U.S.-Egyptian relations.

Said Aly, Abdel Moneim ; Pelletreau, Robert H.

The following is the edited text of a discussion held November 28, 2000, at the Sadat Forum at Brookings, cohosted by Richard Haass, vice-president and director of foreign-policy studies at the Brookings Institution, and Shibley Telhami, the Anwar Sadat chair for peace and development at the University of Maryland.

ABDEL MONEIM SAID ALY, director, Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies

What amazes me about the U.S.-Egyptian relationship is the large discrepancy between what leaders say and the perception of the relationship by the elites. Whenever President Mubarak comes to the United States or a prominent American official visits Egypt, you'll find the relationship described as "close," as "strategic," as "friendly." Sometimes even the word "alliance" is used. However, when you go down from the top leaders, you'll find a lot of apprehension about this relationship. It looks like a bad marriage that's about to collapse, although it's endured for more than 27 years, or like a couple who met in a train and will depart sometime soon. That's the logic that's reflected in Egypt when people talk about U.S. hegemony, for instance, about U.S. double standards, about the fact that the real intention of the United States is to curb Egypt's regional role. We find the same things in the United States, but in different language. There are doubts about Egypt's role, about its sincerity towards the peace process. There is even doubt about Egypt's ability to grow or to be a country that really can benefit from American help.

If we look closely at the history of this relationship, the leaders' opinion is vindicated. There were some basic changes that took place in Egyptian-American relations following Kissinger's famous trip to the Middle East in November of 1973. Egypt and the West came to agreement on four major strategic objectives. The first was to achieve peace in the Middle East. The second was to achieve security in the Gulf. The third was to work toward the stability of the Middle East. The fourth was the development of Egypt as a cornerstone of all these objectives.

Despite everything we hear today about peace in the Middle East going through a rough period, a mental change has taken place in the Middle East: a conflict that was basically existential has turned into a conflict about how we are going to live with each other. We are talking now about streets, alleys and percentages, not about the reality of the Israeli existence in the Middle East or the reality and the existence of the Palestinians as a people who have the right of self-determination. Only the extremists in Israel deny that we'll have a Palestinian state. The same on the Arab side. Nobody questions the existence of Israel in the region, but how to deal with it? What kind of balance of power? These are the details.

The security of the Gulf was achieved through very close Egyptian-American relations. President Sadat led the way at the time, regarding the containment of the Iranian revolution. That was coordinated to a large extent with Washington. Later on, when the destabilizer of the security of the Gulf was Iraq, we fought together. Stability in the Middle East, which goes beyond Iraq and Iran and to all types of radicalism in the region, has increased at least compared with where we were in the 1950s and '60s. There are many more moderate countries. The wave of Islamic fundamentalism that I am told here in Washington and other places is going to turn the region upside down has really reached its plateau and is declining.

The development of Egypt has taken place. From an Egyptian point of view, Egypt is much more secure now than when this relationship started and even more prosperous. Egyptians live about ten years longer than they use to. They're better educated by more than 50 percent. And I believe nobody can spring a surprise attack against Egypt any more. This is because of the peace treaty with Israel and because of special military arrangements with the United States.

I think also, from an American point of view, there have been a great many gains from this relationship, which started way back in 1973. It was at the peak of the American defeat in Vietnam. It was the prologue to the so-called "second cold war." And Egypt worked well with the United States to turn that around. There was the war in Afghanistan, and anticommunist efforts in Somalia, in Ethiopia, in South Yemen. The Egyptian role is seldom mentioned in Washington.

Oil is more secure to the industrial world because of American-Egyptian relations. Also, Egypt helped the United States legitimize its role in the Middle East. Finally, even in pure economic terms, the United States has a $45 billion trade surplus with Egypt, which is double the U.S. economic aid package. So it has not been bad at all for both sides. And I think this will have an impact on the current administration.

I want to get back to the tensions in this relationship and the gap between elite perceptions of the relationship and the leaders' perception of it. There is a pattern here. Every six months to a year, we get attention from journalists because of a "crisis" -- not real tension or differences. A spokesman in the State Department will say "Egypt is not helpful." Then we will find an article appearing in The New York Times or The Washington Post saying how Egypt is not helpful. It says nothing about the issue, but much about the nature of the Egyptian political system, the failure of economic development, the resistance to modernization. Then a think-tank paper appears mysteriously saying that Egypt is re-Nasserized, and Nasser is coming back. This will be picked up by a congressional committee that will discuss why we are giving aid to Egypt while all this is going on.

