Solomon2
BANNED
- Joined
- Dec 12, 2008
- Messages
- 19,475
- Reaction score
- -37
- Country
- Location
MIDDLE EAST NEWS Updated July 11, 2012, 4:24 p.m. ET
Egyptian Leader's Visit Sends Signal to Saudis
By ELLEN KNICKMEYER in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia and MATT BRADLEY in Cairo
Egypt's Mohammed Morsi made the first foreign visit of his presidency to Saudi Arabia in what political observers called an apparent effort to offer assurances about his aims as the most visible symbol of the rise of political Islam in the region.
The visit by Mr. Morsi, who won the presidency as the candidate of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, takes him to a security-minded monarchy wary that homegrown Islamist movements will take encouragement from the political rise of Islamist blocs in countries transformed by Arab Spring uprisings.
Mr. Morsi's choice for his inaugural foreign trip amounts to a sign to the Gulf's rulers that he won't seek to tip the regional power balance toward Iran, the country Saudi Arabia regards as its biggest threat, analysts said.
President Mohamed Morsi walks with Saudi Arabia Crown Prince Salman in July.
Mr. Morsi arrived in the coastal city of Jeddah on Wednesday, and was greeted by Crown Prince Salman bin Abdulaziz al Saud. He later met with King Abdullah, according to the Saudi state news agency.
Saudi leaders have signaled an openness to working with a man who, though he quit the Muslim Brotherhood after his election in June, is seen as a representative of an Islamist movement they hoped never to see in power. "Saudi Arabia will receive President Morsi as president of Egypt. We don't receive him as a representative of Ikhwan," said Abdullah al-Shammri, a Saudi political analyst close to the government, using the Arabic for the Muslim Brotherhood. "Saudi Arabia cares about his practices, his policies. It will not care about his background."
Saudi Arabia and other Gulf monarchies were shaken in February 2011 when street uprisings and a withdrawal of military support toppled Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, who during his three-decade rule suppressed the Islamist blocs that now worry Gulf leaders.
Mr. Morsi and the military leaders who now share power in Egypt need Saudi financial assistance to help pull Egypt out of an economic crisis that followed the uprising that ousted Mr. Mubarak, Egyptian and Saudi officials have said. The Saudis have deposited $1 billion in Egypt's central bank since Mr. Mubarak's overthrow, to aid the country's economy.
But uncertainty remains about whether Gulf rulers can count on Egypt, under Mr. Morsi, as a strategic ally. Many in Egypt expect him to open diplomatic relations with Iran. Egypt is one of only three countries, with the U.S. and Israel, that don't have diplomatic relations with Tehran. Egypt's first post-revolutionary foreign minister, Nabil el-Araby, has already made tentative overtures to Iran.
Mr. Morsi's visit is likely intended to assure the kingdom Egypt will make no deals that weaken Saudi Arabia against Iran or Syria, where Saudi Arabia and some other Gulf states are backing an uprising against President Bashar al-Assad, Saudi and Egyptian experts said.
"Egypt is a very important pillar in Saudi Arabian security," said Abdel Raouf El Reedy, a former Egyptian ambassador to the U.S. "We used to say that there was a golden triangle between Egypt, Syria and Saudi Arabia. Now without Syria, Egypt is in an even more important place."
Mr. Morsi gave an assurance to the Gulf's ruling dynasties on the first day of his presidency, pledging in his inaugural speech that Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood wouldn't seek to "export revolution."
The Muslim Brotherhood, and all other political groups, are banned in Saudi Arabia, although unofficial domestic offshoots of the Brotherhood and other Islamist movements have significant popular support. The late Saudi Crown Prince Nayef once declared "our problems, all of them, came from the direction of the Muslim Brotherhood."
Mr. Mubarak had banned the Brotherhood in Egypt as well, sharing the fears of the Arab world's unelected leaders that Islamist movements would build on popular appeal to take political power. The Arab Spring uprisings heightened Gulf monarchs' fears. Dubai Police Chief Dhahi Khalfane warned in March that the Muslim Brotherhood movement was plotting "regime change" in the Gulf.
