There is debate about the precise role of Egypt in US Middle East “strategy”, if the word can be used. Stanford historian Joel Beinin, in an interview by Justin Elliott in Salon, claimed that the Arab states, including Egypt, shared equally the US-Israeli animus against Iran.
“And most recently, Mubarak, along with King Abdullah II of Jordan and King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, has been gung-ho for attacking Iran. We know that from the WikiLeaks documents…”
But Historian Gareth Porter and journalist Jim Lobe argue that Saudi Arabia does not share Israel’s enthusiasm for military action. Commenting on the NYT coverage of the Wikileaks cables, they wrote, “Actual Wiki Cables Belie NYT’s Version of Saudi Gulf States’ Stance on Iran”:
“In fact, the cables show that most Gulf Arab regimes – including Saudi Arabia itself – have been seriously concerned about the consequences of a strike against Iran for their own security, in sharp contrast to Israel’s open advocacy of such a strike. They also show the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Kuwait expressing that concern with greater urgency in the past two years than previously”
They cite veteran diplomat Chas Freeman and journalist Thomas Lipman as saying that even an approval of military action would fit the pattern of Arab states telling the US what it wants to hear. This applies a fortiori to Egypt, which has no Shia population and is much farther from Iran.
Sasan Fayazmanesh, US-Iranian economist and scholar of the US-Iran relationship, has also skewered the MSM for misconstruing the Wikileaks cables on Iran, and shown the degree to which the US anti-Iran animus is driven by and for Israel. Fayazmanesh writes:
According to this policy, the US would exert pressure on its client states in the Persian Gulf so that they would distance themselves from Iran and get behind Israel. Before becoming president, Barak Obama stated this policy in a speech delivered at the 2007 AIPAC conference (the speech was actually written by Dennis Ross, James B. Steinberg, who is currently the Deputy Secretary of State, and former American Ambassador to Israel Daniel Kurtzer). Obama stated: We have “to persuade other nations, such as Saudi Arabia, to recognize common interests with Israel in dealing with Iran.” Once Obama became president, this policy was enforced vigorously.
Gareth Porter feels that “The main function of the U.S. client state relationship with Egypt was to allow Israel to avoid coming to terms with Palestinian demands.” He argues that “the present strategic crisis can only be resolved by a…historical accommodation… with the ‘resistance bloc’ in the Middle East.”, that is, “Iran, Iraq, Syria, Hezbollah and Hamas.”
The sine qua non of that accommodation is a just settlement of the Israel-Palestine issue, which is simply inconceivable in US politics. While the Israel lobby and the costs to the US of the “special relationship” are more visible than ever, there is no indication that its grip on power is slipping. The US has advised Mubarak not to stand for re-election in September. This would keep the regime in place and give the US months to manipulate the outcome. It is a colossal insult to the Egyptian people, and does not remotely reflect the interest of the US, but only of Israel and its US supporters.
Overcoming the lobby will take a struggle in US politics like the Civil War. If it doesn’t materialize, instead of a “historic accommodation with the ‘resistance bloc'” we may see even more historic violence, in a collision of the resistance, now including the
people of Egypt, with the immovable object of US-Israel relations.
