Duke
01-30-2011, 09:19 PM
Egyptian disappointment with U.S. likely to increase
By Tim Lister, CNN
January 30, 2011 9:52 p.m. EST
On June 4, 2009, U.S. President Barack Obama delivered a speech in Cairo on mending U.S. relations with the Muslim world.
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
Demonstrators want U.S. to oppose Mubarak
Clinton, others say White House can't abandon key ally
U.S. is aware of political risks
(CNN) -- On June 4, 2009, President Barack Obama stood before a large and enthusiastic audience at Cairo University to deliver a much-anticipated speech on mending U.S. relations with the Muslim world.
He was quick to acknowledge "great tension" in that relationship: "I've come here to Cairo to seek a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world, one based on mutual interest and mutual respect."
The president went on to pledge that the detention center at Guantanamo Bay would be closed in 2010, and that the U.S. would oppose further building of settlements by Israel in occupied territories.
Then Obama spoke about democracy. Even mention of the word drew applause. He laid down these principles for those who ruled or aspired to: "You must maintain your power through consent, not coercion; you must respect the rights of minorities, and participate with a spirit of tolerance and compromise; you must place the interests of your people and the legitimate workings of the political process above your party."
More applause -- and then someone in the audience rose and shouted, "Barack Obama, we love you!"
It was perhaps the high-water mark of the rapprochement between Arab -- and especially Egyptian -- opinion and U.S. policy in the Middle East. That much is suggested by the annual Pew Global Attitudes Project, which has surveyed more than 240,000 people in 57 countries since its inception in 2002.
In 2009, after Obama's speech, 27% of the Egyptians polled in the Pew survey had a "favorable view" of the U.S. Not a glowing endorsement, but substantially better than the 21% and 22% measured in 2007 and 2008 respectively.
Which side in Egypt does U.S. support? Egypt unrest and the path forward Egyptians in U.S. join protests Sen. McCain on Egypt unrest and future
A remarkable 42% of Egyptians said they had confidence in Obama; compared to just 11% for President George W. Bush in 2008.
But in 2010, the numbers were less positive. Pew interviewed 1,000 Egyptians and found that confidence in Obama had fallen to 33%; and just 17% had a favorable view of the U.S.
That sentiment now appears among the protesters on Egyptian streets, even if it is in a minor key compared to the hostility toward President Hosni Mubarak. CNN spoke to one businessman, Walid Mohamed, who had joined the protests in Tahrir Square Sunday.
"We are wishing Obama would have said something more than the U.S. wants reform," Mohamed said. "I would hope they would say they are listening to demands of the Egyptian people and say that Mubarak should address their demands."
Others carried placards denouncing U.S. "hypocrisy." CNN's Nic Robertson reported from Alexandria that demonstrators there wanted the U.S. administration to be much firmer toward Mubarak. "They want the U.S. to side with the people who are demonstrating on the streets ... this is a very strong message we've seen today," he reported. Protesters also claimed that Mubarak had sold out the Palestinians because of Washington's influence.
Fareed Zakaria's take on Egypt
RELATED TOPICS
Diplomacy
Egypt
Barack Obama
Hosni Mubarak
U.S. diplomatic cables from the last two years -- recently published by WikiLeaks -- may have added to that sense of disillusionment. While they show the U.S. administration has raised human rights issues in private, including torture of prisoners and the detention of bloggers, they also show a wariness about antagonizing Mubarak by airing the issue in public.
One cable ahead of a visit to Egypt by General David Petraeus in 2009 said the United States now avoided "the public confrontations that had become routine over the past several years." Another, from U.S. Ambassador Margaret Scobey in 2009 also touched on pressure to improve human rights, saying: "Mubarak takes this issue personally, and it makes him seethe when we raise it, particularly in public."
One Egyptian news editor said that in a society where information was hard to come by, the leaked cables were illuminating; last week some of the newest cables to be released were reportedly being faxed to opposition activists in Cairo.
A year after Obama's speech in Cairo, Mubarak renewed Egypt's emergency laws for a further two years, despite earlier assurances it would be ended. Police have used the laws to jail bloggers, newspaper editors and political opponents. Mohammed ElBaradei, now one of the opposition figures in Egypt, said renewal of the laws would make it impossible for him to stand in the scheduled 2011 presidential election.