The Muslim Brotherhood's experiment with moderate Islamist democracy in Egypt will challenge the supremacy of Saudi Arabia, the home of Islam's holiest shrines, in the eyes of many Muslims, said Ezz El Din Fishere, a professor of political science at the American University in Cairo. "That might inspire other people in Saudi Arabia to emulate," he said.
Jamal Khashoggi, a journalist and political commentator in Saudi Arabia, said that isn't likely. Domestic sympathizers with the Brotherhood "are smarter than that. They know that what happened in Egypt won't happen in Saudi Arabia," he said.
Saudi King Abdullah sped up hundreds of billions of dollars in spending, from bonuses for government workers to infrastructure projects, to soothe the mood at home as uprisings erupted elsewhere in the Arab world. But the king has taken no steps to share power with the public in the royal family's top-down monarchy.
Saudi Arabia also led Gulf security forces in helping Bahrain's Sunni rulers stifle an uprising by that country's Shiite majority.
Mr. Morsi's visit to Saudi Arabia comes at a crucial moment as he sets the tone of his infant presidency. Humbled by a military regime that has jealously guarded its own power with the help of trenchant anti-Islamist opposition, Mr. Morsi could gain credibility at home, less than two weeks since his election, by striking a statesmanlike posture.
Mr. Morsi is in the midst of a legal battle with the country's judges, who are widely thought to enjoy the military's backing, over the legality of the country's Islamist-majority Parliament. In a statement Wednesday, Mr. Morsi said he hoped to negotiate with other arms of government—an apparent climb-down from his decision on Sunday to reconvene the Parliament the military dissolved last month.
In Saudi Arabia, Mr. Morsi was to perform umrah, an Islamic pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia's holy city of Mecca, on Thursday before returning to Egypt.
*
Solomon2 note: Egypt is populous and poor while Saudi Arabia is rich with a scanty population. Is there any doubt that if not for mighty little Israel the House of Saud would serve as mere scum on the bottom of Egypt's shoe, as its ancestors did under the Ottomans? A reminder that it is Israel, not any Arab nation, that is the linchpin of regional peace and security in the Middle East.
Egyptian Leader's Visit Sends Signal to Saudis
By ELLEN KNICKMEYER in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia and MATT BRADLEY in Cairo
Egypt's Mohammed Morsi made the first foreign visit of his presidency to Saudi Arabia in what political observers called an apparent effort to offer assurances about his aims as the most visible symbol of the rise of political Islam in the region.
The visit by Mr. Morsi, who won the presidency as the candidate of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, takes him to a security-minded monarchy wary that homegrown Islamist movements will take encouragement from the political rise of Islamist blocs in countries transformed by Arab Spring uprisings.
Mr. Morsi's choice for his inaugural foreign trip amounts to a sign to the Gulf's rulers that he won't seek to tip the regional power balance toward Iran, the country Saudi Arabia regards as its biggest threat, analysts said.
President Mohamed Morsi walks with Saudi Arabia Crown Prince Salman in July.
Mr. Morsi arrived in the coastal city of Jeddah on Wednesday, and was greeted by Crown Prince Salman bin Abdulaziz al Saud. He later met with King Abdullah, according to the Saudi state news agency.
Saudi leaders have signaled an openness to working with a man who, though he quit the Muslim Brotherhood after his election in June, is seen as a representative of an Islamist movement they hoped never to see in power. "Saudi Arabia will receive President Morsi as president of Egypt. We don't receive him as a representative of Ikhwan," said Abdullah al-Shammri, a Saudi political analyst close to the government, using the Arabic for the Muslim Brotherhood. "Saudi Arabia cares about his practices, his policies. It will not care about his background."
Saudi Arabia and other Gulf monarchies were shaken in February 2011 when street uprisings and a withdrawal of military support toppled Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, who during his three-decade rule suppressed the Islamist blocs that now worry Gulf leaders.