In Egypt, a spokesman of the Foreign Affairs Ministry will say something like, "Americans should not and cannot and we'll not allow them to interfere in our domestic affairs." National newspapers will talk about the Jewish lobby in Washington. And the independent papers will talk about how the Americans are the inheritors of Western types of imperialism. Syndicates will make declarations of one sort or another and differ about whether the United States is speaking or Israel is moving the Americans. Mysteriously, the visit of an official takes place or telephone calls between the presidents and the whole thing just withers away. That's been the pattern over 27 years.

We have a new U.S. administration now. We have a new old administration in Israel. The relationship has survived many administrations since 1973, Republicans and Democrats. The basic security establishment in the United States believes in a good relationship with Egypt. And the reverse is also true. The measure for strategic objectives has not changed.

The expectation in Egypt is that things will be even more positive with faces that we know -- officials who were there at the peak of the relationship in 1991 during the Gulf War. I believe this has been exaggerated. Egyptians do not realize the intricacies of change in the United States and how long it takes. When the American administration says they're still working on their policies, they really mean it. But there is exaggeration in Egypt of the power of a high-tech society, the superpower of the world and so on, as if one can act in politics as one can act on spacecraft Discovery.

Right now there are two things on the table: the strategic dialogue that started with the Clinton administration but really didn't go very far. The four basic objectives I outlined earlier need to be reinvigorated. Second is the free-trade agreement; last year there was some enthusiasm in Congress for it. Third is investment. American aid to Egypt is agreed to be declining, so investment and trade have become more important.

On the multilateral level, we have a basic difference in priorities. Initially the new administration's emphasis in the Middle East was on Iraq as a top priority. That's welcomed by Israel. In Egypt, we think the priority is on the Palestinian-Israeli track and the core of the Middle East. Neither side believes that you should neglect the other. But I don't know yet if they can harmonize both. The way we see it, they are tightly linked. In the last four or five months, there have been developments that run counter to all of the successes that I have mentioned. There has been a resurgence of conservatives in Iran, a resurgence of Saddam Hussein, a failure of the peace process, and an intifada, all of which are linked to highly emotional issues like Jerusalem, Haram Al-Sharif and other symbols. After a long period of stability in Algeria, we now have a resurgence of violence and radicalism.

ROBERT H. PELLETREAU, former U.S. assistant secretary of state

In the wake of the U.S. and Israeli elections, perhaps the key question to ask is whether we have a new Middle East and what it means for Egypt. It would not be surprising if Secretary of State Colin Powell, returning from his first trip, concludes that, yes, we do have a new Middle East, characterized more by Palestinian-Israeli tensions than peace negotiations and by a resilient Iraq pressing to shake off ten years of sanctions and isolation. Jane Perlez reports in this morning's New York Times that Powell's reception was the coolest in Egypt. It is also significant that Egypt was his first stop. This was intended to send two important messages: first, that the United States recognizes the importance of Egypt in the region and, second, that the United States recognizes the need to rebalance its relationships in the region after the final Clinton year when the only messages that Arab leaders received from the White House were (1) support a Palestinian-Israeli Agreement that the Palestinian people are visibly rejecting and (2) pump more oil.

President Husni Mubarak is moving along in his fourth six-year term as president without any clear alternative or successor. Nasser was president for 16 years. Mubarak is now in his twentieth year. Remarkable. He is indisputably the leading figure of the Arab world, but the perceived risk of assassination has made him understandably more inclined to give the benefit of the doubt to his security advisers and perhaps less willing to trust his own instincts, which have been superb over the years, about the center of gravity of Egyptian public opinion.

Parliamentary elections last fall showed a significant level of popular dissatisfaction with the status quo [see Makram-Ebeid for details]. A significant number of NDP candidates were defeated, and a small number of Muslim Brotherhood sympathizers were elected. The traditional opposition parties performed poorly, and the ruling party's lack of cohesiveness -- sometimes described as a split between reformers and the old guard, sometimes as a generational division -- means we are in a period of drift and transition in the domestic political system. The strong showing of the Muslim Brotherhood and its sympathizers in the recent Bar Association elections serves to reaffirm this point.

