Walking the Path to Reform With Egypt

Interview with Francis J. Ricciardone, recently returned U.S. ambassador to Egypt (2005-2008), Part 2.

How has Egypt’s role in the context of U.S. policy in the Middle East evolved over time? Reflecting on your tenure in Egypt, how has the relationship between our two countries changed and evolved during that period?

Egypt is a pivotal state in many ways. It is one of those dozen or so states in the world whose success or failure and choice of direction will influence choices by other people in their region. If Egypt can move toward a more liberal economy, more respect for international standards of human rights, toward international concepts of democracy, then it is indeed likely to influence other states, other peoples, to believe that they can accomplish the same. So, it’s a bellwether country. Beyond this, as a simple geographic proposition, Egypt is strategically important as long as we wish to project military, economic and political influence around the world.

So in the past few years, when we’ve tried to promote democracy and human rights as an integral part of our global strategy, I think we’ve correctly focused on Egypt as a pioneer state that really ought to succeed. Perhaps it’s for that reason, since we’ve seen progress that is not as fast as we and many Egyptians would have liked, and some outright reversals, that there’s been a high frustration level on both sides. As we have insisted, the Egyptian Government has said, yes, we need more democracy, we want more human rights, but we want it on our terms, in our way, in our time and on our conditions, and we will grow it from within. We’ll appreciate your advice and your assistance, but we don’t appreciate your cutting of our aid, or lecturing us, or trying to punish us into doing what you would like us to do on your schedule, in your way. So that’s been the frustration in the relationship of late. It doesn’t mean that the relationship is in jeopardy, but that tension has certainly been there.

How do you see that relationship moving forward?

Egypt is a serious state with the perspective and historic consciousness of a serious regional power. It has a serious diplomatic service, as serious a military force as exists in the Arab world, both in terms of numbers and capabilities and of strategic outlook. They are good friends for us to learn from, and we do solicit their advice. We don’t always take it, and they don’t always take ours.

But with a state like that, there’s a solid basis for the conduct of a productive relationship, both bilaterally and with respect to third-country issues in the region. We matter to them and they matter to us, and we both know that. So both sides judge that it’s worth the effort to overcome the mutual frustrations. I know they feel that way: Mubarak is frustrated with us, but, from my contacts with him, he sees the importance of the United States’ role in the region, whether he likes what we’re doing or not.

Whatever our disagreements, each side nonetheless acts responsibly toward the other and values the relationship. For all our objections, particularly with respect towards Egypt’s conduct of its internal affairs, we do have important interests at stake with them, and we have no good choice but engage with Egypt as a whole–government and people–in a serious, patient and skillful way.

Nevertheless, I can’t see the United States under any of our three current presidential candidates backing away from the promotion of rule of law, democracy, freedom, human rights, all those things that the United States has been promoting in one way or another, to one degree of emphasis or another since the time of the Shah’s Iran and of Jimmy Carter. I’m sure that’s going to remain an important strand of American foreign policy globally and toward Egypt.

For me, the question is: how do we pursue this policy most effectively in the changed circumstances of today’s world? With respect to Egypt, I think that the younger population, which is connected to the world in many ways, does want more openness, and will get it. The state itself recognizes a need for reform but is very cautious about its speed and scope. We’ll continue to wish that they were reforming faster—and vaster. And they won’t do it just because we wish it, any faster or necessarily in our way. They will advance in their way, but if we approach them right, we can help them get where they want to go. I don’t worry about Egypt crashing and burning, or going the way of Iran. You cannot compare it to any of the states around it. It does not compare as a dictatorship to Syria, and it is far more cohesive than Lebanon. It has a different social compact than its North African neighbors. Overall, I think Egypt will do alright, and could do even better than alright. The trick for us is going to be to find a way of working with them to make sure we understand what their priorities are, and to the extent theirs fit ours, with respect to promotion of democracy or human rights, to continue to engage with them and see if we can do more together. I think we can.

