After a face-to-face meeting with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman failed to influence the kingdom’s calculations on oil geopolitics over the summer, President Joe Biden’s arrival in the Arab world gave the impression of being much easier, as the U. S. The US sought to reassert its influence in the region amid the festival of primary strength with China and China. Russia.
The US leader’s interactions on the sidelines of the G20 assembly in Indonesia would likely have made headlines this week, but his earlier meeting with his Egyptian counterpart Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi, held in the context of the UN’s COP27 weather summit, marked a significant forward-looking move to reassert Washington’s influence with a key player willing to announce its own regional status.
Although their deliberations remain confidential and were described to Newsweek through Egyptian Foreign Ministry spokesman Ahmad Abuzeid as an “ongoing process,” the public face of the interactions between the two leaders showed a welcome to the visiting American leader, even sharing a laugh before the press. , as the couple reaffirmed the importance of their relationship.
This is good news for Biden, as Cairo continues to expand relations with Beijing and Moscow. These ties have flourished both in bilateral talks and in Egypt’s resolution this year to a discussion spouse of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. Cairo has also expressed interest in joining. the extended BRICS format.
Jonathan Cohen, U. S. Ambassador The U. S. military official in Egypt from November 2019 to March 2022, who served under Presidents Trump and Biden, told Newsweek that Cairo’s cooperation with rival powers comes at the expense of longstanding ties with Washington.
“Egypt’s appointments with the United States are solid and strategic,” said Cohen, now a fellow at the Royal United Services Institute in London, “and Egyptians don’t think that prevents them from dating other groups and other parties. “
“This is not a zero-sum equation,” he added, “although others do not have the same deep strategic dating or the same $80 billion over 40 years in Egypt’s security and progress as the United States. “
This investment has served Cairo’s broader interests.
“The Egyptians have ambitions to be a regional hub for everything from logistics to energy,” Cohen said, “which means having varied industrial and political relationships and serving as a bridge between regions and clusters. “
As management grapples with a number of demanding situations in the region, Egypt serves as Biden’s bridge to achieving U. S. goals on pressing issues in North Africa and the Middle East, meaning a healthy bilateral relationship “is beneficial,” he said.
“Having a weaker date would give the United States less leverage, which would add to issues like regional security, the fight against terrorism, the crises in Libya, Sudan and Gaza, and Iran and Lebanon,” Cohen said. “Egypt has played a useful role in the region. “, and having a smart and strong relationship with Egypt is surely in the interest of the United States.
But demanding situations have arisen in the equation. Among the top highlights are human rights, one of the spaces that served as a catalyst for the dispute between Biden and Crown Prince Mohammed of Saudi Arabia.
Mostafa Kamel al-Sayed, co-founder of the Civil Democratic Movement, a liberal alliance of political parties and a political science professor at Cairo University, said human rights were “one of the obstacles in the way” of Biden’s efforts “to shore up relations with Egypt. “
“President Sisi, Biden’s move to recognize that progress has been made on human rights issues in Egypt,” Sayed told Newsweek. “Expect softer statements from the United States on human rights in Egypt. “
“I, President Sisi, said that there are procedures in Egypt to deal with human rights issues,” Sayed added, “and the Egyptian government is already acting on that. “
While the brief reading of the White House assembly noted that Biden “raised the importance of human rights and respect for basic freedoms,” the longest narrative published through Sisi’s does not mention those issues. Instead, he focused on other issues, adding their mutual efforts to combat terrorism, Israeli-Palestinian tensions, conflicts in Lithrougha, Syria and Yemen, a dispute over the Ethiopian structure of a dam on the Nile and foreign affairs, adding to Russia’s war in Ukraine.
Each of those issues is at the core of the strategic partnership forged between the United States and Egypt, which remains a vital player in regional events and also a victim of them. Egypt’s proximity to unrest in neighboring Lithrougha and Israeli-Palestinian battles in the neighboring Gaza Strip has made them priorities. It is also grappling with the insurgency within its own borders, where the Islamic State militant organization (ISIS) continues to carve out a presence in the same Sinai Peninsula that Biden and Sisi met with last weekend.
Sayed said the Israeli-Palestinian factor has specific importance to any of the leaders.
“Mediation is complicated now after the Israeli elections,” he said, “which has brought right-wing parties to the forefront,” noting the return to force of former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
At a time when Washington’s ability to serve as a negotiator in the decades-long standoff has faded, Cairo has proven to secure a ceasefire between Israel and Palestinian factions led by the Islamist movement Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip between Israel and Egypt.
