Their Man in Cairo

If the Muslim Brotherhood has failed miserably in managing internal problems, which proved too much for their nascent political abilities and transformed Egypt’s prisons by expanding them, then we must admit that they have achieved an overwhelming success in foreign policy. In fact, they have obtained a higher standing with the Americans and Israelis than Mubarak. Therefore, within a few months of Brotherhood candidate Mohammed Morsi coming to power, Israeli President Shimon Peres described him as a first-class statesman. Furthermore, U.S. President Barack Obama says that he considers him a friend of the United States. This was not a sort of flattery from either of them; it was rather the natural product of an open and clear policy that the Brotherhood has followed with what have been Egypt’s two strategic allies since the era of Anwar Sadat.

Since Mohammed Morsi took the office of president there has been an understanding between Egypt and its allies that they cannot do without each other. To this extent, Morsi gave a speech in which he chose to send his ambassador to Israel and which contained words of praise and descriptions of friendship for the country. This speech undoubtedly reassured the Israeli ally about the policy of the new Egyptian president, who has ties to a women’s group that supports open hostility toward global Zionism and does not recognize the state of Israel.

However, what reassured the Israeli ally during the event in which the Egyptian ambassador presented his credentials was not mere words of friendship, which the Egyptian media denounced, but rather that the Egyptian ambassador presented his credentials for the first time in Jerusalem and not in Tel Aviv, as was also the case with the ambassadors of both Mubarak and Sadat.

Indeed Jerusalem, which Israel claims has become its “eternal” capital, is not internationally recognized as the capital of Israel, not even by the United States, whose embassy remains in Tel Aviv. By presenting the ambassador’s credentials there, the Brotherhood has accepted the tacit recognition of Jerusalem as the primary capital of the Jewish state. This is a turning point that all who criticized the words of friendship in the speech that the Egyptian ambassador carried to the Israeli president did not recognize.

Then came the last Gaza crisis, when the Muslim Brotherhood government in Egypt and its president undertook what Mubarak previously did not, leaving even the Israelis and Americans breathless at the negotiating ability and political sophistication of President Mohammed Morsi and his aides. Since then he has proved to the United States the validity of what it bet during the Egyptian presidential election: The Muslim Brotherhood will better serve American and Zionist interests than any other regime. These words have proved that Israeli skepticism is incorrect. Now all of Egypt’s strategic allies are speaking the same language. They describe President Mohammed Morsi with the same characteristics that usually appeal to Egyptian leaders — descriptions of wisdom, mental composure and political sophistication.

A few days ago the American newspaper the Washington Post published an article about Mohammed Morsi with the candid title “Our Man in Cairo.” (!!!)

Is this not a success for every Egyptian concerned about the interests of his country and the safety of its international relationships with its strategic allies to boast about? Nonetheless, we must remember all that has happened under the less than six-month rule of the Muslim Brotherhood and consider the upcoming years. It is inevitable that these years will see more efforts to serve the interests of these two allies, which will give the Brotherhood a free hand inside the country to antagonize opponents rather than solve citizens’ problems.