israelis themselves. In 1985, when a Palestinian resistance cell hijacked the Achille Laro and killed a 70-year-old, disabled American, Cairo became a party to the crisis because the ship had been anchored at an Egyptian port. After apprehending the hijackers, Egypt put them on a plane in order to hand them over to Palestinian authorities, then based in Tunis, for trial. Washington objected and intercepted the Egyptian aircraft over the Mediterranean and forced it to land at an Italian airport. It also emerged that Washington had mounted an extensive wiretap operation on Egyptian communications during the Achille Laro crisis, giving rise to a heated altercation between Reagan and Mubarak, in which the US president accused the Egyptian government of lying. After the incident Mubarak refused to visit the US for three years running. Indeed, Cairo has disagreed with the US on most major issues related to the Middle East. It refused whole hearted support for Washington's positions over Lockerbie, the invasion of Iraq and the drive against Iran. It has opposed repeated US attempts to isolate Syria regionally and internationally and expressed grave reservations over the handling of the Darfur crisis. Anyone who believes that the Egyptian-US relationship is founded upon an identical outlook and shared policies is detached from reality. The most that can be said is that Egypt prefers to play the role of partner rather than incurring American wrath and that within this context it strives for the greatest manoeuvrability possible. One of the most heated episodes in this relationship revolved around the political reform campaign Washington embarked on several years ago but subsequently called to a halt after discovering that free and unrigged elections in the Arab world would give rise to 21 governments vehemently opposed to America's policies and global aims. Still, the handling of such questions as human rights, religious minorities and civil liberties remains pending issues in the Egyptian-US relationship. Cases such as those of Saadeddin Ibrahim and Ayman Nour continue to surface and ruffle an otherwise relatively stable partnership. There are clear signs the US feels Egypt -- one of the largest recipients of US aid -- is not performing the role Washington expects it to play. Washington had hoped Cairo would be more supportive of the US on Iraq, Sudan, the Palestinian question and the Iranian nuclear issue. Cairo would not, or could not, oblige given the sensitivity of these issues and the way they might pan out domestically. * The writer is chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee at the People's Assembly.
