U.S. gives Egypt a pass on democracy

CAIRO -- On our first day in this teeming capital, we were walking down the street when a man shouted at us in Arabic, "Bush is a bad man."
Later, in one of our son's classes at the American University, a student sought to discuss why the United States had once more backed Israel in vetoing a U.N. resolution condemning that country's latest attack on Palestinians.
And at the Pyramids, an Egyptian sought to engage our Arabic-speaking son in an argument about Iraq that ended quickly when the two essentially agreed that the war was not a good thing.
For the most part, we found Egyptians friendly to American tourists in this peaceful and stable country in a mercurial and tumultuous region.
But those seemingly random incidents reflected what polls have shown is an underlying concern about American policies in a nation that epitomizes the contradictions -- and the potential complications -- in current U.S. policy.
Spreading democracy
That contradiction is especially evident in regard to the centerpiece of President Bush's policies, his desire to stir a new wave of democracy with Iraq as the prime example for the rest of the region.
For all the president's talk about bringing democracy to the Middle East, and his willingness to risk American lives in the uphill effort to launch it to Iraq, his administration has been sporadic and half-hearted in its criticism of Egypt's continuing anti-democratic tendencies.
It's as if it's a battle the U.S. fears to take on, lest it weaken official Egyptian support for policies that are unpopular with the country's people. A Pew Research Center poll last year showed that only 30 percent of those surveyed in Egypt had a favorable attitude toward U.S. policies. More than half said they regarded U.S. action in Iraq as a great danger to world peace.
That is a significant proportion in a country that has been a consistent U.S. ally, has called itself a republic since its revolution in the 1950s, and holds regular multi-party parliamentary elections.
It was the first of Israel's Arab neighbors to make peace with the Jewish state and, for the ensuing generation, has been one of the principal U.S. supporters in this part of the Arab world, alongside Saudi Arabia and Jordan.
Yet, like the royal families of those two monarchies, its elected leader, five-term President Hosni Mubarak, is preparing to pass political leadership on to a family heir, in this case his son, Gamal.
Some newspapers carry reports of a few modest public protests to governmental policy, such as a current one about its failure to curb sexual harassment, and there were substantial protests after Mubarak's one-sided re-election last year. But current criticism of his policies seems limited, though papers note he has been slow to implement promised reforms.
Indeed, the country's stability is presumably due at least in part to the existence of a visible police and military presence and a sense that any significant protests against the government or its policies will be dealt with promptly.
Candidates barred
The government barred the Muslim Brotherhood, which seeks to make Egypt an Islamic fundamentalist country, from fielding a candidate in last year's presidential election. The leading opposition presidential candidate, Ayman Nour, was jailed three months later on forgery charges.
That drew an official U.S. protest, but, for the most part, American criticism has been muted, presumably because of Mubarak's support for U.S. policies and his willingness to help the United States at crucial moments.
When Bush ordered the 2003 attack on Iraq, for example, the Egyptian president led the Arab world in blaming former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein for precipitating the crisis.
But even though his government continues to benefit from the 3 billion a year in U.S. aid that has poured into Egypt since its rapprochement with Israel, Mubarak has been more critical recently of U.S. policies. In a speech last May, he complained that the United States was meddling in the internal affairs of countries by pushing for democratic reforms.
It was almost as if the Egyptian president was warning Washington that it may ultimately face a choice: It can have support and stability in countries such as Egypt, or it can have greater democratization. But it may not be able to have both.
Carl P. Leubsdorf is Washington bureau chief of the Dallas Morning News. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.