[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 16 (Tuesday, February 15, 2005)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1399-S1400]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                                 EGYPT

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, in his recent State of the Union 
address, President Bush stated:

     the great and proud nation of Egypt, which showed the way 
     toward peace in the Middle East, can now show the way toward 
     democracy in the Middle East.

  In light of the President's statement, I would like to submit for the 
Record an op-ed by Jackson Diehl that appeared in today's Washington 
Post titled ``Egypt's Gamble.''
  In this piece, Mr. Diehl notes with concern that the Egyptian 
Government appears to be acting under the assumption that, despite the 
President's strong statement on the need for democratic reforms in the 
country, the United States will still turn a blind eye to the recent 
heavy-handed actions taken by the Egyptian authorities toward 
prodemocracy activists. Mr. Diehl's piece notes:

     The U.S. Embassy in Cairo is urging caution; it argues that 
     an overly aggressive U.S. reaction [to the crackdown] would 
     play into the hands of Egyptian ``hardliners.''

  Mr. President, I am deeply troubled about these reports, if they are 
true.
  President Bush's statement of policy with respect to Egypt could not 
be more clear. Nonetheless, it appears that there are those in the 
Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs at the State Department who are 
attempting to return to ``business as usual'' with respect to U.S. 
policy toward Egypt. I would like to go on record as reiterating my 
strong support for the need for Egypt to reform its political and 
economic institutions, and I look forward to working with Secretary 
Rice to ensure that the President's vision of democracy in the region 
is not diluted at lower levels of the Department through bureaucratic 
inertia and intransigence.
  I ask unanimous consent that the op-ed be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

               [From the Washington Post, Feb. 14, 2005]

                             Egypt's Gamble

                           (By Jackson Diehl)

       The appearance of Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul 
     Gheit and intelligence chief Omar Suleiman in Washington this 
     week should bring to a head a bold attempt by their country's 
     strongman, Hosni Mubarak, to neuter President Bush's campaign 
     for democracy in the Middle East within weeks of his 
     inaugural address.

[[Page S1400]]

       Mubarak's brazen gambit was encapsulated by two events on 
     successive days last week. On Tuesday he played host in Sharm 
     el-Sheikh as Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and 
     Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas declared a cease-fire. On 
     Wednesday his police in Cairo arrested the deputy leader of 
     the new, liberal democratic Tomorrow political party and 
     banned its newspaper from publishing its first issue--even 
     though 10 days before the Bush administration had strongly 
     objected to the arrest of the party's chairman, Ayman Nour.
       Mubarak is betting that Gheit and Suleiman will be greeted 
     at the State Department and White House as close 
     collaborators in a budding Israeli-Palestinian detente, not 
     as representatives of a government engaged in an expanding 
     crackdown on its secular and democratic opposition. If so, 
     the 76-year-old president will feel secure in continuing a 
     campaign aimed at crushing what has been mounting opposition 
     among the Egyptian political and business elite to his plan 
     to extend his quarter-century in office by six years through 
     a rigged referendum this fall. His son, Gamal, waits in the 
     wings to succeed him.
       Bush, who in his State of the Union speech called on Egypt 
     to ``show the way'' toward democracy in the Middle East, will 
     look feckless and foolish if a regime so deeply dependent on 
     U.S. military and economic aid stages another fraudulent 
     election while jailing the very politicians who support his 
     vision. But Mubarak is betting that this U.S president, like 
     those who preceded him, won't seriously confront him or 
     threaten his economic lifeline at a sensitive moment in the 
     ``peace process.''
       He may or may not be right. Some officials tell me that the 
     Egyptians will get a cool, if not cold, reception in 
     Washington and will be told that the jailing of Nour and his 
     deputy, Moussa Mustafa, is unacceptable. Bush, one source 
     said, is ``furious'' about the arrests. A U.S. diplomatic 
     letter has been drafted, but not yet dispatched, to other 
     members of the Group of Eight industrial nations; it 
     describes Mubarak's political crackdown in harsh terms and 
     suggests that G-8 participation in an early March meeting in 
     Egypt with the Arab League should be reconsidered.
       One official I spoke to pointed out that Condoleezza Rice 
     is due to pay her first visit as secretary of state to the 
     Arab Middle East for the Arab League meeting. If Nour is not 
     freed, the official predicted, Rice may cancel the trip: 
     ``She is not going to sit there like a potted plant while the 
     Egyptians do this.'' But Rice hasn't addressed the issue, and 
     there is no consensus inside the administration on such a 
     tough response. Predictably, the U.S. Embassy in Cairo is 
     urging caution; it argues that an overly aggressive U.S. 
     reaction would play into the hands of Egyptian ``hard-
     liners.'' Such limp logic, of course, is exactly what the 
     chief hard-liner--Mubarak--is counting on.
       Whatever comes of the Nour affair, the State Department has 
     launched a committee to review policy toward Egypt. That will 
     give democracy advocates at State and the White House a 
     platform for arguing that relations with Cairo should be 
     fundamentally shifted in the coming year. They can count on 
     support in Congress, where key Republicans, such as Sen. 
     Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, have grown increasingly 
     impatient with Mubarak's refusal to liberalize.
       Few believe that Mubarak can now be stopped from granting 
     himself another term as president. But proponents of change 
     will argue that Bush must at least push Mubarak to make a 
     major concession to his moderate opposition. This is not a 
     matter of the United States dictating reform: Nour, a new 
     coalition of political groups and even some officials in the 
     ruling party have been pressing for a constitutional rewrite 
     that would make future elections democratic and limit the 
     president's power and tenure. They also want lifted the 
     ``emergency laws'' that Mubarak has used to suppress 
     political activity. Bush need only embrace this homegrown 
     agenda.
       The old autocrat probably won't yield unless his annual 
     dose of $1.2 billion in U.S. aid is put at stake. Critics 
     have been arguing for years that that huge subsidy, which 
     dates to the Cold War, buys the United States little but 
     greater enmity from the millions of Arabs who loathe the 
     region's corrupt autocracies and blame the United States for 
     propping them up.
       The fact is, Mubarak has far more to lose than Bush from a 
     rupture in U.S.-Egyptian relations. By contrast, if the 
     dictator sails to reelection with the apparent consent of 
     Washington, it is Bush who will be the big loser.

                          ____________________