Discussion, Discord and New Alliances

"The meeting was intended to send a message to America, which is putting pressure on the Egyptian government, that we should be allowed to have other alliances with anyone we please."
Egyptian official

Guess they haven't learned there are no free lunches.  They're taking that annual endowment from the United States of $1.3-billion, anyway.  And President Mohammed Morsi plans a state visit to the U.S. soon, a place he is quite familiar with, having lived there for years, but not as President of Egypt, merely a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, aspiring to the presidency of Egypt - goodness, mission accomplished.

His mission to the United States which now views Egypt and its administrators as a bit of a tabula rasa as far as friendly relations go, is already a potential brew of conflicting values.  President Morsi has confided in a CNN interview that he plans to plead the case of releasing the Blind Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman, whom an American court found guilty of involvement in the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center.  And sentenced to life imprisonment.

And in keeping with Cairo's new agenda of consolidating power for the Muslim Brotherhood, ensconcing Islamism and Sharia more securely within Egypt, courting new friends and allies trumps trudging along with the old ones that definitely aren't Islamist.  And so the two-day talk between President Morsi's top advisers and Qassam Suleimani, Iran's spy chief fit the bill.

It's already paid off, on a way; although Iran hasn't the lucre to hand a casual, dispensable billion, given the success of the sanctions on the Republic's oil exports.  Another Islamist ally stepped into the breech, with Qatar offering to rescue Cairo's Central Bank through a nice infusion of oil money. Any friend of Iran is a friend of Qatar.  The IMF, after all, as good as snubbed Egypt, withholding the $4-B-plus it has asked for.

Qatar is latterly into the fiscal-rescue business, handing over considerable sums to Hamas, a creature both of Egypt and of Iran, and now Egypt as well.  But the measure of the alliance cannot be funding alone, but rather expertise in spy management. For as The Times of London has revealed, Qassam Suleimani's visit was to assure Essam alHaddad, foreign affairs adviser to Morsi, that Iran is prepared to aid the Muslim Brotherhood in building its own security and intelligence apparatus.

It is most awkward to be sure, but Egypt's national intelligence services, in the control of Egypt's now-waning-influential military has refused to divulge its secrets to the new Muslim Brotherhood-controlled government. Those military cretins, leftovers from the Mubarak regime won't allow the Brotherhood access to their surveillance apparatus.

"The government requested a high-level meeting with Iranian officials, and Iran sent Suleimani", one official with the Brotherhood's guidance council crowed.

Remember when President Morsi attended a Non-Aligned Movement summit in Tehran in May 2012 when he said: "Our solidarity with the struggle of the Syrian people against an oppressive regime that has lost its legitimacy is an ethical duty as it is a political and strategic necessity. We all have to announce our full solidarity with the struggle of those seeking freedom and justice in Syria, and translate this sympathy into a clear political vision that supports a peaceful transition to a democratic system of rule that reflects the demands of the Syrian people for freedom."

Which is when the Syrian delegation walked out. That was then, however.  This is now, as it happens. That honourable declaration of democratic values has been somewhat recanted by succeeding events, which is to say the newer accommodation with Iran.  In exchange for Tehran's assistance, concessions on Syria are now being contemplated by Cairo.

And oh yes, that 19798 peace accord between Israel and Egypt?  Rest assured, all is well for the new government has declared its willingness to honour that accord.  Um, perhaps revise it a little, make a few little changes since the Zionist occupation really is a dishonour to Arab unity and Islamic sovereignty.  And by the by, a senior Brotherhood official expressed his conviction last week that Israel within a decade would no longer exist.