Cook, a senior fellow for Middle Eastern studies at the Council on
Foreign Relations, said U.S. attempts to change the regime of Egyptian
President Hosni Mubarak have failed. The report cited the attempt by the
Bush administration to press Mubarak to introduce democratic reforms.
The Defense Department has opposed U.S. attempts to reform Egypt.
The report said the Pentagon supports accepting Egypt as an authoritarian
country that could be relied upon to help U.S. interests in the Middle East.
"Finally, the third stream of thought, an emerging one, is that we
have to right-size this relationship, that times have changed, the U.S.
has changed, Egypt has changed, and the region has changed, that we have
no shared projects, that we need to step back from this relationship, and
that Egypt should be treated like other important countries around the
world," the report said. "But there is no compelling reason to have a
strategic relationship with Egypt, or for Egypt to be the second largest
recipient of our foreign aid."
"In fact, a healthy bit of distance between the U.S. and Egypt, by this
thinking, may actually be better for both parties, as well as for the
relationship," the report said.
The report said Egypt, which received $70 billion in U.S. aid since
1980, has been looking for a strategic alternative to Washington. At this
point, Mubarak
has not found a suitable replacement.
"For now, Egypt maintains that it has no alternative to the United
States yet," the report said. "But they will likely continue to look for
another strategic partner to provide them the largesse
that at a minimum will help them to survive and muddle through their
historic tribulations."
