"...There is a complacency in the [two-year-old] cables about Mubarak and his rule that U.S. officials undoubtedly rue today. The cables show clearly that U.S. officials and, following the U.S. lead, the Egyptian ones as well, have been far more concerned to advance Israel's interests by maintaining stability, keeping the Egyptian-Israeli and the Egyptian-Gaza borders quiet, and thwarting Hamas in Gaza than they have been to promote democracy in Egypt..."
CounterPunch, Kathleen Christison – Editors' note: This article is based on State Department cables 7192, 7201, 7304, 7360, 7395, 7415, 7423, all from late January & February 2009, and also #6253 on Omar Suleiman. Only #6253, which talks about Israel's high opinion of Omar Suleiman, has been released and written about elsewhere. All of the other cables, which make up the meat of this article, have been hitherto undiscussed. AC/JSC.
A clutch of Wikileaks-released cables acquired by CounterPunch dealing with Egypt, dating from the first weeks after Barack Obama's inauguration in January 2009, shows Egypt to have an overweening ambition to be seen both in the West and in the Arab world as the leading Arab regional power and shows the U.S.A. to be encouraging these visions, primarily because Egypt supports and cooperates with Israel. Egypt satisfies the perceived U.S. need to maintain stability in the region for the benefit of Israel's security. It is evident from these cables that Egyptian ambition, driven as much by a desire to please the United States and, by extension, Israel as by self-interest, is so strong as to distort Egypt's view of its fellow Arab and Muslim states and their policies and actions.
The cables also presage a reality of U.S. relations with Egypt that is becoming increasingly clear as U.S. policymakers respond, or fail to respond, to events on Egypt's streets. The dilemma the U.S.A. has faced - whether to encourage the ouster of Hosni Mubarak and his oppressive rule and risk the imponderables of an uncertain succession, or to support the suppression of the pro-democracy protests and risk the spread of popular anti-American and anti-Israeli uprisings throughout the Arab world - is evident as well in these two-year-old cables. There is, nonetheless, a complacency in the cables about Mubarak and his rule that U.S. officials undoubtedly rue today. The cables show clearly that U.S. officials and, following the U.S. lead, the Egyptian ones as well, have been far more concerned to advance Israel's interests by maintaining stability, keeping the Egyptian-Israeli and the Egyptian-Gaza borders quiet, and thwarting Hamas in Gaza than they have been to promote democracy in Egypt.
The cables, which include accounts of meetings between U.S. and Egyptian officials in Cairo and in Washington, as well as what are termed "scenesetters" for impending visits between high-level U.S. and Egyptian officials, always mentioned Mubarak's undemocratic rule with some concern, but they indicated no urgency and no concern that his rule might unravel as it has today. In one cable, Ambassador Margaret Scobey observed that Mubarak barely any longer even made a pretense of advancing democratic change and seemed to be "trusting in God and the inertia of the military and civilian security services" to ensure an orderly transition. She noted that the ongoing challenge for the United States remained how to balance U.S. security interests [read, Israeli security interest in quiet borders and the suppression of Hamas] against U.S. efforts to promote democratic change.
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