Did Egypt's Position Change?
Wahid AbdulMajid Al-Hayat 2004/11/19
Perhaps the international conference on Iraq that will be held in Sharm El Sheikh on the 22nd and 23rd of November would be a turning point in the course of the Iraqi issue. If the conference succeeds in agreeing on supporting the efforts to hold elections before next January, then the likelihood of these elections to take place will increase. If this happens, it is also likely that the year 2005 will be the year of Iraqi recovery and rehabilitation on the local and regional level. It is a path not just leading to stability and the rebuilding of the economy but also for the withdrawal of all foreign troops.
For this reason, Egypt's hosting of the conference would be a turning point in its position in the strategic and not tactical sense, for it has adopted a cautious position since it rejected the war on Iraq. It did not offer Washington any assistance in Iraq, although it also did not cause any further problems. It looked on the failure of the American project in Iraq and betted on it, even though it hoped that the failure will not be a victory for the terrorists.
The hosting of this international conference in collaboration with the American administration and the Iraqi government poses a big question whether this position represents a tactical change linked to the complex relation with Washington or is a step towards a strategic turn to play a major role in supporting the efforts to rebuild Iraq. The current situation does not indicate that a strategic turn in Egyptian policy is underway. The current official media rhetoric still talks about Iraq in the terms of occupation and resistance.
Despite this, there are some indications that there is a new direction that has not crystallized yet. Nonetheless, there is certain awareness that the rehabilitation of Iraq will not reflect a success of the American project to change the region. Didn't Washington fail in rebuilding the Iraq that it wanted to be a model for the region? Didn't it acknowledge its helplessness in rescuing that country single-handedly? And didn't it ask for help and is now knocking on the doors of Egypt and other Arab countries for this purpose?
Dr. Osama El Baz, the political advisor to President Husni Mubarak, frankly said that the United States will not venture anymore into other wars similar to those of Iraq and Afghanistan, for what happened in Iraq makes it think a thousand times before repeating it. There is no longer a reason to sacrifice Iraq and lose it in order to confront the American project which anyway did not prevail because its perpetrators, the neo-conservatives, thought they could do anything without any preparation or study and so they committed mistakes that foiled the project as well as destruct Iraq.
Nevertheless, the extent that the shift in Egypt's position and role depends on its realization of the difference between the project of the Iraqi Prime Minister, Iyad Allawi, and the American project in addition to Egypt's liberation from the simplistic prevailing theory in the Arab world which considers Allawi a mere American tool. Allawi was from the very start against the dismantlement of the army and the security forces and the official institutions. Allawi was and still is a believer in Lenin's saying when he sought the help of the Tsar's guards: "we build the new system with the stone blocks of the old one".
This is what Egypt and the Arabs should have realized months ago. Allawi only came to power after the American project has already destroyed Iraq and he carried with him his own project but during a very difficult situation. He worked to involve the army's generals and the intelligence staff that did not commit any crimes and he even sought to cooperate with former Baathists, not involved in Saddam's massacres. Furthermore, he rose over his narrow sectarian Shiite identity to build an Iraqi national system. For all these reasons, he has been attacked not just by the resistance but also by his partners in the government who were his allies in the opposition. Allawi tried and still is to reconnect what has been dismantled by the American project; that is why Egypt's and the Arabs' support to his government represents an asset to a project that contradicts the American one. This latter proved that it could dismantle a country but cannot rebuild it.
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