Nevertheless, Egyptians do not appear vitally concerned about the succession issue. Mubarak has never had or wanted a vice president. When I asked him about it once, his reply was that if he had had to appoint a vice president in the early years, it would have had to be Abu Ghazaleh, and that would not have turned out well. The accepted wisdom is that when Mubarak's time is over, the Egyptian establishment, civilian and military, will come together on the choice of a successor, most likely from the military because the Egyptian armed forces continue to be the largest, strongest and most cohesive force in the country. The fact that Egyptians will place a high value on a stable succession will also play in favor of the military. So will an underlying concern about Islamist sentiment. The image and stature of Gamal Mubarak, the president's son, have risen steadily over the last three years. But it is too soon to predict what his future role might be.

Mubarak's security forces have repressed and defeated the radical Islamist threat of the early and middle nineties. In doing so, however, they also cracked down on non-threatening activities of the Muslim Brotherhood and imposed strict limits on permissible NGO and human-rights activity. This has produced such unfortunate incidents as the trial of Saad ed-Din Ibrahim and the closing of his Ibn Khaldoun Center. Substantial development funds have been focused on Upper Egypt, the traditional incubator of Islamic unrest.

The regime is careful about any development that might spark popular demonstrations -- the publication of an allegedly blasphemous book, perceived pressure on Palestinians to surrender Muslim rights in Jerusalem, or price rises of basic commodities. It positions itself so as not to allow any public outcry to gather momentum or turn into an anti-government protest. This includes being willing to take positions at odds with the United States when that helps calm popular outrage at home. The United States understands this and has not allowed occasional differences to disrupt the mutually beneficial relationship.

Economically, almost everyone has some criticism to levy at Egypt's cautious decision making. The recent exchange-rate stabilization measures seem to be the latest target of concern. But other areas such as the lack of transparency and reliable statistics, corruption and bureaucratic inertia, a haphazard income-tax system, and governmental arrears to public and private-sector enterprises attract criticism. Red tape, imperial customs officials and poorly disguised local preference inhibit foreign investment. Yet in the past decade over which I've observed Egypt's gradual and halting economic reform program, the overall result has been far more positive than negative. Macroeconomic fundamentals like inflation and budgetary deficits have not gotten out of hand. Some privatization and some liberalization have resulted in the private sector's now producing 70 percent of GDP. Important new legislation on intellectual property protection and a private mortgage law are now before the National Assembly. We can expect continuation of this same cautious approach in the future, with rising tourism, Suez Canal receipts and gas exports brightening the picture and buffering poor performance in other sectors.

Turning to Egypt's most important international relationship, that with the United States: What can we expect in the years ahead? Since the early days of Sadat's cultivation of Henry Kissinger and Camp David I, Egyptian-American relations have both broadened and matured. They are no longer solely derivative of the Middle East peace process, though Arab-Israeli peace remains an important U.S. regional objective, but are viewed as important in their own right and multidimensional in character.

The strategic nature of the U.S.-Egyptian partnership is well recognized by American leaders. The two nations have a solid record of cooperation in ensuring the security and stability of the Gulf region. After Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in 1990, President Mubarak's leadership brought a majority of Arab nations into the international coalition. At the beginning of the crisis, Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney asked President Mubarak's permission to send a nuclear carrier task force through the Suez Canal from the Mediterranean to the Gulf. President Mubarak authorized the transit immediately. Egypt's armed forces were second in number only to those of the United States in the Desert Storm campaign to liberate Kuwait and restore its sovereignty. On repeated occasions since then, Egypt has supported overflights and sea transits across its territory for U.S. ships and aircraft. Egyptian and American forces regularly conduct joint exercises, and Egypt supports the Gulf states politically through the "GCC-plus-two" framework. The Bush team of Cheney, Powell and Rumsfeld is particularly attuned to this strategic relationship. They may grumble about Egypt's recent call for a lifting of the embargo on Iraq and its signing of a free-trade agreement with Baghdad, but I do not expect to see any real lessening of security cooperation between the two nations. In fact, planning has already begun for the next Bright Star exercise, which is scheduled to be held in Egypt this coming fall.

With respect to the Middle East peace process, Egypt was the first Arab country to make peace with Israel, and the Egyptian-Israeli treaty remains the cornerstone of the peace process. It is strongly endorsed by the Egyptian armed forces and, even in times of tension, has never been called into doubt. President Mubarak and his government support a just, comprehensive, secure and durable peace between Israel and its Arab neighbors. Egypt's involvement in Palestinian-Israeli negotiations has been a vital ingredient of every Palestinian-Israeli agreement since 1993. The Palestinian leadership from Arafat on down consults regularly with Egypt and relies on Egyptian support. Egyptian leadership has also helped overcome periods of crisis, both in preventing escalation of violence and in restoring a productive negotiating environment. Hosting the latest round of Palestinian-Israeli talks at Taba is a case in point. Mubarak has shrewdly balanced expressions of displeasure with Israel -- such as withdrawing the Egyptian ambassador and refusing to visit Tel Aviv or Jerusalem -- with support for Palestinian moderation, for negotiations and for a comprehensive peace. It seems reasonable to conclude that he will continue to be able to do so.