Egypt’s civil society is more active and stronger than many foreigners and even Egyptians themselves may credit. The rule of law is there, although it’s abused in big ways and small—from the petty cop on the street who takes a bribe here and there, or a postman or a clerk in a government office who performs some service, up into bigger ways, problems of corruption and so forth. Despite all of that, Egyptians know what law is, they know what courts are. They have a respected and self-respecting judiciary that is very jealous of its independence. In fact, there are so many judges, and they are so well regarded in the region, that Egyptian judges staff the courts throughout the Gulf on secondment. So they have those things going for them.

They have an active media. We hear of the abuses or violations, when a blogger gets arrested or harassed or a journalist is charged with numerous charges. Those things should not happen and we have said so—and more importantly, Egyptians themselves are saying so. But the larger picture is that despite those things, you can tune in at ten o’clock every evening to several Egyptian and regional satellite channels, both official and independent, and find extremely lively and provocative talk shows. I’ve been grilled at length on several of them. A lot of people call in. People are harshly critical of the government, of the person and family of Mubarak, not merely of the United States and Israel as Egyptians always have been free to do. Now there is quite a lively debate going on at a mass level and a lively conversation that occasionally shows some real insight. Egyptians throng to muckraking independent movies on the problems of poverty, corruption, oppression, and religious extremism. Sometimes their parliamentary debates can be quite interesting as well. Even some of the people in the ruling party admit that since the Muslim Brotherhood came into the parliament in 2005, they have forced the ruling party to be on their toes. They have to show up, they have to do their homework and they have to pay attention. So, the Parliament has a long way to go but it is undeniably stronger, and it’s raising Egyptian expectations of what a parliament should do.

So how does the United States walk the line between the important strategic relationship it has with Egypt and the desire to see progress on democracy and human rights?

You walk that line by walking it with them, and showing some empathy. You begin by having a conversation with them at the leadership level and at the mass level, as well as with the English-speaking liberal elite, about their aspirations: Who are they? What do they want to become? Where do they want to go? What do the young people of Egypt want? And how do they all propose to get there? The whole question of a transition from Hosni Mubarak to a successor is the thing that Egyptians talk about all the time. They now talk about it much more openly on TV, the press, and the blogs. And there’s no easy answer. There’s the one obvious answer of President Mubarak’s son, and both the father and son deny that that’s the plan.

Egyptians themselves need to talk these things out, whether it’s the leadership transition, or anti-terrorism legislation to protect individual liberties while protecting society against extremism. They are debating those things in their media and their parliament. To a rather remarkable extent, we can and do participate in that internal Egyptian conversation. In our country we don’t welcome foreigners coming into our Congress and talking about our Patriot Act, or how to deal with Guantanamo detainees, etc. But in Egypt, they’re rather used to it. They don’t like it when foreigners tell them what they must do, but they do listen, in fact they even ask sometimes, and as they draft legislation they compare Swiss, British or American legislation on similar topics. For example, they welcomed conversations with us about dealing with the Internet, or the Patriot Act vs. their own pending anti-terrorism legislation.

How do you preserve all the advantages of free expression, citizens’ access to the Internet, and all the good things that come from it as another important mass medium, on the one hand, versus depriving terrorists of the ability to use the Internet to undermine the state? Well, that’s something we’re debating here. They’re having similar conversations and they accept our participation in those conversations provided we do it in a Socratic way, by sharing with them what has worked and hasn’t worked for us, and listening to what they want.

We have such conversations with government officials of course, particularly President Mubarak and his high officials and members of Parliament, including the opposition; but also directly with the broader Egyptian public through the media and civil society groups. For example, I used to speak about these issues with university students on their campuses all up and down the country, on TV, with think tanks and Rotary Clubs, and of course with President Mubarak and other high officials. Egyptians welcome such conversations with us when we approach them in a positive and respectful way. That does not mean they will always—or ever, necessarily—do what we want, of course.

