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Egypt and US: marriage of convenience

03/06/2009 By Moataz El Fegiery, Kristina Kausch

K.Desouki/AFP/Getty Images

On 4 June, US President Barack Obama delivered his long-announced address to the Arab and Muslim worlds, with which he hoped to lay the groundwork for healing the breach with the West. For such a historic milestone, many Arab democrats would have preferred a country that has taken significant steps towards democratic practices and could prove a positive example to others, such as Turkey or Indonesia. But the Western priority is not primarily a democratic, but a stable Middle East. For Mubarak, this is a diplomatic triumph. Obama’s address to the Muslim world from Egypt will give greater international political weight to the country's authoritarian regime.

Egyptian diplomacy interprets the choice as a re-warming of the relations after years of tension during the Bush administration. As both the US and Europe seek to review their policies in the region, such efforts are unlikely to bear fruit without Egypt. Obama's choice of Cairo is based on the mediating role the US expects from the Mubarak regime. Top priorities on the common agenda include an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement, facing the Iranian nuclear threat, neutralising Syria's role to prepare for its integration in the peace process with Israel, and ensuring Iraq's stability.

The security and stability the West is seeking so desperately, however, cannot be achieved by supporting authoritarian regimes, as these are not the bulwark against, but the primary cause for the rise in religious extremism and terrorism.

 

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Keywords

Civil society Democracy promotion Egypt Freedom of association Middle East and North Africa United States US

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Bio author: Moataz El Fegiery

Executive Director of the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies

Bio author: Kristina Kausch

Democracy promotion. Maghreb. Egypt. Morocco. Tunisia. Mediterranean. Political Islam.