In the generally expressed U.S. view, Egypt has kept the underlying bargain of the large U.S. assistance program, maintaining its peace treaty and supporting broader negotiations as they ripen. It has also used economic assistance from the United States and Europe reasonably well to conduct a quiet and gradual internal revolution, liberalize its former socialist orientation, promote private-sector growth and improve living standards. It is a major market for U.S. agricultural exports and other goods and services. It is becoming a regional hub for telecommunications and Internet activity in the Middle East, with U.S. and European companies as its major partners. Many Egyptian citizens work in the Gulf countries, and Egypt's economic policies and laws with respect to commerce, investment and intellectual property are frequently copied by other Arab states.

There is also recognition in Washington that global issues of growing importance to the United States will require cooperation with Egypt to be successful in the region. These include (1) dealing with nuclear, chemical and biological proliferation; (2) drug trafficking; (3) international terrorism; and (4) environmental degradation.

Cairo is the cultural capital of the Arab world. Egypt's influence on public opinion and intellectual life throughout the region is enormous. An Egypt friendly to the United States and ruled by a moderate, modernizing and secular government provides an important and influential model throughout the region. By the same token, an Egypt hostile to American policies and presence in the region would have a substantial undermining effect.

President Bush has already telephoned President Mubarak to say he looks forward to close and cooperative relations in the period ahead. When President Mubarak makes his expected visit to Washington in early April, he will work to consolidate this friendship with the administration and the Congress. He will seek and probably obtain continuation of the annual $1.3 billion in military assistance augmented by early disbursement of next year's expected outlays into an interest-bearing account at the Federal Reserve Bank. Economic assistance is expected to decline by $40 million from the $695 million Fiscal Year 2001 level, a continuation of the ten-year downward glide path to a new base level of $400 million, tacitly agreed upon with the Congress. The supplemental assistance of $225 million requested by President Clinton for Egypt last fall as part of the Middle East Emergency Supplemental is not likely to be approved. President Mubarak will also ask President Bush's support for negotiation of a free-trade agreement with the United States. An eventual positive answer is likely, but the negotiations will prove arduous, as Egypt has not yet adopted many of the reforms that underlay Jordan's successful negotiation of a free-trade agreement last year.

The relationship between Egypt and the United States is more mature and multidimensional than in past decades. Differences frequently arise and cause momentary tensions to flare up, such as the EgyptAir crash investigation, the al-Kusheh incidents [of Copt-Muslim tension], Saad ed-Din Ibrahim's arrest and trial and, most recently, the free-trade agreement with Iraq. Both governments, however, have become adept at treating such differences within the context of a positive relationship and not allowing any of them to assume an exaggerated importance. This is likely to continue to be the case, even in the new, old Middle East that continues to capture the world's attention and top billing on Washington's foreign-policy agenda.

DR. TELHAMI: Looking at some very realistic scenarios, such as conflict on the policy toward Iraq, tension on the Palestinian-Israeli front, wouldn't you expect that Congress would be pushing in a different direction? Egypt may be on the defensive on a number of issues, like human rights and the peace process.

AMB. PELLETREAU: Congress has come to expect that Egypt isn't always going to agree with the United States, but that it will give the United States a realistic and honest appreciation of policies from the region. Overall, that is going to be accepted and appreciated, although the hard questions are all going to be asked. President Mubarak is going to have to be prepared to give answers to those hard questions. But he has always been personally popular on the Hill, and I expect that his visit in April is going to be, overall, a very positive reinforcement of U.S.-Egyptian relations.

Q: What's behind the demotion or promotion of Amre Moussa to secretary-general of the Arab League, and who's going to be the next foreign minister?

DR. SAID ALY: The list is long, but the new foreign minister will come from the senior ambassadors at the Foreign Ministry. Most of them are experienced diplomats, people like Mahmoud Fawzi, like Esmat Abdel Magid. And there are the politically charged personalities such as Amre Moussa, Mahmoud Riad, Ismail Fahmy.

