Breaking the US-Egypt-Israel triangle
Issandr El AmraniIt may be time to reflect a little on US Middle East policy post-Arab Spring, and towards Egypt in particular. I've just taken part in a seminar where I presented a paper on the issue, and I'll be expanding some of my main points in the next few weeks here. The main gist of it, however, is that US policy in the region has not been a great success for the last 20 years of American hegemony, is seen as tremendously destructive by local populations, and that the US should refrain from trying to shape the outcome of the ongoing transformations the region is experiencing. It should first re-assess what its priorities are and take stocks of its limitations, particularly considering the current imperial overstretch and budgetary tightening.
Nor do I think Washington needs to interfere in the internal developments of individual countries, but rather reassess its strategic posture region-wide and try to create the multilateral mechanism to handle the crises that will no doubt come up as the transformations continue. For me, this means something modelled on the Concert of Europe, which would rely on regional powers to offer solutions and mediation. I'll say more on that later.
One of the major issues the US will have to contemplate is Egyptian-Israeli relations, and the ongoing collapse of the Camp David framework that created a trilateral relationship between Egypt, Israel, and the US. Washington should not resist this: it will only make situation more brittle, and instead show the flexibility to reimagine its role in a post-Camp David Middle East.
One aspect of this is that aid and other aspects of relations between each country should be handled bilaterally. The aim should be to salvage peace between the two countries, but without the appendages and pressure on Egypt to support Israeli aims we saw in the last decade, when the Bush administration used the Mubarak regime's internal weakness (due to the succession struggle, in part). This might mean, for instance, giving the Egyptians room to remove or alter these aspects of the relationship:
- The sale of oil and gas to Israel, now universally seen by Egyptians as a symbol of high-level corruption;
- The level of diplomatic relations between the two countries;
- Economic agreements such as QIZs that artificially induce Israeli-Egyptian economic cooperation;
- Limits on Egyptian sovereignty in eastern Sinai, notably the ability to deploy troops and certain equipment there.
There is a real risk to the US' focus on the Israeli angle in its approach to Egypt: that it will repeat the same mistakes as before and contribute to the return of autocratic governement for the sake of Israel. We have already seen a US administration that has been silent about most of the post-Mubarak human rights abuse (12,000 cases to military tribunals, etc.) and the shoddy transition process put in place by SCAF, whereas it is willing to make statements on the Israeli embassy raid.
What I fear most is that concern over Camp David will lead Washington straight back to the relationship it had with Egypt under Mubarak. That relationship allowed both Egypt and Israel to escape the consequences of their actions, to the detriment of stated US policy goals in the region, while dragging the US further and further into complicity in the occupation of the Palestine (notably the joint US-Egyptian training program for US security forces, which effectively made Washington a partner in the policing of the West Bank.) It also created considerable resentment of the US for backing Mubarak, and made incoherent policies of democracy promotion. It is better to have an anti-Israel democratic Egypt than a pro-Israel autocratic one, particularly as in any case Egypt cannot afford, and does not want, conflict with Israel. What it does need is the ability to play the regional role it aspires to, and that might mean withdrawing an ambassador when something the like of the Gaza or Lebanon wars take place.
Indeed, there is an opportunity in an Egypt that is more assertive over Israel: since the US has proven, for political reasons, to be incapable of being assertive over Israel itself, it could lead to a less unhinged foreign policy from Tel Aviv. It could make policies that the US nominally supports, such as the Arab Peace Initiative, finally worth considering by Israeli politicians. The lesson here for all actors the US interacts with is that actions have consequences: for Israel, this means the occupation and its doctrines of collective punishment; for Egypt this should mean that a military caste cannot continue to effectively blackmail Washington over its attitude to Israel.
The same line of thinking should extend to US military aid and other measures: no disbursement of funds while the transition is as shoddy as it is now. Washington should show it has learned something from the Arab uprisings, and aid conditionality should become a standard. True, Congress will continue to be used by the Israeli lobby to either punish or reward Egypt's government. That is unavoidable. But an administration otherwise hampered by domestic politics in its ability to deal with Israel in a rational fashion can take the lead and do its best to disentangle its relationship with Egypt from its relationship with Israel.