Mr. Morsi and the military leaders who now share power in Egypt need Saudi financial assistance to help pull Egypt out of an economic crisis that followed the uprising that ousted Mr. Mubarak, Egyptian and Saudi officials have said. The Saudis have deposited $1 billion in Egypt's central bank since Mr. Mubarak's overthrow, to aid the country's economy.
But uncertainty remains about whether Gulf rulers can count on Egypt, under Mr. Morsi, as a strategic ally. Many in Egypt expect him to open diplomatic relations with Iran. Egypt is one of only three countries, with the U.S. and Israel, that don't have diplomatic relations with Tehran. Egypt's first post-revolutionary foreign minister, Nabil el-Araby, has already made tentative overtures to Iran.
Mr. Morsi's visit is likely intended to assure the kingdom Egypt will make no deals that weaken Saudi Arabia against Iran or Syria, where Saudi Arabia and some other Gulf states are backing an uprising against President Bashar al-Assad, Saudi and Egyptian experts said.
"Egypt is a very important pillar in Saudi Arabian security," said Abdel Raouf El Reedy, a former Egyptian ambassador to the U.S. "We used to say that there was a golden triangle between Egypt, Syria and Saudi Arabia. Now without Syria, Egypt is in an even more important place."
Mr. Morsi gave an assurance to the Gulf's ruling dynasties on the first day of his presidency, pledging in his inaugural speech that Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood wouldn't seek to "export revolution."
The Muslim Brotherhood, and all other political groups, are banned in Saudi Arabia, although unofficial domestic offshoots of the Brotherhood and other Islamist movements have significant popular support. The late Saudi Crown Prince Nayef once declared "our problems, all of them, came from the direction of the Muslim Brotherhood."
Mr. Mubarak had banned the Brotherhood in Egypt as well, sharing the fears of the Arab world's unelected leaders that Islamist movements would build on popular appeal to take political power. The Arab Spring uprisings heightened Gulf monarchs' fears. Dubai Police Chief Dhahi Khalfane warned in March that the Muslim Brotherhood movement was plotting "regime change" in the Gulf.
The Muslim Brotherhood's experiment with moderate Islamist democracy in Egypt will challenge the supremacy of Saudi Arabia, the home of Islam's holiest shrines, in the eyes of many Muslims, said Ezz El Din Fishere, a professor of political science at the American University in Cairo. "That might inspire other people in Saudi Arabia to emulate," he said.
Jamal Khashoggi, a journalist and political commentator in Saudi Arabia, said that isn't likely. Domestic sympathizers with the Brotherhood "are smarter than that. They know that what happened in Egypt won't happen in Saudi Arabia," he said.
Saudi King Abdullah sped up hundreds of billions of dollars in spending, from bonuses for government workers to infrastructure projects, to soothe the mood at home as uprisings erupted elsewhere in the Arab world. But the king has taken no steps to share power with the public in the royal family's top-down monarchy.
Saudi Arabia also led Gulf security forces in helping Bahrain's Sunni rulers stifle an uprising by that country's Shiite majority.
Mr. Morsi's visit to Saudi Arabia comes at a crucial moment as he sets the tone of his infant presidency. Humbled by a military regime that has jealously guarded its own power with the help of trenchant anti-Islamist opposition, Mr. Morsi could gain credibility at home, less than two weeks since his election, by striking a statesmanlike posture.
Mr. Morsi is in the midst of a legal battle with the country's judges, who are widely thought to enjoy the military's backing, over the legality of the country's Islamist-majority Parliament. In a statement Wednesday, Mr. Morsi said he hoped to negotiate with other arms of government—an apparent climb-down from his decision on Sunday to reconvene the Parliament the military dissolved last month.
In Saudi Arabia, Mr. Morsi was to perform umrah, an Islamic pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia's holy city of Mecca, on Thursday before returning to Egypt.
*
Solomon2 note: Egypt is populous and poor while Saudi Arabia is rich with a scanty population. Is there any doubt that if not for mighty little Israel the House of Saud would serve as mere scum on the bottom of Egypt's shoe, as its ancestors did under the Ottomans? A reminder that it is Israel, not any Arab nation, that is the linchpin of regional peace and security in the Middle East.