The next man will be much more traditional, much more technical. The reason for Amre Moussa's removal is the dilemma regarding the Arab League. Ismat Abdel Meguid stayed for too long, he's around 80. There were all of a sudden plenty of candidates, well-known personalities like Mohsin Al-Aini from Yemen, Salim Al-Hoss from Lebanon, Prince Hassan from Jordan. So you needed a strong, popular personality, that other Arab countries will get along with. And that's exactly what happened. Once Amre Moussa was nominated, the rest withdrew their nominations.

Q: You mentioned the Saad Ibrahim case. What is its potential to cause serious problems in U.S.-Egyptian relations? If he should actually be sentenced to jail, how will that affect the broader picture?

DR. SAID ALY: Over-politicizing the issue might cause the issue to become a controlling variable in Egyptian-American relations. I don't think this will be the case, although human rights and democratization are always part of American bilateral relations. But they were never the defining factor in any relationship. So I disagree with the evaluation of the position of the case. The case is basically a legal one and is still before the court. And I trust the Egyptian court system; I think it will free Saad. It's better for Saad, and for those of us who believe in many of the things that Saad believes in -- peace, economic liberalization, political reform -- that he be acquitted on a legal basis.

This is what the case is all about, not political pressure. I'm afraid not all quarters were really sincere about not over-politicizing the case. The over-politicization was started by the enemies of all these ideas in Egypt, who went in for all kinds of smearing and character assassination. Then came the international reaction. It will be a defeat for Egypt if people can say that anyone who has a legal case that he doesn't like for one reason or another, it is because of politics. I trust the legal system, and I trust Saad.

Q: Could both speak to the issue of U.S.-Egyptian relations and the role that liberalization and democratization should play in that dialogue. Ambassador Pelletreau talked about economic liberalization and the progress that Egypt has made, but especially over the past six months, Egypt, our strongest ally in the region outside of Israel, has been weaker than we might like in supporting the American position on the Arab-Israeli peace process because the opinion on the street is quite different from the position of the government. How can we cultivate democratization and maintain stability in Egypt at the same time in a way that supports American policies in the region?

AMB. PELLETREAU: There are limits on the extent to which the United States is going to push Egypt to take measures that are outside its own cultural and societal norms, as much as the United States supports democratization in many places in the world. Egypt is a country that has a longstanding record of friendship with the United States. President Mubarak has overall a very positive record in his own country's history of not only economic development but wise political leadership. The United States is going to be rather cautious about what reforms it really pushes in the political field.

DR. SAID ALY: Egypt is a very complex society. We did a poll at Al-Ahram Center in September, and we repeated it again in January. The public definitely said that peace is good for Egypt -- 65 to 70 percent. We have political factions in Egypt that are Islamist or Nasserite, who are against peace altogether. But to say this is "the street" is an exaggeration. Certain things that were done by the Israelis in Jerusalem outraged people in the United States and other places -- Sharon's visit and what came out of it. There is a faction of Egyptian politics that is anti-peace, anti-West, but it's not the majority. As usual, with all ideological factions, their business is talking, and modern communications give them a loud voice. If I say today, "Let's slaughter the Israelis," that will be picked up by everybody. But if I say, "We have a good relationship with them," it will not be published.

Egypt has an opposition, people with ideological views. We have remnants of the past and we have people looking at the future. Egypt should not only be measured by its relationship with Israel. I looked before I came here at the CIA web site on Egypt, and I found that in defining the geographical position of Egypt, they said that Egypt is neighboring Israel. Sudan and Libya were not mentioned.

Part of my interpretation of the occasional tensions in the U.S.-Egypt relationship stems from a kind of over-simplification. The first Ph.D. dissertation done in Egypt on the U.S. political system was done only last year on the American Congress and how it functions. But it is shocking, even, how some very important places like the CIA or the State Department regard Egypt. Much of what one reads is inaccurate. In the congressional testimony of George Tenet, CIA director, on February 7, he reiterates some of the findings of a report of the CIA on the world and the Middle East. Countries, including Egypt, Jordan and others, will either change fast, and have social collapse and revolution, or will not change at all and will decay and collapse, in any case. So a friendly country is presented to the Senate Intelligence Committee as people for whom there's no other option than decay or collapse. People there cannot do anything differently or better. I'm not saying there are bad intentions, but there is the subtext that Egypt is responsible for 25 years of mutual failure. This has been a period of very serious business regarding the Cold War, the post-Cold War period, and the security of the Gulf.