The U.S. State Department described the renewal of the state of emergency as "regrettable." It urged the Mubarak government to rescind the laws within months and replace them with specific anti-terrorism legislation. But they remained on the books.
In June 2010 Michele Dunne -- a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for Peace -- wrote in the Washington Post that the speech "had the admirable goal of improving relations with the Muslim world, but the manner in which the administration has pursued this goal has been flawed from the beginning. It has focused almost exclusively on building bridges with leaders and governments." And she warned that Egyptians might turn against the United States without a bolder engagement of pro-democracy groups and a tougher line against the Mubarak government.
She is not surprised to see a tinge of anti-Americanism in the current protests, saying that statements from the administration have been "ambivalent" and that talking about reform in Egypt is now "far behind the curve of events."
On Saturday, Dunne and others in the Working Group on Egypt, which brings together various U.S. think tanks and human rights groups, urged the Obama administration to press the Egyptian government to allow free and fair elections, monitored by domestic and international observers, as well as lift the emergency laws. It also called on Mubarak to announce that he would not seek re-election.
In interviews Sunday, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton defended Washington's approach: "There has been for 30 years a both public and private dialogue with the Egyptian government, sometimes more public, sometimes more private, but all with the same message, from Republican and Democratic administrations, that there needs to be reform."
Others have defended the Obama administration's approach, saying that to abandon a key ally at a time of crisis would damage the United States' strategic interests in a region where reliable friends are hard to come by. The United States regards the Mubarak government as a moderate bulwark in the face of Islamic extremism and the spread of Iran's influence across the region, as well as an interlocutor between the Palestinians and Israel and a mediator between rival Palestinian factions.
Clinton alluded to that Sunday, when she said: "Egypt has been our partner. They've been our partner in a peace process that has kept the region from war for over 30 years, which has saved a lot of lives, Egyptian lives, Israeli lives, other lives."
Michele Dunne acknowledges that "the U.S. can't be seen to be pushing Mubarak off a cliff." She believes the Bush administration's "freedom agenda" for the Middle East was stunned by the victory of Hamas in Gaza in the 2006 Palestinian elections. That tempered U.S. enthusiasm for democracy in the Arab world (and coincided with political chaos in Iraq) -- but no clear alternative policy emerged.
While now calling urgently and openly for political reform, a national dialogue and an orderly transition to democratic government, the Obama administration has also made it clear that it's not in the business of encouraging "regime change" -- and that it's for the Egyptian people to decide what comes next.
But the United States is also clearly aware of the risk that a political void in Egypt might be filled by what it would regard as anti-democratic forces. Clinton said Sunday the United States wanted real democracy in Egypt, "not a democracy for six months or a year and then evolving into essentially a military dictatorship or a so-called democracy that then leads to what we saw in Iran."
Most commentators discount the likelihood of an Islamist takeover in Egypt. But independent candidates supporting the Muslim Brotherhood won 20% of seats in the 2005 parliamentary elections despite what domestic human rights groups saw as harassment and widespread fraud. It was a performance that alarmed the Mubarak government. In the most recent elections, the Muslim Brotherhood's candidates abandoned the contest after one round -- alleging widespread rigging by the government.
Former Israeli ambassador to Egypt Eli Shaked warned Sunday in the newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth about the next election, whenever it comes: "If those elections are held in a way that the Americans want, the most likely result will be that the Muslim Brotherhood will win a majority and will be the dominant force in the next government."
Others believe the Muslim Brotherhood, as the best-organized opposition group in Egypt, can only benefit from free and fair elections. One former U.S. defense official who knows several of Mubarak's confidantes well (but declined to be identified because of continuing connections with Egypt) says that beyond the Brotherhood, there is a deeply religious and conservative sentiment among the lower-middle classes beyond Cairo.
Whatever emerges, he says, "it is inevitable that it will be less sympathetic to the United States" than the Mubarak government. The alternative, says Michele Dunne of the Carnegie Endowment, is worse. "The U.S. can't be on both sides of this."
http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/africa/01/30/egypt.us/index.html?eref=rss_topstories&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+rss/cnn_topstories+(RSS:+Top+Stories)
By Tim Lister, CNN
January 30, 2011 9:52 p.m. EST
On June 4, 2009, U.S. President Barack Obama delivered a speech in Cairo on mending U.S. relations with the Muslim world.
