Clinton in Cairo

What’s the U.S. Up to in Egypt?

AN EXCELLENT PIECE AND RECOMMENDED READING

by ESAM AL-AMIN
CounterPunch

"....So what is one to make of the American policy in Egypt and the broader Middle East, especially after the Arab Spring?....

As the Arab Spring was increasingly taking hold across the region since early 2011, the American administration slowly adopted a policy of selectively abandoning its long-term dictator allies in favor of a new realignment in the region. Such managed transition, it is thought by American strategists, would not only preserve America’s long term interests, but would also consolidate its capacity to face the new challenges as enunciated in the U.S. strategic vision of the new global threats.....

Earlier this year, Burns sat with Al-Shater in Cairo where the meeting focused on the group’s position towards the peace treaty with Israel. During the encounter Burns promised the MB leader that the U.S. could help secure from the IMF and the Arab Gulf countries as much as $20 billion if the treaty is honored. Within weeks the MB sent delegations and messages to the U.S. promising the preservation of the status quo.....

Moreover, throughout the dialogue with the MB the U.S. discovered the group to be pragmatic, willing to do business with the West, play by the Western set of rules, adopt a Western style capitalist economic model albeit with some social safety nets, as well as being sensitive to many of the U.S. strategic concerns, especially with regard to the American economic and security needs......

In June, President Obama met with a large group of major American Jewish leaders in the White House. According to DEBKA, an Israeli website close to Israeli intelligence agencies, the president assured the group that “President Morsi would be required to devote a section of his earliest speech on foreign affairs to the specific affirmation of his profound commitment to the peace pact with Israel.” Within hours of being declared president, Morsi gave his assurance that Egypt would honor all its international treaty obligations in a not-so-disguised reference to its treaty with Israel.....

A few days before Clinton was to arrive in Cairo, Morsi visited Saudi Arabia on July 11 in his first foreign trip after becoming president. A week earlier a Saudi academic close to the monarchy wrote an article in the London-based Al-Hayat newspaper titled “What the Gulfies want from Brotherhood’s Morsi?” He asked the Egyptian president to provide public assurances on four major concerns to the Arab Gulf monarchies. They were namely, not to interfere in their internal affairs through the elaborate MB structures in their countries, to side with them against Iran, to favor the relationship with Saudi Arabia and its neighbors over a potential close relationship with Turkey, and most interestingly for Egypt to keep the same distance with regard to the Palestinian factions despite the fact that the Mubarak regime favored Fatah and kept the political and economic pressures on Hamas for years, the same group that shared its Islamic background with the Egyptian president.

Remarkably, within a week Morsi complied with all the Saudi demands and gave several statements addressing their concerns.....

.....In essence, he promised the Saudis that Egypt would give the same consideration to those who cooperate with Israeli intelligence and security apparatuses against the Palestinian resistance and those who are its main targets and victims.....

Danny Ayalon, the Israeli deputy foreign minister, told Israel Radio, “She is bringing a very calming message. By their (the U.S.) reckoning as well, Egypt’s agenda, and certainly President Morsi’s agenda, will be a domestic agenda.” He continued, “There is no change (on Egypt’s commitment to the peace treaty) and I surmise there will not be in the foreseeable future.”

But the real test of Morsi’s policy with regard to American and Israeli dictates might be in fulfilling his campaign promise to lift the siege on Gaza. According to Israeli sources Clinton extracted a promise from him during her recent visit to maintain the blockade......

In short, the strategy is to give the Islamic rising powers a chance to govern as long as they agree to: keep the Americans in, the Chinese and Russians out, the Iranians down, and the Israelis safe....."