Condi vs. Hosni (2)

Though the Egyptian government largely wrote off the Bush administration once the U.S. invaded Iraq, Condi Rice got some kinds words during her meeting with President Hosni Mubarak and Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul Gheit in Luxor today.
Abul Gheit described Rice's talks with Mubarak, who will be 79 in May, as good, productive, positive and even warm--not bad, considering that Mubarak himself is basically boycotting presidential trips to Washington these days. Rice arrived late from her meetings in Jerusalem and gave the Egyptians the news that Israeli PM Olmert and Palestinian Prez Abbas had agreed to hold a three-way summit with her. For the first time in six years, Rice proclaimed, the Israelis and Palestinians had decided to skip past their never-ending security quarrels and discuss, albeit informally, "broader issues" (read core issues, like Jewish settlements, Palestinian refugees, borders) holding up a future Palestinian state. "Let's be glad that after six years that the parties want to engage in an informal set of discussions about the future between them," she told reporters.
Three cheers for Rice, but the Egyptians, who work closely with Abbas, are not leaping up and down with joy just yet. Abul Gheit agreed there needs to be a stabilization stage, followed very soon by talks "whereby everything is discussed." The "endgame," he stressed, "is very important to Egypt." Abul Gheit said, however, that the limited agreements Olmert and Abbas reached in their very first meeting, last December 23--an apparent reference to releasing Palestinian tax revenues--remain unimplemented.
What tempers Abul Gheit's enthusiasm, no doubt, is a belief that it is too little, too late, and that even if the Olmert-Abbas-Rice summit leads to more serious talks, Bush won't have the political stomach to do what is necessary to reach a final settlement--in the Egyptian view, at least, to pressure Israel into necessary compromises. "They didn't set a date for the summit, so it could be in six months," an Egyptian on the sidelines quipped. "Who knows what the Middle East will look like then?"
Egyptian skepticism stems from a belief that Bush has screwed up just about everything he could in the Middle East--by invading Iraq, Bush uncorked Sunni-Shiite tensions and a possible breakup of the country; by ignoring the Israeli-Palestinian dispute, he accelerated the disintegration of the peace process and helped get Hamas elected; by pushing the democracy agenda, he undermined Arab allies.
Although Abul Gheit expressed hope that Bush's new Iraq plan will succeed, Egyptians clearly have their doubts. They think that Bush is missing the point by obsessing with the security issue and failing to draw the Sunni opposition into a meaningful role. Inviting Iranian-backed Shiite leader Abdul Aziz Hakim to the White House recently sent the wrong message: that the U.S. is acquiescing in Iran's growing role in Iraq, rather than working hard to build a Shiite-Sunni-Kurdish consensus. Sunni Arab disgust with Saddam's hanging is further harming Washington's image in the Arab world so much that Rice found herself, bizarrely, defending Saddam's right to a dignified execution.
Egypt will continue to be vaguely supportive but not enthusiastic about Bush's Middle East agenda. Abul Gheit says Egypt would be happy to host the Olmert-Abbas summit when it happens. But don't expect Mubarak to stick his neck out too far.

By Scott MacLeod/Luxor