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
Demonstrators want U.S. to oppose Mubarak
Clinton, others say White House can't abandon key ally
U.S. is aware of political risks
(CNN) -- On June 4, 2009, President Barack Obama stood before a large and enthusiastic audience at Cairo University to deliver a much-anticipated speech on mending U.S. relations with the Muslim world.
He was quick to acknowledge "great tension" in that relationship: "I've come here to Cairo to seek a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world, one based on mutual interest and mutual respect."
The president went on to pledge that the detention center at Guantanamo Bay would be closed in 2010, and that the U.S. would oppose further building of settlements by Israel in occupied territories.
Then Obama spoke about democracy. Even mention of the word drew applause. He laid down these principles for those who ruled or aspired to: "You must maintain your power through consent, not coercion; you must respect the rights of minorities, and participate with a spirit of tolerance and compromise; you must place the interests of your people and the legitimate workings of the political process above your party."
More applause -- and then someone in the audience rose and shouted, "Barack Obama, we love you!"
It was perhaps the high-water mark of the rapprochement between Arab -- and especially Egyptian -- opinion and U.S. policy in the Middle East. That much is suggested by the annual Pew Global Attitudes Project, which has surveyed more than 240,000 people in 57 countries since its inception in 2002.
In 2009, after Obama's speech, 27% of the Egyptians polled in the Pew survey had a "favorable view" of the U.S. Not a glowing endorsement, but substantially better than the 21% and 22% measured in 2007 and 2008 respectively.
Which side in Egypt does U.S. support? Egypt unrest and the path forward Egyptians in U.S. join protests Sen. McCain on Egypt unrest and future
A remarkable 42% of Egyptians said they had confidence in Obama; compared to just 11% for President George W. Bush in 2008.
But in 2010, the numbers were less positive. Pew interviewed 1,000 Egyptians and found that confidence in Obama had fallen to 33%; and just 17% had a favorable view of the U.S.
That sentiment now appears among the protesters on Egyptian streets, even if it is in a minor key compared to the hostility toward President Hosni Mubarak. CNN spoke to one businessman, Walid Mohamed, who had joined the protests in Tahrir Square Sunday.
"We are wishing Obama would have said something more than the U.S. wants reform," Mohamed said. "I would hope they would say they are listening to demands of the Egyptian people and say that Mubarak should address their demands."
Others carried placards denouncing U.S. "hypocrisy." CNN's Nic Robertson reported from Alexandria that demonstrators there wanted the U.S. administration to be much firmer toward Mubarak. "They want the U.S. to side with the people who are demonstrating on the streets ... this is a very strong message we've seen today," he reported. Protesters also claimed that Mubarak had sold out the Palestinians because of Washington's influence.
Fareed Zakaria's take on Egypt
RELATED TOPICS
Diplomacy
Egypt
Barack Obama
Hosni Mubarak
U.S. diplomatic cables from the last two years -- recently published by WikiLeaks -- may have added to that sense of disillusionment. While they show the U.S. administration has raised human rights issues in private, including torture of prisoners and the detention of bloggers, they also show a wariness about antagonizing Mubarak by airing the issue in public.
One cable ahead of a visit to Egypt by General David Petraeus in 2009 said the United States now avoided "the public confrontations that had become routine over the past several years." Another, from U.S. Ambassador Margaret Scobey in 2009 also touched on pressure to improve human rights, saying: "Mubarak takes this issue personally, and it makes him seethe when we raise it, particularly in public."
One Egyptian news editor said that in a society where information was hard to come by, the leaked cables were illuminating; last week some of the newest cables to be released were reportedly being faxed to opposition activists in Cairo.
A year after Obama's speech in Cairo, Mubarak renewed Egypt's emergency laws for a further two years, despite earlier assurances it would be ended. Police have used the laws to jail bloggers, newspaper editors and political opponents. Mohammed ElBaradei, now one of the opposition figures in Egypt, said renewal of the laws would make it impossible for him to stand in the scheduled 2011 presidential election.
