An Invitation to Ignore Congress

During the tenure of the previous Egyptian president, all apparatuses of state, such as the presidency, the Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Defense, and the Egyptian Embassy in Washington, were used to cooperating with the American Congress in some incomprehensible way. Most of the 535 members of Congress (100 in the Senate and 435 in the House of Representatives) benefited from an official, strange and notable fawning, both in Cairo and Washington.

Congress is naturally the most idiotic of bodies when it comes to Arab issues, especially Egyptian situations; there are some in the House of Representatives who have no knowledge of the world abroad, and some had never traveled outside America before their appointment. Equally, this is the office that is the most representative of and submissive to the interests of the powerful and most influential American lobbies, particularly the Jewish lobby — which supports Israel in all issues related to the Middle East. For this reason, Congress has become the most extravagant office in terms of issuing repeated threats to cut off the military and economic aid supplied to Egypt on an annual basis. For 30 years, Congress has taken a series of rigid stances and has witnessed discussions which, to onlookers, appear more extreme than those of the Knesset itself, when it comes to Egyptian matters.

Unfortunately, the Egyptian state and diplomatic corps has invested most of its material and human resources in failed attempts to win “friends for Egypt in Congress!” In the past, the Egyptian treasury has squandered millions of dollars on lobbying groups and PR companies in order to improve Egypt’s image in Washington, despite the lack of tangible returns on this effort. Equally, the Egyptian Embassy has overwhelmingly focused its efforts, and still does, on the Houses of Congress instead of focusing its resources on universities, research centers and the media.

Cairo used to see meetings between any visitor from Congress and the former President Hosni Mubarak, and all the foreign ministers followed in the President’s wake. At the same time, the circles of power and decision-makers in Washington never expressed any real interest in having a member of the Majlis al-Shaab or the Majlis al-Shura visit the United States. None of them ever met the American president, or even the secretary of state, during their visits.

There was no reduction in the fawning and exaggeration when dealing with just congressional members themselves; it extended to include their aides. Each member of Congress has dozens of aides — some of whom are just 20 years old. Thus, the issue at hand, with regard to different committees in the Senate and the House of Representatives, will reach a number of employees of these committees with their several thousands of aides.

Some of the younger aides whom I met in Washington spoke with astonishment at the magnitude of their reception and the interest and care they met with in Cairo from their hosts, including several important Egyptian officials.

For its part, Congress never left unfulfilled any opportunity, during Hosni Mubarak’s rule and his ouster, to make threats demanding that Egypt behave in a certain way or else it would cut off economic and military aid — from the arrest of Ayman Nour and imprisonment of Dr. Saad Eddin Ibrahim, to the necessity of Egypt securing its border with Israel and stopping all dealings with Hamas, to the necessity of intervening to put a stop to anti-Semitic and anti-Israeli sentiment in the Egyptian press. During SCAF rule [Supreme Council of the Armed Forces], members of Congress debated the necessity of stopping aid the instant that the issue of American organizations working in Egypt exploded at the beginning of this year, as well as that of putting their employees on trial. Then came Congress’ conditions, such as the proviso of transparency and civilian monitoring of the police and army budget as a condition of receiving aid in 2013.

Contrary to the pivotal role that Congress plays in American politics — since the legislative authorities have wide-ranging purview, most important of which is agreeing on the state’s public budget and offering foreign aid — it plays a marginal role regarding strategy and intelligence between Washington and other important capital cities, and Cairo is at the top of the list. It is the White House that plays the principal role in these matters, along with the Department of Defense and intelligence services.

President Obama’s maintaining of the same level of projected aid that Egypt will receive in 2013 ($1.3 billion in military aid and $250 million in economic aid), indicates Washington’s unwillingness to risk its interests in the region by stopping aid to Egypt. This is not limited to Democrat President Obama, but also Republican President George Bush and Democrat Bill Clinton before that. Even the Republicans George Bush, Sr. and Ronald Reagan did not stop aid to Egypt. Joint Chief of Staff General Martin Dempsey warned Congress clearly, expressing his opposition to any cut in military aid to Egypt: “I don’t know where that takes us, to tell you the truth.”

Washington fears losing its Egyptian ally; despite all of Congress’ threats to cut off aid, it has never dared to do so before the revolution, and it certainly wouldn’t dare to afterward. Congress couldn’t absorb the shock results of the first free elections in Egypt’s history, in which political parties with an Islamist bent toward the Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafists won the majority of Parliament, and the leader of the Muslim Brotherhood won the presidential elections.

Today, Congress is aware that it faces a different future in its relationship with Egypt. Egypt’s revolution has succeeded in imposing a new equation in which groups of Egyptians have become the most important players in this new political life. This presents a number of musings on the necessity of changing the nature of the relationship between Congress and the Egyptian state and diplomatic corps, so that in the end this relationship becomes more delicate, and rests on two elected parliaments. Attempts to seek out friends in Congress are a search for a mirage! Egypt’s own key to Congress is found in the picture of the president standing on the steps of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee offices. There is a maxim even among congressional members such as John McCain (Republican, Arizona), Joe Lieberman (Independent, Connecticut) and John Kerry (Republican, Massachusetts), and it emphasizes the importance of Egypt maintaining its “obligations toward Israel” as a condition of passing sentence on Egypt’s actions under the rule of its Brotherhood President, Mohamed Morsi.