Naturally, the Israel lobby in America is concerned about these developments. Robert Satloff of WINEP, the influential pro-Israel think tank, has penned a piece urging Barack Obama to take stock of the situation in Egypt and take a lead in sending a clear message to Egyptian political forces and the SCAF. Here's the core of what he's worried about:
No matter which path the Egyptian revolution takes, Egypt-Israel peace, in any tangible sense of the term, is almost surely a victim. While the Egyptian authorities recognize that a formal break with Israel runs against their interests, peace has already been denuded of virtually all its content. Even before Mubarak fell, peace had only four real elements left: the gas pipeline to Israel, the operation of several qualifying industrial zones, severely limited diplomatic relations, and well-defined counterterrorism and intelligence cooperation vis-a-vis Islamist extremists. And, already, much of that is gone or transformed beyond recognition. Al-Ahram reported yesterday, for example, that prior to the attack on the Israeli embassy, Egypt asked Israel to keep its ambassador to Cairo on an extended holiday in Tel Aviv, fearful that his presence would be a lightning rod for protests. (The Israelis sent him back to Cairo nonetheless.) On the current glidepath, Egypt-Israel relations are headed toward a situation of "no war, no peace." Some Egyptians may believe this is politically optimal, but in practice it is a high-wire act almost impossible to sustain.
And here is what he suggests:
- That the US should offer a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) to Egypt as a token of the long-term commitment to bilateral relations;
- That Barack Obama should visit Cairo to deliver a message to Egypt's interim leaders and its political forces, along the following lines:
As Egypt's elections approach, the likely results range between bad and worse. Liberal, reformist forces will not have a majority; the question is how large a plurality will be achieved by illiberal Islamist groups. In this environment, the administration has little to lose (and perhaps much to gain) from engaging Egyptians in a respectful but clear discussion about the consequences -- in terms of their relationship with the United States, Western nations, and international financial institutions — should they opt for leaders whose raison d'etre is fundamentally anti-U.S. and anti-West.
The irony in Satloff's first proposal — which I have no problem with except that it will be very difficult to get it past Congress (never mind the nitty-gritty of negotiations, notably over intellectual property rights, pharmaceuticals and textiles) — is that it would end the need for the QIZ agreement whereby Egypt exports goods with Israeli content to the US. I really don't see why US-Egypt trade should be tied to Israel, so I'm all for it, although as a matter of principle I would prefer it (as a US citizen) if Washington entered into FTAs for economic rather than political reasons.
As for the second proposal, I'm not sure that the same Barack Obama who honored Hosni Mubarak by visiting him in Cairo in June 2009 (for his speech to the Muslim world) has that much credibility here. But while Satloff envisages dangling carrots and sticks over the Israel issue, if any message from Washinton should come, it is that the old trilateral relationship is over. Let the Egyptians deal with Israel as they want, and vice-versa, and focus instead on bilateral relations. That should mean that there will be consequences for the old Mubarak-style bullshit (human rights abuses, the brouhaha over foreign funding, permanent emergency law, etc.), and that while Washington wants to turn a new page (as Obama said in his May 19 speech) it can only do so with a legitimate government.
The bigger picture here is that it is time to treat both Israelis and Egyptians like adults rather than petulant children, and let them sort out their own problems: if they don't like each other, fine. It's better to sacrifice the Camp David framework, which constrained Egypt to breaking point, to salvage the peace both sides want to maintain. Satloff's idea of peace constituting of these goodwill measures is wrong: peace consists of the absence of war. Friendship can wait for more auspicious times.
Reader Comments (21)
Opening the Camp David agreement means nullifying it.
The Egyptian nation has to start acting like grown ups, that is true, and understand that after three times that they started a war it is completely reasonable on the Israeli part to insist that Siani will remain demilitarized.
The Egyptians should also stop should also stop blaming every one for THEIR corrupted government. Yes, your government was corrupted, yes, they made some shady deals but they also signed international agreements which are binding. So start acting like grown ups and stick your agreements!
I'll pass over the ridiculous assertion that 1967 was started by Egypt. If the treaty is cancelled, what would Israel do, Zeev?
Dont call them the gaza and lebanon (i assume 2006) WARS. They were not Wars. They were aerial bombardments. A war assumes some degree of parity.
The absence of a peace treaty or relations with Egypt means that Israel has to treat Egypt as another potential enemy they might have to fight in the near future, which means that military funding (already a huge burden on the Israel tax base and economy) has to go even higher. They have to consider the possibility that Egypt might unilaterally close off their access to oil supplies coming up the Red Sea.
You understand why the Israelis aren't happy about this? An ill-defined "not at war" status is nothing compared to an actual peace treaty and formal recognition.
Those of us who are old enough to remember 1967, remember the Egyptian tearing up of the agreements that were made in 1956, the closure of the Suez Canal and Straits of Tiran to Israeli shipping, the expulsion of the UN troops from the Sinai buffer zone, the movement of troops up to the Israeli border, and the screaming mobs in Cairo, calling for the fulfillment of Nasser's promise to see the streets of Tel Aviv run red with Israeli blood.