AMB. PELLETREAU: This indicates a real need to develop some greater academic expertise, not only in each society about the other, but about the relationship between the two.

Q: I'd like to ask about Egypt's policy toward Israel in the context of a Sharon government. We had one model five years ago, when Netanyahu got elected. Within a month of the election, there was an Arab League meeting in which certain markers were laid down. Two months after the election Bibi, went to Cairo and was welcomed by Mubarak as, "somebody I can do business with." Certain promises were exchanged. He gave him his stamp of approval for a few months. Then, several months later, when things didn't turn out the way he had expected, it was "shock, shock." He was insulted for months. Now, in 2001, we already have a much worse base line than we had in '96. An Arab League meeting is scheduled for the end of the month. I assume that Mubarak will invite Sharon, because that's what Egyptian presidents do, for at least an hour of chat. But once that is over with, what will be the tenor of the relationship? Where can it go, and what can the two parties do with each other and for each other, especially in the Washington context?

DR. SAID ALY: It's not my way of looking at it, but in Egypt, they decided not to look at Sharon's history, but at Sharon now in the year 2001. We don't know what's really on the table. Israel had an election. One party failed, and another succeeded. They are coming together in a government. So Egypt will be looking at the following: Number one, not to have hysteria in the region because of the election of Sharon. Second, to give Sharon a chance, as we did to Netanyahu. Third, to keep the Arabs on the side of having peace in the region. This is the so-called "strategic option" of the Arab countries. Fourth, to look for serious negotiations, not acrobatics or a show of negotiations that does not contain a real substance.

The latter will depend very much on the platform of the new Israeli government. If Mr. Sharon came to Egypt with his election platform, I don't think he would find many to listen after that first meeting. It is crucial not to allow further radicalization of the region. Radicals flourish with the failure of the peace process. And if we get something that's a bad deal or even looks like a bad deal, we further radicalize the region. If Sharon builds on the progress that took place already, I think he will have wholehearted Egyptian support. The selection of Peres and other Labor people in the Israeli government is a sign that we will not get stuck with Sharon's basic election line. We will get something better to work on.

Q: I sincerely hope that we have a new Sharon and that you will encounter him. But I've dealt with the old Sharon and remain skeptical. If the pessimists are right and the intifada burns brighter and there is no peace process, I think it's fair to assume that the situation will adversely affect Egypt's relationship with the United States, so long as Egypt is fully in support of Arafat's position. How do you think the Egyptian establishment will react if six months from now you've got a low-grade civil war, guerrilla warfare, economic collapse and the U.S. Congress and perhaps the administration believing that Sharon is more right than wrong because the provocations are coming from Arafat or his people? How do you think Egypt would respond to that scenario?

DR. SAID ALY: Egypt will try in these six months to prevent that from happening. Egypt believes that our relationship with the United States goes along a spectrum that's much larger than the peace process. On many occasions we had serious differences with Washington over it. But I think both parties, even at the worst moment of difference, realized that each side would have a role someday down the road, when things change. So when the United States, for domestic reasons, pulls back from the process, even before the EU is asked to fill the vacuum, Egypt will assist, as it did after Camp David, from mid-August to mid-September. After the Clinton plan it was easier. There is an understanding of this. I think Egypt will try to contain serious differences on that issue.

Egypt will not go to war with Israel unless Egyptian territory is directly attacked. It will use diplomatic, political and economic means to show displeasure. Military means are out of the question. There was a bit of displeasure in Egypt when some highly responsible members of the Knesset and from Sharon's staff talked about attacking Egypt. When nuts on our side say something like that, they get quite a reprimand from the United States. One of the things that we are not happy with is the American response to that kind of statement. We expect that we both must cooperate in the coming period as much as we can, to lower the level of inflammatory talk. If you read all that the president and his closest associates have said on TV and interviews, they are quite moderate.

Q: You talked about Sharon and mentioned "having something better to work with" in the future. Given the Palestinian rejection of whatever outline Barak and President Clinton offered at Camp David, what are the specifications for "better"?

