By Danny Johnson
I do have an unyielding belief that all people yearn for certain things: the ability to speak your mind and have a say in how you are governed; confidence in the rule of law and the equal administration of justice; government that is transparent and doesn’t steal from the people; the freedom to live as you choose. These are not just American ideas; they are human rights. And that is why we will support them everywhere.” President Barack Obama in Cairo, June 4, 2009.
WASHINGTON – After President Barack Obama gave his widely acclaimed speech in Cairo, Egypt on June 4, 2009, influential members of Congress got together and drafted a Senate resolution calling for Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to live up to the principles and values President Obama called for in the Cairo address. First introduced in July 2010, the resolution quickly gained bipartisan support.
In the fall 2010, former U.S. Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI) and Senator John McCain (R-AZ) led the effort to try to move the resolution forward on the floor of the Senate. They were met with fierce resistance from the very people who championed the cause of fair and free election in Egypt – the White House. Opposition to the resolution came from the Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, and from powerful Egyptian lobbyists who exerted their influence and money to effectively kill the resolution.
Senator McCain told the online news blogger, The Cable, on February 1, 2011, that he was disappointed the resolution did not make it to the floor. “It was blocked by members of both sides of the aisle and the administration opposed it too.”
In an interview exclusively with San Diego County News, Feingold stated that the resolution called for election monitors, the release of political prisoners, and respect for human rights. “American foreign policy has always been contradictory at best. On one hand we support Egypt because of its peace treaties with Israel, and the importance of safeguarding the Suez Canal for free-flow shipping; but, on the other hand, we tend to look the other way when there is blatant human rights abuses in the country.”
Feingold is calling for an immediate suspension of the $1.4 billion in American foreign aid to Egypt until President Mubarak is removed from office or he resigns.
According to The Cable, the two U.S. Senators who were most influential in defeating the resolution were Senators Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Roger Wicker (R-MS). Senator Feinstein’s office failed to return this publication’s repeated phone calls to address why she did not support the resolution. Senator Feinstein, who is head of the Senate Intelligence Committee, was reportedly concern that the resolution would jeopardize U.S. Egyptian cooperation on a host of national security related issues.
Senator Wicker opposed the resolution in part because of a long-standing relationship with a top lobbyist, Wicker’s former colleague, Bob Livingston, whose firm was being paid by the government of Egypt.
According to an article in the February 3, 2011 Foreign Policy magazine, Livingston’s firm makes up one-third of the entity known as the PLM Group, a lobbying entity created to advocate on behalf of the Mubarak regime. The article went on to disclose that the firm includes Tony Podesta and former Democratic Congressman Toby Moffett as some of their associates. According to the Washington Post, Mubarak paid PLM over $4 million since 2007. The Post revealed that there was extensive and frequent communications between Senator Wicker and members of the PLM Group to discuss methods in defeating the resolution.
In light of the recent demonstrations in Egypt and the brutal crackdown by the Mubarak regime on the protestors and the media, on February 3, the U.S. Senate passed Senator McCain’s and John Kerry’s (D-MA) sponsored resolution with overwhelming support. The resolution calls for President Mubarak to respect human rights and begin an orderly and peaceful transition.
Enclosed below are summaries of past American presidents involvement with President Mubarak as cited by the February 3, 2011 Foreign Policy Magazine:
U.S. President Jimmy Carter brokered the 1978 peace talks between Israel and Egypt when Hosni Mubarak was President Anwar Sadat’s vice president. (To sweeten the deal, Carter threw in generous U.S. military support to Egypt, setting the terms of the largely military-driven relationship between the two countries that has continued throughout Mubarak’s rule.) Those talks resulted in the 1979 treaty between Egypt and Israel. In addition, while Carter told a reporter on Jan. 30 that he felt he knew “Mubarak quite well,” the former U.S. president also said that the Egyptian president had become “more politically corrupt” than he was during their Camp David days. “The United States wants Mubarak to stay in power,” Carter commented, “but the people have decided.”
The U.S. relationship with Egypt deteriorated in the early 1980s largely because of mutual distrust over relations with Israel. Egypt was angry that Washington failed to put pressure on Israel after it invaded Lebanon in 1982, while the United States complained that Egypt was slow to normalize relations with the Jewish state after the 1979 Camp David Accord. Mubarak visited U.S. President Ronald Reagan at the White House in 1985 in an attempt to rebuild the relationship. After the meeting, Reagan declared that he and Mubarak were “close friends and partners in peace.”
Egypt was a key player in the 1991 Gulf War: President George H.W. Bush had hoped that President Hosni Mubarak could help broker a solution to the border dispute between Iraq and Kuwait. When Iraq invaded, Mubarak assisted in the creation of the international military coalition that ultimately liberated Kuwait, contributing 35,000 Egyptian soldiers, the third-largest force in the coalition after the United States and Britain. Egypt also participated in the 1991 Madrid Conference, which brought together representatives from Israel and its neighboring Arab countries for the first time in order to establish a framework for lasting peace in the region.
Relations were warm in 1999 when U.S. President Bill Clinton deemed Mubarak a “longtime partner in building a safer and more peaceful world,” highlighting the Egyptian president’s role in the Middle East peace process, fighting terrorism, and embracing economic liberalization. In 2009, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, called Mubarak and his wife, Suzanne, “friends of my family.”
After the 9/11 attacks, U.S. President George W. Bush found Egypt an eager and willing ally in the war on terror — and the prospect of increased military aid from Washington certainly didn’t hurt. Mubarak’s government cooperated with the Bush administration in renditioning and interrogating (and allegedly torturing) terrorism suspects. However, Bush’s Middle East Freedom Agenda strained the two leaders’ once-friendly relationship. Mubarak did not support the 2003 intervention in Iraq, though he did offer quick diplomatic recognition to Iraq’s new government after the fall of Saddam Hussein. Mubarak also bristled at the Bush administration’s attempts to promote free democratic elections in Egypt. Things came to a head when the two leaders met at the World Economic Forum in 2008: Bush complained Egypt was not leading by example in Arab state democratization, while Mubarak criticized the U.S. intervention and subsequent imposition of democracy in Iraq.
As the Wiki Leaked U.S. State Department cables show, U.S. President Barack Obama’s administration wanted to maintain a strong relationship with Mubarak. “The tangible benefits to our [military-to-military] relationship are clear,” one cable read. “Egypt remains at peace with Israel, and the U.S. military enjoys priority access to the Suez Canal and Egyptian airspace.” When a reporter described Mubarak as “authoritarian” in a 2009 interview with Obama, the U.S. president objected: “He has been a stalwart ally in many respects, to the United States. … I think he has been a force for stability.” Obama did allow, however, “obviously, there have been criticisms of the manner in which politics operates in Egypt.” After speaking with the embattled Mubarak on Jan. 28, three days after the protests began; Obama said he had told Mubarak he must respond to the crisis with “concrete steps and actions that deliver.”