If you want to sell, "We Egyptians were just minding our own business, when for no reason at all...," you'll have to sell it to someone else.
Anyway, Palestine is not a place in Egypt. All of the insincere chat about "Brotherly Palestine" is just a cover for race-based imperialism.
I might also add that you're giving the Israelis a good reason to distrust democratization in the Middle East. You're asking them to accept the loss of the defined peace that they have - a "cold peace", but a peace treaty nonetheless - in exchange for a vague "not at war" status that might lead to peace in another 20 years, if we're lucky.
Brett — that is exactly the situation I'd like to set up, because I see it a loss of the strategic dominance Camp David gives them (the fact that they would have to factor in the possibility of a war with Egypt) as the only restraint that might be applicable on the country and that could force it to finally accept peace with its neighbors on the basis of territorial exchange. The answer is not an Egypt-Israel peace, it's the much wider pan-Arab peace that Camp David was originally based on and Begin immediately rejected, the one that Carter never tried to get, and that Sadat was forced to abandon. Today, that's the Arab Peace Initiative. I'm not saying that there aren't recalcitrant Arab states too, but no one — the US, EU as well as Israel — has even tried or showed any goodwill.
@Izak Friend
Thanks for summing it up. Egypt is responsible for the 1967 war by international war.
@Issandr El Amrani
Since tearing up a peace contract is in fact a deceleration of war Israel will be within it's right to declare war on Egypt and we are back to 1967.
But my guess is that Israel will just ignore Egypt till it would do something which that will actually harm Israel, like closing the Red See, and only then engage in war.
One thing for sure, the nullification of the Camp David peace agreement will end any hope on the Israel - P.L.O. peace agreement and will give a huge support for the right wing section in Israel who say that "Jordan is Palestine".
The French General Foch criticized the Treaty of Versailles, the so called peace treaty of world war one as follows "This is not peace. This is an armistice for 20 years".
And what do you know, if he would have said 17 years, he would have actually been correct!
What I am saying is, that if you decide to make a peace treaty, which leads to very stiff and dry relations between the two countries, you can't expect it to last forever. And especially in the case of Egypt, the peace treaty was honored by a regime that did not represent the people. Now that the people have a voice, a voice that actually leads to action, things are going to change, even the "peace" treaty.
Israel never really worked in favor of actual peace with any Arab country, neither did the US. Israel is in a situation where the least thing it could do is consider compromise, but it refuses to. You're talking about a country that is willing to carry the burden of a possible war on its back, instead of considering real peace, that will last.
Nobody can afford another war, but let's face it, a lot Egyptians don't honor the peace treaty for logical reasons. Egypt and Israel won't go into a "not-at-war-state" if the treaty is annulled, they already are in such a state. As long as Israel refuses to make a REAL compromise, there will be no peace and that's a fact. After millennia of human civilization, we should by now understand that peace has never come easily and it always comes with a certain price. If Israel is not willing to pay that certain price, then honestly, it's their fault they've got a bunch of angry neighbors on their hands, who don't want to deal with them.
@Friendly Phantom
And giving Sinai, demolishing Israeli towns, isn't a "real" sacrifice in your eyes?
Israel did try to "warm" up the peace between the two nations and even opened a cultural centre of learning in Cairo. The Egyptian response? any Egyptian who entered the building was automatically detained by the security service and harassed for an extensive period of time.
When one brave Egyptian journalist (whom I don't remember his name) went to Israel to talk with his Israeli counter parts he was banned from the Egyptian Journalist union under the charges that he was establishing a normalization with Israel.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3843564,00.html
So yes, sadly the Egyptians made it all to clear that they don't want a real peace.
And now you are talking about nullifying the Camp David agreement. How else can Israel interpret it but as a step before war?
I can't see America, imposing Jeffersonian democracy on a society in which race-based Arabist chauvinism and militarized Islamism are the only political ideologies to command any following. Particularly as Egyptian intellectuals have long experience in fending off challenges to Arabism and Islamism, saying, "Orientalism. Betrayers of the Arab race. Betrayers of the Prophet," and the like.
Disheartening to see Egyptians, running back and forth from Ahminejad to Erdogan, as the two compete to see who can shout, "Death to the Yahud," the most loudly. They will never learn.
For Egypt to change in any fundamental way, will require a smash on the order of the French Revolution, or a defeat on the order of Berlin 1945. Until then, expect competing mobs, more violence, more destruction, less work, less food, less medicine, less clean water, and etc.
American interest in the region is being pared down to the basics. They are: keep Israel in sufficient high-tech weaponry as to be able to defend herself, and keep the Suez Canal open.
Izak - so what you're saying is that blockades are illegal, correct? Interesting re: Gaza/Turkey/flotilla.