DR. SAID ALY: I differ, by the way, on the generosity of the American offer. It was not that generous an offer. It was an offer that was not defined. You've got to get into how the Palestinians perceive agreements with Israel, having a record of seven years of problems with negotiations. So we have an offer that was not enough for the Palestinians, in the Clinton plan and at Taba. I found that not only are problems well-defined now, but also bridgeable, if good intentions are there. As we have learned from the Israelis, sometimes a new government likes to call things by a different name. For instance, we thought Barak when he came to power would build on Wye River, which was signed by Netanyahu. But for some reason, Mr. Barak decided that he would not implement Wye River. He needed another agreement, which took three or four months to renegotiate and which resulted in something very similar to it at the end. Mr. Sharon doesn't like the "Taba negotiations" and prefers to reformulate it.

Q: What would be better than what we understand to be the Barak or the Clinton outline for an agreement?

DR. SAID ALY: As you said, it is an outline. The devil is in the details. The Palestinians agree with the terms. The issue is maps and timetables and the locations of security forces. What is their authority? The lesson that the Palestinians got from the interim agreement and its implementation is that you need negotiations along the road of implementation, and the powerful party usually gets its way. The interim agreement would bring the Palestinians to 90 percent of the territory, except where the settlements are located and Israeli security forces and Jerusalem. It brought them only to 40 percent, between Area A, which is only 18 percent, and Area B, which is the rest of the 40 percent. This was a completely different interpretation of what the Palestinians thought Oslo was about, not to mention the whole issue of the continuation of settlements during the same period. The Palestinians are not doing wrong by asking detailed questions about the maps and where the water will be and how they will make electricity.

Second, one document signed at Taba said that violence should stay away from the water system of the West Bank and Israel. That's something both sides can expand to include electricity, food supplies, medicine and other issues that people together can work on in order to contain the confrontation rather than end it totally or allow it to explode into a conflagration.

Q: I want to return to the U.S.-Egyptian relationship, which seems to me to be very deep, but not very broad. It seems not even to be widely shared in either of the governments. You may not talk about the Egyptian street, but many Egyptians feel that the United States doesn't really have Egyptian interests at heart in the Middle East. Americans look at Egypt and say, "Look, it's an authoritarian regime." Even people who support Israel aren't very grateful to Egypt for it's role in the Arab-Israeli peace process at this point. What would your strategy be for getting academics involved? What's the strategy to broaden this relationship, which seems to me to be on extraordinarily shaky footing right now in both societies? What should the United States be doing in Egypt, and what should Egypt be doing in the United States?

DR. SAID ALY: I'm not here to make strategy. Let us look at the relationship between the United States and, say, Italy, one of the NATO allies. How can we build a relationship, not exactly on the NATO level, but close to it? It is built through different means that become a target of the leaders, so that the relationship is not just related to crisis moments and official visits. It is part of a broader concept. Even on the official level, the concept is not there. That's one of the things I called for on the strategic level. Sometimes we find many of the misunderstandings related to Africa. Egypt has a role, the United States has a role, and Egyptians find that the Americans are trying to nudge them away from the Sudan. Then you go down to the business sector and academia. A country like the United States has all the allies in the world. The other country is the one that will grow when it has a better political system, when it has a better economic system. When it's growing by 10 or 15 percent, then I think the Americans will get very interested in it.

So the elements of what I call "geoeconomics" will revitalize the geopolitics of the relationship and give it more meaning. But it's not up to the United States. It is up to us, Egypt. What we ask of the United States is only one thing: to put us on a par with other countries in the region. We find that definitions of democracy and human rights are not straightforward in all cases. Bonding will happen when we have very extensive trade and investments. That will cement the relationship far beyond the geopolitical envelope.

AMB. PELLETREAU: We shouldn't try to push the broadening faster than the natural condition in each society allows. I think there's room now for broader academic involvement, particularly in Egypt. There are beginning to be calls for American-studies programs in Egypt that didn't exist before. I think there's a broadening acquaintanceship with Egypt in the American business sector as trade becomes greater and aid is reduced in proportion to trade. I was recently reading some statistics on the greater Houston area and was pleasantly surprised to read that 186 companies around Houston have some sort of trade relationship with Egypt. It is growing at the grass roots. And the friends of Egypt would like to see it grow faster. But I think there's a natural pace and a natural limit to what we can expect, and that should be recognized on both sides.

Q: Egypt has to invest in the relationship with the United States. This is very competitive. Other countries are doing things to get their attention. Investment and trade are not going to just happen. Somebody has to promote them, work on them, advertise them. But there are other things. For example, last year, eight congressional staff delegations went to visit Morocco for a week. Yemen had three. Egypt had one. Congressional staffers are very important for broadening and understanding what goes on in the official relationship. Egypt needs to promote itself better. When other heads of state come to the United States, they visit other cities. They don't stay in Washington. They go to Chicago, Houston, San Francisco to promote their countries. Some countries even have a "Minister of the Month" program where every month the oil minister, the education minister, the trade minister come and there's a constant flow and reminder of the relationship.

