Review of Egypt’s Diplomacy in War, Peace and Transition (By Nabil Fahmy)

 

This book is the autobiography of one of the most skilled politicians in the Arab world. Nabil Fahmy is an Egyptian career diplomat who spent nearly four decades in public service, working in the offices of former President Anwar Sadat and his Vice-President Hosni Mubarak, as well as at Egypt’s permanent missions to the United Nations (both in New York and Geneva), and serving as Egypt’s ambassador to Tokyo and Washington. He was Egypt’s foreign minister from July 2013 to June 2014. After leaving office, he established the School of Global Affairs and Public Policy at the American University in Cairo.

            Having served for nine years as ambassador to Washington, Fahmy sheds great light in the book on both American-Egyptian relations and US mediation efforts in the Middle East peace process. As a senior diplomat, he was a first-hand witness to a number of momentous events in the recent history of US involvement in the Middle East, including Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990, the 1991 Arab-Israeli peace conference in Madrid, the 1993 Palestinian-Israeli Oslo Peace Accords and the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. Throughout the book, Fahmy does not shy away from exhibiting his frustration at failed US endeavors in the Middle East, oscillating between pinning the blame on the incompetence of its leaders and accusing them of political opportunism. For instance, he describes the 2000 Camp David peace summit as “fully a failure of American diplomacy” (94), considers Barack Obama’s response to Egypt’s revolution in 2011 as “an exercise of amateurish diplomacy,” (188) and, overall, determines that the US was not “an honest broker” between the Israelis and the Palestinians (102).  

            Nothing throws more light on the complex ties between a superpower seeking absolute hegemony and a regional power that strives to maintain some foreign policy independence than the title Fahmy picked for his chapter on US-Egypt relations: An Indispensable but Uncomfortable Relationship. Indeed, the book demonstrates that, short of being a classical patron-and-client relationship, the four-decade US-Egypt strategic alliance involved a great deal of push-and-pull and frequent quarrels, controversies and differences of opinion. Fahmy opines that the US “was uncomfortable to find Egypt frequently taking independent positions, particularly on matters related to the Arab-Israeli peace process” (163), and that it was “determined to put a price tag on [Egypt’s] independent streak” (164). Regrettably, he says, American politicians, over the generations, “only viewed Egypt’s regional role through the prism of peace with Israel” (164).

            The book primarily focuses on the workings of Egypt’s diplomacy over the past five decades. As such, it helps readers better understand the diverse features, strategies, negotiating tactics and key figures of Egypt’s foreign policy, the intricate dynamics of its decision-making process, as well as the personality and policy preferences of the man who stayed at Egypt’s helm for three decades (1981- 2011): Hosni Mubarak. Throughout its ten chapters, the book also delves into discussing several major issues in Egypt’s recent history, such as its problematic relations with a former foe, Israel, in the time of peace; Cairo’s efforts to free the Middle East region from weapons of mass destruction; the question of succession to the presidency in Mubarak’s last years in office; and the tumultuous events that engulfed the country in 2013-2014. The section on Egypt’s thorny relations with riparian Nile states in Chapter 6 acquires its timeliness from the current heated dispute between Egypt and Ethiopia over the latter’s construction of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam on the Blue Nile.  

The book, moreover, examines the rough terrain of Arab politics and US engagement in the Middle East, highlighting the author’s behind-the-scenes encounters and conversations with a large number of world leaders, including Bill Clinton, Al Gore, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Yasser Arafat, Yitzhak Rabin, King Hussein of Jordan, and Muammar Gaddafi. Still, readers might infer that the author knows more than he says, and that, probably influenced by his long career in the diplomatic service, he tends to be reserved and reticent in his writing. Indeed, the book frequently veers from discussing the author’s rich personal experience to becoming a rather tedious textbook about the recent history of the Middle East.    

In sum, the book’s insights, perspectives, information and anecdotes make it of use to anyone interested in Middle East politics, international diplomacy and Egyptian history. Its primary value stems from its provision of a great many useful insights into the internal and external dynamics of Egyptian and Middle East politics, especially considering the overall scarcity of memoirs written by Arab politicians in recent years.

 

Nael Shama

* This book review appeared first in the November 2020 issue of the journal International Affairs.

Chapter in New Book on the Relationship between Asia and the Middle East

I am pleased to have contributed to this book with a chapter entitled “The View from Egypt”. The book, which is edited by Valeria Talbot and Ugo Tramballi, was published by the Italian Institute for International Political Studies.

This volume explores the rising political, economic and military ties between major Asian powers, particularly China, Japan, India and South Korea, and countries in the Middle East and North Africa, attempting to assess their nature, significance and implications. You can download a PDF version of the book from this page: https://www.ispionline.it/it/pubblicazione/looking-west-rise-asia-middle-east-27114.

In Search of Balance: Egypt and the Great Powers

 

In his recently-published memoirs, Egypt’s former foreign minister, Nabil Fahmy, painted a clear picture of the prevalent mood inside Egypt’s ruling establishment concerning the country’s stance towards great powers. In the 2000s, he explains, former president Hosni Mubarak and many of his aides “came to believe” that the United States was pushing for a regime change agenda in Egypt. While Mubarak is long gone, Washington’s unsupportive attitude towards the Egyptian government during the events of the Arab Spring consolidated such views among a large number of Egyptian officials and policymakers. Hence, an “extremely widespread” and potent “conspiracy theory” has come to rule the day with regards to Egypt’s international relations. Fahmy was no proponent of this theory, but in a meeting held with senior officials soon after he took on the mantle of minister of foreign affairs in 2013, he put forth what would become the motto of Egyptian foreign policy: “Over-dependence on the United States or any other state is detrimental to our interests”.     