What does the Egyptian political landscape look like in general and specifically in terms of the succession?

The leadership succession is political Topic A. President Mubarak turned eighty on May 4, and seems well and focused on his responsibilities. His current term ends in 2011. Each time when the end of his term approaches, people speculate about whether he’ll run again. He has said many times after each of his past several elections, of which the last one in 2005 was a true multi-candidate election, that he was sorely tempted not to run again, but he felt he had to do this as his fate, for his country. Who knows if he will come to that conclusion again in 2011?

Politically-aware and engaged Egyptians do worry about that issue. There’s no easy answer. There’s a small, disparate grouping of the elite who have come up with liberal democratic answers that appeal to us in the West. Outspoken Egyptian liberal voices get at least as much attention outside Egypt as within. They are a very small minority and they paint a nice picture of the way Egypt should go that appeals to us, but it’s not obvious to me that they have a lot of traction internally. We cannot fathom why the Egyptian state does not give secular liberal democratic voices more political space, rather than positing what we see as an artificial binary choice between the ruling party vs. the Muslim Brotherhood.

Obviously, the state is determined to stay in existence and to fend off what it sees as an extremist threat coming from the Muslim Brotherhood. Apart from the ruling National Democratic Party, the other legally recognized parties in Egypt are weak and small and don’t really exist all up and down the country. The Wafd, for example, the largest opposition party, has its main presence in Cairo and Alexandria and a few of the other larger provincial towns, but it’s not really a threat as a nationally-organized party to the governing party. There’s a small grouping of parties on the left, and they have newspapers and so forth, but they don’t really have a mass following. The Muslim Brothers are not allowed to establish a political party under Egyptian law which prohibits the establishment of a party on the basis of religion, yet they do exist as a kind of extra-legal identity and they have a parliamentary presence in the form of independents. They seem to be the best-organized political movement or grouping outside of the National Democratic Party. But they deliberately avoid posing a real threat to the ruling party, and for now and the short term, at least, I do not foresee that they would come to rule Egypt even in a completely free and fair democratic election process.

The National Democratic Party itself has done a lot to try to reorganize and rejuvenate itself over the past few years. It’s still seen largely as a patronage distribution machine. But its leaders hope to make it into something more. So there’s a process of deliberately reaching out to bring in younger people, fresh talent. They also have instituted a process of catechism, whereby they engage younger people in ideological discussion as to what the party stands for, what is the party identity vis-a-vis the Muslim Brotherhood, for example, or on foreign policy issues, or questions of promoting trade and investment and free trade at a time of fierce global competition, as opposed to the old nationalist answers of protectionism.

What are the day-to-day concerns of Egyptians?

Getting by: Jobs, education and healthcare. Traffic! And of course, sharply rising food prices. It’s kind of a historic worry there. Egyptians don’t starve; they have an adequate caloric intake by any measure. But for the mass of Egyptians living in poverty, food is a huge chunk of their daily budget. So a large number of Egyptians do worry about just getting by all the time. Once they’ve secured food for themselves and their families for that day or that week, then they worry about the broader things, getting a job, educating their kids. Even poor families spend a lot of money for private tutors because the public education system is just not adequate to have their kids pass the national exams required for university entrance and the old but persistent dream of a public sector job.

The Minister of Health is one of the Egyptians I most admire. He came in from the private sector when he didn’t have to, and took on a three-quarter million person bureaucracy and tries to deliver healthcare to 78 million Egyptians–consider the problems of delivering healthcare in our country, and we’re rich. Can you imagine what it’s like to be the Egyptian minister of health? Yet somehow they manage to a certain extent. No one’s happy with it, least of all the minister, but good people are working hard on reforming the delivery machinery for such essential government services as healthcare and education. We continue to help where we can through our historically generous economic assistance programs, which we are cutting sharply under current budget pressures.