The past 15 years have seen fruitful and beneficial cooperation between the United States and Egypt. It was President Anwar Sadat who expelled the Soviets; made war against Israel in 1973, primarily to achieve negotiations from a position of relative strength; and steered Egypt toward the United States, in the belief that the route to peace in the Middle East was via Washington.
The results in the Sadat era were striking. Two disengagement agreements between Egypt and Israel in 1974 and 1975 were largely a result of the indispensable third-party role of the United States. These were followed by the Egyptian-Israeli treaty in 1977, brokered by President Jimmy Carter at Camp David. The treaty fundamentally altered the strategic balance in the area, reduced the chances of war, and eliminated as a practical matter the potential exercise of a military option against Israel by Syria alone.
In the ensuing decade, a host of diplomatic, economic, and military cooperative undertakings developed between the United States and Egypt. Next to Israel, Egypt became the no. 1 recipient of U.S. economic and military assistance - in rough terms exceeding $2 billion annually, much of it in grants. The Egyptian-Israeli treaty meant for Israel the elimination of a threat in the Sinai; for Egypt, an opportunity to focus on its own development; and for the United States, enhanced prestige as a major power capable of producing impressive political results if it engaged itself at the highest levels.
This is the high side. But there have also been difficulties.
The Egyptian-Israeli treaty has been maintained relatively unscarred because peace is in the mutual interest of both sides. Normalization remains elusive, however, as long as no comprehensive settlement is achieved.
The peace dividend that so many Egyptians hoped for has fallen short of overly optimistic expectations. While Egypt is holding its own, the population explosion and the numbers of those living on the margin require huge subsidies in order to avoid potentially dangerous political, economic, and social unrest. A swollen, underemployed bureaucracy adds economic burdens. Huge amount of outside assistance are essential, therefore, in an environment of uncertain revenues form oil, tourism, and worker remittances from abroad.
And the momentum toward the comprehensive settlement that Sadat expected from the peace treaty has resulted instead in a prolonged stalemate.
For the most part, President Hosni Mubarak has continued Sadat's policy, but with a difference both in style and substance. He is a quiet man, without the flair of Sadat. I can recall throughout the shuttle diplomacy of the 1970s that Mubarak, as Sadat's protégé and chosen successor, was a silent participant at the long and seemingly interminable negotiating sessions. But during the informal sessions and chats with American negotiators, he expressed himself straightforwardly, sensibly, and with eminent good common sense. This is the kind of steady, low-key, commonsense leadership he as been giving Egypt. He is as comfortable with using the words prudence and caution as is President Bush. Some want more dynamism, yet he has carefully allowed more freedom to his people and some limited political participation
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