Q: Why do you think that Egyptian-American relations aren't going to get substantially worse in the near to medium term? If you assume that the temperature in the region is going to rise on the Arab-Israeli side and on the Gulf side, as it probably will, it seems to me that Egyptians are in a real dilemma. If they do the diplomatic thing and prove to be ineffectual, their status is downgraded in American eyes. If they succumb to political pressure both from the Arab-Israeli side and from the Gulf-Iraq side, they become obnoxious to American opinion. I think the Egyptian-American relation is broad but not very deep. And I think if you have a worsening radicalization of the situation, the Egyptians will find that they don't exert the kind of calming, moderating influence in the region that they would like to think they do and that we would like to think they do, and it leaves them in a very tough position.

Q: Factoring in the Saad Ibrahim case and the congressional threat to cut off aid to Egypt because of their bad human-rights record, would the Egyptian president perhaps when he visits the Capitol here in April use that as sort of an inoculation to say, "Look, Israel, too, violates human rights, and you're not cutting off their aid. Maybe we have human-rights problems, as well, but that's no reason to lessen the relationship with Egypt."

DR. SAID ALY: I agree that we are not doing enough, but why are we not doing at least as well as other similar countries? Probably we don't know the craft yet, but there is something wrong with the whole situation. One important thing is that Egypt's foreign policy as studied in schools has three circles -- the Arab circle, the African circle and the Islamic circle. I wrote recently that we have an American circle and a European circle. The United States is not far away anymore. Its aircraft carriers are around, its satellites are above. That's got to sink into our foreign-policy and security establishment.

Things could get worse. I can't exclude that. But look at how we have handled things in the last 26 years, for instance, when we witnessed a very bad situation from Sharon himself in the Lebanese war, and the intifada for seven years, and the ups and downs in the peace process. So the relationship can stand the coming storm. Our heart's getting weaker, and we might mess things up more than we did before, but we are much more mature now. And we understand the danger of the Arab-Israeli conflict in radicalizing the region, and we will work to prevent that from happening. It was very embarrassing for Egypt, but it went along with the United States because it was important at the time in March 1996, when Egypt held the Sharm el-Sheikh anti-terrorist peacemaking summit. To get 14 Arab states and the United States and Russia and to get 30 states total -- only the United States and Egypt can do such a thing. Suicide bombings were going on, the situation was deteriorating badly, and you put a stop to it. It was not an easy time, but it was done. The summit helped. It gave some confidence to Israeli society that there is a limit and that people are not in agreement with terror. So even in this worst moment, both countries were capable of meeting with each other.

President Mubarak has never come into a meeting with an American president and asked him how much aid he was going to give us. It's going to be about the peace process and other things. I'm not sure he will ask why the United States talks about human rights with us and not with Israel. He will take note of it, but that will be left for aides.

Q: As the Egyptian government approaches the new U.S. administration, what should take more priority, trying to revive momentum in the peace process or trying to build the bilateral relationship, particularly the economic dimension?

DR. SAID ALY: I think bilateral and regional are linked. But both sides realize that without a regional settlement, Egypt cannot go too far. Nobody invests in a country; they invest in a region. And tourism is very vital to us and is highly sensitive to developments in Palestine and Israel.

AMB. PELLETREAU: The United States is already positioning itself for a difficult time in Arab-Israeli relations. And U.S. relations with a Sharon government are not going to be as close as they were with other Israeli governments. Nor, frankly, is Prime Minister Sharon as committed to close relations with the United States as other Israeli prime ministers have been. The stage is set for a broad level of understanding between Egypt and the United States on basic strategic issues with respect to the region. I do not expect Egypt to change its basic position on support for ending the violence or in standing ready to assist in improving the atmosphere where it's possible. This doesn't mean there's going to be instantaneous success. I don't expect the United States to set impossible limits or impossible objectives for what it expects of Egyptian foreign policy.

So something is going to have to get very badly out of whack for the relationship really to suffer. This is a relationship that has grown both in breadth and in depth, and the basic principles and foundations for a continuation of a productive relationship have already begun to be established between the Bush administration and the Egyptian government. I would expect that to be the prevailing trend over the coming admittedly difficult period.