Has Egypt Cut a Deal with al-Qaeda?
Has Egypt, America’s strongest "ally” in the Arab world, cut a
deal with al-Qaeda?
A report in October’s Atlantic Monthly suggests that the Mubarak government
may have done just that – and for that reason has been removed from bin Laden’s
hit list.
As America focuses on Iraq, and growing instability in Iran and Saudi Arabia,
perhaps Egypt could turn into America’s worst nightmare.
In the Atlantic’s cover story, "Pharaohs-In-Waiting,” the magazine reveals
that Egypt could be ripe for revolution.
Worrisome is the shaky hold on power of Egypt’s two-decade old leader Hosni
Mubarak.
Egypt’s role in the Middle East can never be underestimated.
Its population of 70 million contains one quarter of the Arab world, and
Cairo remains its political and cultural vortex.
Mubarak is not so much an innovator as a survivor. He has survived several
assassinations, but is so afraid of a successor that the job of vice president
has remained vacant since he left the post when Sadat died.
Meanwhile, Mubarak’s regime has been buffeted by growing calls for democracy
among the young and elites, and on the right, by religious extremists.
Mary Anne Weaver writes in The Atlantic Monthly that on a recent visit to
Cairo she discovered how far Egypt has gone.
"I was struck more than ever by how Islamic the city has become. Large
numbers of women now wear headscarves or hijabs; some wear veils. Many men sport
full Islamic beards.”
The Egyptian government seems to have gotten the message about the growing
Islamic force.
The Atlantic reports that the government controlled Egyptian press is fueling
anti-Semitic and anti-American thinking.
Mubarak has also distanced himself from America and her policies, despite the
fact Egypt receives more foreign aid than any other country except Israel -- $2
billion a year.
He criticized America’s invasion of Iraq and suggested it would create a
hundred bin Ladens.
Mubarak has also worried Egypt’s elites.
With no successor, his son, Gamal Mubarak, a 40-year-old businessman, is
being groomed for the president’s position.
Meanwhile, Egypt’s powerful generals, the Atlantic reports, "are not
pleased.”
Mubarak’s game plan may be to appease the growing Islamic fundamentalism at
the expense of the United States.
This year, as a gesture of good will, Mubarak freed 861 Islamic radicals held
prisoner -- of the more than 15,000 Islamacists detained in Egyptian prisons.
Interestingly, the magazine also notes that Osama bin Laden’s right hand man,
the Egyptian-born Al Zawahiri, issued a message recently that called on
continuous attacks on Americans throughout the Arab world.
But, he made clear bin Laden’s followers should make no attacks against
Americans in Egypt.
Another coincidence: in one of bin Laden’s recent TV broadcasts made over Al
Jazeera, bin Laden "called on Muslims around the world to repel the US invasion
of Iraq. As he had sometimes done before, he cited a number of countries whose
regimes should be overthrown. Egypt had usually been on the list. This time, it
was not.”
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