The U.S. State Department described the renewal of the state of emergency as "regrettable." It urged the Mubarak government to rescind the laws within months and replace them with specific anti-terrorism legislation. But they remained on the books.
In June 2010 Michele Dunne -- a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for Peace -- wrote in the Washington Post that the speech "had the admirable goal of improving relations with the Muslim world, but the manner in which the administration has pursued this goal has been flawed from the beginning. It has focused almost exclusively on building bridges with leaders and governments." And she warned that Egyptians might turn against the United States without a bolder engagement of pro-democracy groups and a tougher line against the Mubarak government.
She is not surprised to see a tinge of anti-Americanism in the current protests, saying that statements from the administration have been "ambivalent" and that talking about reform in Egypt is now "far behind the curve of events."
On Saturday, Dunne and others in the Working Group on Egypt, which brings together various U.S. think tanks and human rights groups, urged the Obama administration to press the Egyptian government to allow free and fair elections, monitored by domestic and international observers, as well as lift the emergency laws. It also called on Mubarak to announce that he would not seek re-election.
In interviews Sunday, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton defended Washington's approach: "There has been for 30 years a both public and private dialogue with the Egyptian government, sometimes more public, sometimes more private, but all with the same message, from Republican and Democratic administrations, that there needs to be reform."
Others have defended the Obama administration's approach, saying that to abandon a key ally at a time of crisis would damage the United States' strategic interests in a region where reliable friends are hard to come by. The United States regards the Mubarak government as a moderate bulwark in the face of Islamic extremism and the spread of Iran's influence across the region, as well as an interlocutor between the Palestinians and Israel and a mediator between rival Palestinian factions.
Clinton alluded to that Sunday, when she said: "Egypt has been our partner. They've been our partner in a peace process that has kept the region from war for over 30 years, which has saved a lot of lives, Egyptian lives, Israeli lives, other lives."
Michele Dunne acknowledges that "the U.S. can't be seen to be pushing Mubarak off a cliff." She believes the Bush administration's "freedom agenda" for the Middle East was stunned by the victory of Hamas in Gaza in the 2006 Palestinian elections. That tempered U.S. enthusiasm for democracy in the Arab world (and coincided with political chaos in Iraq) -- but no clear alternative policy emerged.
While now calling urgently and openly for political reform, a national dialogue and an orderly transition to democratic government, the Obama administration has also made it clear that it's not in the business of encouraging "regime change" -- and that it's for the Egyptian people to decide what comes next.
But the United States is also clearly aware of the risk that a political void in Egypt might be filled by what it would regard as anti-democratic forces. Clinton said Sunday the United States wanted real democracy in Egypt, "not a democracy for six months or a year and then evolving into essentially a military dictatorship or a so-called democracy that then leads to what we saw in Iran."
Most commentators discount the likelihood of an Islamist takeover in Egypt. But independent candidates supporting the Muslim Brotherhood won 20% of seats in the 2005 parliamentary elections despite what domestic human rights groups saw as harassment and widespread fraud. It was a performance that alarmed the Mubarak government. In the most recent elections, the Muslim Brotherhood's candidates abandoned the contest after one round -- alleging widespread rigging by the government.
Former Israeli ambassador to Egypt Eli Shaked warned Sunday in the newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth about the next election, whenever it comes: "If those elections are held in a way that the Americans want, the most likely result will be that the Muslim Brotherhood will win a majority and will be the dominant force in the next government."
Others believe the Muslim Brotherhood, as the best-organized opposition group in Egypt, can only benefit from free and fair elections. One former U.S. defense official who knows several of Mubarak's confidantes well (but declined to be identified because of continuing connections with Egypt) says that beyond the Brotherhood, there is a deeply religious and conservative sentiment among the lower-middle classes beyond Cairo.
Whatever emerges, he says, "it is inevitable that it will be less sympathetic to the United States" than the Mubarak government. The alternative, says Michele Dunne of the Carnegie Endowment, is worse. "The U.S. can't be on both sides of this."
http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/africa/01/30/egypt.us/index.html?eref=rss_topstories&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+rss/cnn_topstories+(RSS:+Top+Stories)