Decoding Egypt’s anti-US rhetoric
Financial Times
By Heba Saleh and Geoff Dyer

The ousted regime of Hosni Mubarak often invoked foreign conspiracies to justify crackdowns on critics. He is no longer president, but the practice appears to live on.

In recent days, state media and officials have accused the US of a conspiracy to “hijack its revolution”, “sow sectarian strife” and break up the country.
 
Under attack from ever shriller allegations in Cairo, Washington is threatening to cut its $1.55bn a year of mostly military aid in retaliation at a crackdown on US non-profit groups promoting democracy that has left 19 of its citizens facing criminal proceedings in Egypt.
 
Cairo’s apparent readiness to risk US aid, the continuing flood of inflammatory rhetoric against a key ally and the decision to prosecute groups that have worked openly in Egypt for years have perplexed diplomats and observers.
 
Whether by accident or design, the accusations have wreaked discord between Egypt and the US at a time when Cairo badly needs American assistance to alleviate severe economic hardship. With dwindling foreign currency reserves, Cairo is seeking agreement on an International Monetary Fund facility that it hopes will unblock aid from international donors.
 
On the surface, the campaign against the non-governmental organisation is led by Fayza Aboul Naga, minister for international co-operation who was retained from the Mubarak regime. Mrs Aboul Naga has acc­used the US of pouring millions of dollars into the NGOs in a plot to prevent Egypt from emerging as a “modern democratic state with a strong economy”.

Yet the two US pro-democracy groups that are the focus of her ire, the National Democratic Institute and the International Republican Institute, had both been given permission by Cairo to monitor the rec­ent parliamentary election.
 
Many Egyptian analysts see the dispute as a deliberate attempt to whip up nationalist feeling. The ultraconservative Salafi preacher Sheikh Mohammed Hassan launched a campaign to collect donations to replace US aid. The Muslim Brotherhood, which leads parliament, praised the action against the NGOs, hinting that Egypt could abrogate its peace treaty with Israel because the US aid was part of that deal.
 
“This is just a diversion to distract people from a [difficult and messy] political transition,” said one former Egyptian diplomat. “I don’t think it was intended to develop as a crisis, but if you play with fire you can get burnt. It is a sign that government is in disarray.”
 
Some analysts, however, argue that there is more to the argument than distraction, suggesting that forces in the unreformed security services that underpinned the Mubarak regime could be laying the ground for an attempt to torpedo the country’s political transition.
 
“I am hearing assertions that the military council does not want this fierce [anti-American] campaign,” said Ezzedine Choukri Fishere, a former Egyptian diplomat and an analyst. “This is something that is organised but within a more general situation of chaos ... The army and the council care about the military aid, but not so the security ­services.”
 
Jon Alterman, an Egypt ex­pert at the Center for Strategic and International Stu­dies in Washington, put it more bluntly. “The question is, who is behind this? Is this being done by the military leadership or is it done to weaken the military leadership?”
 
The Muslim Brotherhood, banned and persecuted under Mr Mubarak, has emerged as the biggest party in Egypt’s first freely elected parliament. It is expected to lead a government within the next few months after the military have handed power to an elected president. Although it is not yet certain how much power it will hold, the Brotherhood will be able to wield significant influence, ending the military’s monopoly on government.
 
“They [the military and security] believe the whole revolution was a conspiracy involving the Brotherhood. They are unlikely to hand over the state to the Brotherhood conspirators,” said Mr Fishere, who predicts a power struggle between the Islamists and military.
 
John McCain, the Republican senator, will lead a congressional delegation to Cairo on Monday to discuss the dispute with the ruling military council. Martin Dempsey, the US chief of staff who met the generals in Cairo this week, said he pressed on them the seriousness of the threat to relations with the US.