Foreign policy tone may change, not substance

Cairo: Egypt’s foreign policy under its first Islamist president is likely to change in tenor but not substance, at least in the short term, as the new government can ill afford to strain relations with the US or risk international furore by abandoning Egypt’s 1979 peace treaty with Israel. President Mohammad Mursi faces domestic social and financial crises that are expected to eclipse foreign affairs in coming months.

Rhetoric against Tel Aviv and Washington may sharpen, but Mursi, who ran as the Muslim Brotherhood’s candidate, is desperate for Western and regional investment to ease the economic turmoil that has overwhelmed the Arab world’s most populous state.

The new president, who was sworn in to office on Saturday, will be further constrained by the nation’s secular military, which receives $1.3 billion (Dh4.77 billion) annually in US aid. Days before Mursi was elected, the generals, who have controlled the country since Hosni Mubarak’s overthrow early last year, suppressed the powers of the president to counter the rising influence of conservative Islamists.

“There will be no change in the peace treaty with Israel, and strategic relations with the US will continue,” said Emad Gad, a foreign affairs expert with Cairo’s Al Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies.

“Mursi will actually enhance relations with the US. The Muslim Brotherhood’s programme is based on free markets and is liberal when it comes to the economy.”

Still, the new president has made it clear that his approach to the Israelis will be less compliant than that taken during Mubarak’s 30-year rule. “The peace treaty between us and the Israelis has constantly been violated by the Israelis,” Mursi recently told an Egyptian TV channel.

“They must understand that peace is not just words. It is actions on the ground. The aggression on the Egyptian borders, their violence against Egyptian soldiers, and the threats they sometimes made to Egypt are all unacceptable. They should no longer think that the Egyptian president will back down.”

Some regard Mursi’s rise as the foreshadowing of a strident political Islam that will have consequences from Gulf states to Washington. For now, however, it is unclear whether Mursi and the Brotherhood will mirror the diplomatically bold yet religiously moderate policies of Turkey or a more rigid, anti-Western Islam. “For the United States, Mursi’s election, coupled with Osama Bin Laden’s killing a year ago, underscores a shift from the threat of violent Islamist extremism to a new, more complex challenge posed by the empowerment of a currently non-violent but no less ambitious form of Islamist radicalism,” said Robert Satloff, executive director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

Mursi will also quickly confront the sensitivities of his Arab neighbours. He has promised to restore Egypt to its regional prominence after years of decline under Mubarak. That is viewed apprehensively by Saudi Arabia, a close Mubarak ally, and other Gulf Arab states whose international stature has ascended in pivotal dealings with Lebanon, Syria and Iran while Cairo’s has diminished.

“The rebalancing of the political order and the emergence of Egypt would have a huge impact on regional political dynamics, but we are a long way off from that,” said Michael Wahid Hanna, a Middle East expert and a fellow at the Century Foundation, a nonpartisan think tank.

“A stronger, more independent Egypt would be on a course that would both balance and clash with the Saudis’ power.”