Why Does Washington Want To Appoint Ford as Ambassador to Cairo?

From the moment the U.S. Department of State leaked news about its intention to appoint Robert Ford as its ambassador to Cairo, after Anne Patterson leaves the position, Egyptians have reacted angrily to the announcement. Political activists and forces active on the ground have launched a huge campaign condemning the appointment because of the role the aforementioned nominee has played in inciting internal strife in several Arab theaters, most prominently in Syria and Iraq.

Many have considered him the main architect behind all the problems occurring today in the Arab homeland: the divisions within Arab societies and similarly, the disputes between Arab states. His dishonorable history in the face of a number of crises made them [the protestors] condemn the attempt to appoint him in Egypt today, a move intended to provoke more creative chaos and more of the discord that has begun to rear its head into Egyptian skies and foreshadow a dark future that will threaten the country’s national security.

To shed light on this ambassador’s role in the region’s crises and their ignition, we must examine his history and the pivotal locations where he worked. So who is Ford?

His name is Robert Ford, born in 1958. He obtained an M.A. in 1983 from Johns Hopkins University and spent the following 15 years moving between a number of countries: Izmir in Turkey, where the period of his work witnessed rising tension in Turkish-American relations; then Cairo, where he contributed to a greater coordination between U.S. diplomats, Egypt and Israel; then Algeria, where he played an important role in the efforts to distance the country from French influence and convince it to join the war on terror and strengthen its oil connections with America. In Cameroon, he played a major role in consolidating efforts to remove French influence from middle Africa and contributed to managing the conflicts in Sudan’s Darfur region and oil-rich southern Nigeria.

Then, he returned again to Algiers between 1994 and 1997, in the shadow of the violence and terrorism that the country witnessed after the 1992 elections were nullified. From 2001 until 2004, he held the position of deputy chief of the American delegation in Bahrain. Immediately after the U.S. began its occupation of Iraq, while Ford was still in Bahrain, the State Department assigned him to Baghdad, where he continued until 2006. During that period, the U.S. ambassador completely controlled Iraqi political affairs, the scope and severity of U.S. secret operations in Iraq increased — especially the deadly activities of private security companies — sectarian anger between Iraqi politicians and ethnic groups increased, and the frequency of statements from Iraqi politicians and the media, aimed at constructing pretexts against Syria by claiming that it intervenes in Iraqi affairs, increased as well.

In 2010, Ford was appointed ambassador to Syria — a few days after the protests broke out in Tunisia — thereby becoming America’s first ambassador in the country since Washington recalled his predecessor in February 2005. He left his position there after the Geneva Conference. One of the most significant things he did in Syria was step outside of diplomatic customs a number of times by intervening directly in Syria’s internal affairs and inciting this crisis from its early days, wanting to escalate matters and prevent them from returning to their natural state.

Today, the U.S. Department of State is trying to follow the same black course of Ford’s time as ambassador to Syria and Iraq, in Egypt. Even though some analysts and research centers think it unlikely that the U.S. will insist on Ford’s appointment to Cairo, leaks from the State Department confirm that the Obama administration is moving toward this option to accomplish several goals in this delicate stage of Egyptian history.

This first of these goals, according to some experts, is to push Egypt toward more creative chaos and civil war, to weaken it and facilitate complete control of its political decision-making. The Obama administration found no one more suited than Ford to complete this obscene task because he has perfected its nuances.

It was he who, in Algeria, conducted immoral activities, did things that deviate from the principles of diplomatic relations and intervened in everything. In Egypt, he played a significant part in the internal strife between the Copts and Muslims. In Iraq, he brought in the mercenary companies and so-called “security companies” to create internal strife and cause bombings, and in Syria, he intervened blatantly in the crisis and contributed to its escalation until it caused the amount of destruction of country and institutions that we see today.

Georgetown University has named him “the man of hidden missions.”* Here we must not forget to point out that before all that, Ford was an officer in America’s CIA. Then, he was appointed to the State Department and became specialized in Arab issues. Then, he stuck his nose into the minutest details of the Arab world in order to sabotage the relations between the different segments of the Arab people — Iraq is an example. Do we [now] realize why Washington wants to appoint him as ambassador to Egypt?

*Editor's note: Correctly translated, this quote could not be verified.