The US Foreign Policy paper said Egypt's opposition and the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) share a deep antipathy to the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) Group. An Egyptian delegation making the rounds of DC stopped by the Elliott School this morning to talk about the Cairo political scene and their hopes to improve American-Egyptian relations after what they described as a few turbulent years. While some of their other meetings are likely off-the-record, their gracious agreement to appear in a university setting open to the public allowed students, faculty and members of the public (including a number of Egyptian-Americans) the chance to ask questions and state their cases. The panel's avowed mission was to present a more optimistic picture of Egyptian politics than the one commonly in circulation in Washington. Judging by the questions, they face an uphill climb. The delegation included Hossam Badrawi (a leading member of the ruling National Democratic Party), Mounir Abd al-Nour (Secretary-General of the opposition's Wafd Party), and my old friend/sparring partner Abd al-Monem Said Aly (director of the al-Ahram Center for Strategic Studies and member of NDP's political committee). While Abd al-Nour comes from an opposition party and the other two from the ruling NDP, there wasn't that much daylight between them. All have reformist credentials by official Egyptian standards, and all share a deep antipathy to MB. The delegation said MB lost the balance they got after supporting the Palestinians during the Israeli aggression on Gaza. MB had been hurt because it had aligned itself with Hezbollah against the Egyptian state, which put them against the mainstream patriotic Egyptian feeling. But this may have been projection or wishful thinking on their part, since two came from the ruling NDP and Mounir repeatedly voiced rather extreme anti-Brotherhood views. The panelists basically argued that there is far more positive momentum in Egyptian politics than outside observers usually report. They collectively put forward a portrait of an Egypt with a dynamic lawmaking process, a free and contentious media, a growing private sector, a growing civil society playing an active role in the political scene, and dynamic change within the major political parties (including both NDP and the Muslim Brotherhood). They praised a new dynamism in Egyptian society, parties, and the political scene. All of this was too much for one Egyptian-American who had just returned from a month in Cairo, who asked wearily whether he had somehow managed to visit the wrong country, since he did not remember being in the one described by the panel.