One issue not addressed in the two accounts of the verbal exchange was Egypt’s efforts to secure more monetary assistance to alleviate developing economic difficulties. Sayed said the Egyptian leader would likely seek “that the U. S. “The U. S. will continue to help Egypt get an IMF loan. “
“Egypt is not only interested in getting the loan approved,” he added. “Egypt also needs to get more loans from so-called friendly countries. “
Unlike Saudi Arabia, whose wealth fueled largely by oil has increased its geopolitical standing, Egypt’s economic uncertainties provide a vulnerability in relations with major powers. This hampers the country’s ability to allocate its strength to a multipolar global scenario, where global powers China and Russia seek to expand their BRICS economic bloc across Brazil, India and Saudi Arabia to incorporate potential members into the Middle East, adding Iran and Saudi Arabia and Turkey.
“There are goals for Egypt to sign up to the BRICS, but I don’t think any steps have been taken in that direction,” Sayed said. “Of course, if Egypt joins the BRICS, it would be a source of fear. “But I don’t see any prospect of that happening, because there are safe situations for a country to sign up for the BRICS, and that includes the country being in a smart economic position. “
“We missed the opportunity to join the club of emerging economies,” he added.
Sayed said Egypt’s strategy has been to court the US, China and Russia, and “maintain intelligent relations with those 3 wonderful powers,” while Sisi “tries to take a position that would disappoint either of those 3 countries. “
Timothy Kaldas, a policy fellow at the Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy in Washington, D. C. , said this technique is not new and dates back to the days of President Gamal Abdel Nasser, who tactfully handled Cold War politics to improve Egypt’s position.
“Egypt has tried at all times to maintain relations with many rival partners,” Kaldas told Newsweek, “and this is partly a tactic or strategy to negotiate and get as much help as possible at minimal cost. “
“Egypt has continuously controlled to get many concessions from its donors without paying much in return,” he added. “It’s also a form of independence despite its monetary weakness. “
It is also helping Cairo deflect pressure on human rights.
“If you communicate to U. S. officials, one of the things they say when they put pressure on Egypt on human rights or the economy or whatever, is that they will reach out to the Chinese and we will lose them,” Kaldas said.
This, he argued, “is precisely what concerns Egypt and its Western partners, and that is why Egypt has close ties with so many actors. “
While Biden has remained silent on U. S. allegations of human rights abuses in Egypt under Sisi, adding accusations of political repression and detention of activists, Kaldas said it still constitutes “a point of serious tension between the U. S. and Egyptian governments. “
In many cases, this goes beyond the White House.
“There are a lot of other people in Congress who are concerned about this,” Kaldas said, “which puts pressure on Biden beyond his own opinion on this issue. “
To demonstrate how legislative positions can have an effect on bilateral relations, he pointed to Sen. Patrick Leahy’s resolution last month to block the distribution of $75 million in military aid to Egypt on human rights grounds.
“He necessarily overdid it in the Biden administration,” Kaldas said.
Not only does Biden face a potentially hostile legislature, with Republicans winning a narrow majority in the House of Representatives following last week’s midterm elections, but he also faces a region in conversion.
Mohammed Sadik Ismail, director of the Arab Center for Political and Strategic Studies in Cairo, explained why the U. S. leader was not allowed to do so. The U. S. military struggled to link Saudi Arabia to its stopover in Jeddah in July and said it was time for the U. S. to stop it from the U. S. to do so. The U. S. government will update its technique to adapt to new realities in the Arab world.
“The Arab mentality has changed, in the sense that Arab nations no longer depend on the United States as their only strategic best friend in light of efforts to diversify strategic partners,” Ismail told Newsweek, “and this may simply be the result of Arab policy. “revolutions and the presence of new regimes in some Arab countries. “
He argued that the U. S. role was a major role in the U. S. The US in the region had been tainted for 3 decades with political projects that were “unable to respond well to the Arab mentality”. for non-state actors, the series of protests across the region known as the Arab Spring.
These protests came early in Egypt, leading to the ouster of Egyptian leader Hosni Mubarak in 2011 and the ouster of his successor, Mohamed Morsi, in an uprising just two years later that brought Sisi to power.
And while Sisi has maintained and even expanded ties with the United States since taking office, Ismail said the Egyptian leader has also “worked on a foreign policy that focuses on diversifying Egypt’s strategic allies and expanding with more partners, adding China. “Russia and Europe. ” nations. “
Now, he said, “the United States will have to re-enter the Arab world” and take proactive measures in the face of problems that countries in the region mainly fear, adding Egypt. He indicated a number of fronts on which this could be achieved. adding up the Israeli-Palestinian dispute and the conflicts in Libya, Syria and Yemen, all issues raised in particular in Egypt’s reading of Sisi’s assembly with Biden.
“I think the U. S. is not in the U. S “The U. S. can simply re-establish stronger relations by appearing to have smart intentions in addressing those issues and continuously supporting Arab countries,” Ismail said. “We see that Biden has an active role in demonstrating those intentions, but he lacks engagement with Arab nations. “
“The United States can remain an effective partner, not the only partner, in the world,” he added, “as it asserts its presence among major players like China and Russia. “
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