In terms of impact, Egypt’s historic turn to the United States in the aftermath of its 1973 war against Israel was one of the greatest reversals of alliance in the modern history of the Middle East. It paved the way for decades of a deep and multifaceted alliance between the two countries. Since the late 1970s, the US has provided Egypt with at least $80 billion in military and economic aid, cooperated with Cairo in promoting Arab-Israeli peace, combatting terrorism, and evicting Saddam Hussein’s forces from Kuwait. Bilateral cooperation also included significant levels of trade and investment, and biannual military exercises. However, the gradual US retreat from the Middle East over the course of the last decade and rising Egyptian concerns about frequent US denunciations of Cairo’s human rights abuses made the alliance look like it had run its course.

Indeed, seeing US assistance suspended or delayed several times from 2013-17 over its human rights record, Cairo decided to diversify its international allies, heavily engaging with the two rising stars on the stage of world politics: Russia and China. Moscow had upgraded its involvement in the Middle East, propping up Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria and becoming a major player in the Libyan civil conflict. Two months into his presidency, President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi visited Moscow. In the following few years, the value of bilateral trade increased, Egypt purchased billions of dollars’ worth of Russian military hardware (including fighter jets and attack helicopters), a Russian industrial zone in Egypt was created, and the two countries signed a strategic partnership agreement. Moreover, Russia bought a 30% stake in Egypt’s giant Zohr gas field, and it is currently constructing Egypt’s first nuclear power plant, located on the Mediterranean coast, pursuant to a deal to the tune of $25 billion. Politically, the two countries are apprehensive about the specter of radical Islamist movements, and they see eye-to-eye on developments in both Syria and Libya. Of all these spheres of cooperation, the military one seems to be the most crucial for Cairo. It includes not only the purchase of sophisticated jets and weapons systems, but also military drills and efforts to enhance the interoperability of the two armies.

If military ties cemented Egypt’s relations with Russia, it was economic and business considerations that brought Egypt and China closer together. Egypt had taken notice of China’s coming into bloom as an economic superpower, and a political superpower-in-waiting. Keenness about upgrading its ties with Beijing led to an extensive deepening of bilateral relations over the past few years. Sino-Egyptian ties now involve numerous and frequent presidential meetings, vigorous trade, investment and industrial relations, a vibrant joint economic zone in Egypt’s Suez region, broad participation by Chinese companies in the construction of Egypt’s new capital, and plans for a vital Egyptian participation in China’s ambitious Belt and Road Initiative. As a result, China has become Egypt’s main trading partner, surpassing the US, Germany and Italy, Egypt’s traditional business partners. Low levels of military and security cooperation have also been put in place in recent years. 

A defining feature of Egyptian foreign policy over the decades was the congruence between its policy towards superpowers on the one hand and domestic economic policies and political plans on the other. In the 1950s and 1960s, for instance, Nasser’s socialist policies and his quest for regional leadership compelled him to turn to the Soviet bloc. In contrast, Sadat’s  quest in the 1970s for economic development, modernization and peace with Israel dictated closer ties with Western nations, especially the US. 

Today, the picture looks more ambivalent, and the lines have not been clearly drawn. After all, America’s single-superpower moment seems to have passed, but no bipolar or multipolar world structure has yet emerged in its place. Cairo is clearly hedging its bets, wishing to have it all ways: US military aid and diplomatic support, Russian military hardware and Chinese capital. Whether simultaneously courting all parties is a viable policy over the long-run, let alone at what cost, still remains to be seen. President’s al-Sisi’s friendly relationship with US President Donald Trump notwithstanding, the US administration had already threatened to impose sanctions on Egypt if it went ahead with plans to purchase sophisticated fighter jets from Russia. At any rate, if the Democratic candidate Joe Biden makes his way to the White House, Egypt may have to make some hard choices.

 

Nael Shama

* This article appeared first in a dossier titled “Egypt at the Crossroads: Pandemic, Authoritarianism and Geopolitical Aspirations” (Italian Institute for International Political Studies, September 2020).  

Now Available on Amazon and other bookstores

New Book: The World Views of the Obama Era: From Hope to Disillusionment (edited by Matthias Maass).

This book presents selected non-US views of the Barack Obama administration. Each chapter investigates eight years of the Obama presidency from a different national perspective. By bringing together fourteen country studies from all regions of the world, this volume offers an accumulative global view of the Obama White House’s foreign policies and bilateral affairs. It provides an outside perspective on a presidency that was initially greeted with much enthusiasm world-wide, but seemed to fall out of favor over time in most countries. The overwhelming hope that was associated with the election of Obama in 2008 turned to disillusionment world-wide; the changes in US external affairs he promised were only partially fulfilled and the world was reminded that America’s place and role in the world would not change dramatically, not even under the inspirational Obama. The chapter that provides the perspective from Egypt is written by Nael Shama.