The peace treaty between Israel and Egypt was a land for peace deal -- as is the Arab peace initiative you tout. But Egypt is teaching us a lesson here: once the Arabs have the land, they will still find some other reason why they don't quite feel like living up to their end of the bargain; and, btw, even under Mubarak, there was at best a "cold peace".
This brings me to another point: obviously, you'd like to have it both ways: on the one hand, you consider Egypt a sovereign state that should have its own policy, but on the other hand, when it comes to Israel, there is suddenly an "Arab world" and an Arab peace initiative that boils down to something very simple: once Israel has conceded all the land that the Arabs now demand, the "Arab world" will decide if Israel is finally entitled to peace. But who knows, maybe by then there is another "Arab spring" and the "people" will decide that the Muslim Brothers were right all along and there shouldn't be a Jewish state?
Given the fact that when Mahmoud Abbas was offered by Ehud Olmert the equivalent of 100 percent of the pre-1967 Jordanian West Bank and Egyptian-occupied Gaza, his response was that this wasn't good enough, it should be pretty obvious that it's not about the territories that Israel conquered in 1967. The same lesson emerges from Lebanon -- where Israel withdrew in 2000 to the internationally recognized border -- and from Gaza.
Last but not least, one problem with the Arab peace initiative is that it doesn't seem to want to deal with the rights of Jewish refugees who were ethnically cleansed from Arab states -- Egypt included. Just in terms of documented real estate claims, the properties lost by all those refugees combined amount to about 3 times the size of Israel in its 1967 borders.
@Issandr and @Izak:
How is your response to Izak's last post that blockades are illegal? Because he frowns upon Egyptian diplomatic advances towards Turkey and Iran? You really dodged every substantive point that he made in favour of an appeal to a cheap, popular appeal to an emotive subject for many.
I don't know why you never address the fact that decades of Egyptian government and religious indoctrination against jews is an important source of the cold peace that now exists. You act as if the discord was purely diplomatic and rational.
Otherwise, your analysis is pretty interesting, save for the fact that you ignore certain obvious facts that make egyptians not look like the liberal society you apparently wish it were. You know, like Israel's...
Thank you Issandr El Amrani for an interesting and enlightening article. I really like this site.
It's clearly in the interest of the US to promote democracy in Egypt and the Middle East, even though it's obvious that public opinion in Egypt is more anti-Israel than many of us would like, and will this would likely result in the short term in less favorable policies toward Israel. In the long run, however, it's more likely that a functioning democracy and a more open political culture in Egypt will create opportunities for Egyptians and Israelies to lobby each other's governments and will provide an avenue of public communication that was never possible in the past. I think this will eventually result in a better understanding between the two nations on issues of common interest. The effect on the Palestinians is also likely to be a demand for greater accountability, if not democracy, from their governing institutions. This kind of "communication between the publics" can also happen between Egypt and the US. Speaking of which, I have a question to ask: who lobbies for the Egyptian Protest Movement within the US?
@DeMarquis
In my experience, this website only tends to talk about the jewish lobby. Arab lobbies garner less attention as they don't fit into the world jewish conspiracy narrative.
There is no "Arab lobby", there are only lobbies for individual regimes.
If there is no one representing the interests of the Egyptian (or Arab) democracy movement in the US, I would think that might be a problem. Everyone else has someone to represent them. The various color revolutionists are well represented by a variety of "institutes" and think tanks, the Libyan NTC has people in Washington, and you bet the Egyptian regime has close connections. Even a locally based student group would provide some degree of presence over here. Perhaps I'm simply ignorant and am not aware of what is going on. But the bottom line is you cant expect to influence public opinion in the US unless there is someone here to do the influencing.
My point is that they should have someone in the US, and someone in Israel too.
Again, Issandr shows that he'd rather focus on Jewish lobbies by minimizing the presence of Arab lobbies than answer your question.
Unfortunately for the paltry prospects of a liberal egypt, the muslim brotherhood likely has more lobbyists in washington than any liberal movement.
Actually, some might argue that it would be wise of the secular liberals to stand back and let the Islamists try to govern the country. Because the track record of whoever goes first after a democratic revolution is not necessarily all that great. The economy is often in a turmoil and people's expectations are often unrealistically high. The people who position themselves as the opposition at that time may actually have better long term opportunities. That thinking may be too machiavalian, however.
I just want to point out that you AIPACis or AIPAC wannabes commenting this post and posting your comments on every other article concerning israel are EXTREMELY annoying and you make it really hard to allow a normal, reasonable debate, based on facts
here's a tip...don't read issandr's articles on israel...you'd be doing everybody a HUGE favour