WASHINGTON — The United States has been searching for a viable
alternative to the aging Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.
Next to Israel, Egypt receives the largest amount of U.S. assistance. Israel receives $2.3 billion in U.S. military aid per year.
A House subcommittee last year spared Egypt of cuts in foreign aid for fiscal 2007. Under a bill passed by the House Foreign Operations Subcommittee on May 19, Egypt would receive $1.3 billion in military aid and $400 million in economic aid, the same as current U.S. assistance.
Diplomatic sources said the State Department and U.S. intelligence
community have sought to identify those who could succeed the 78-year-old
Mubarak. Mubarak has been president of Egypt since 1981, the second
longest-serving current leader in the Middle East, Middle East Newsline reported.
"The State Department has been drafting scenarios in which Mubarak
suddenly dies or is incapacitated," a diplomat said. "The question is who
could be promoted to take over."
Despite repeated denials, Mubarak, who for decades refused to appoint a
vice president, has been grooming his son, Gamal, to take over Egypt. Over
the last two years, Gamal has become the most powerful politician in Egypt
and has been sent on secret diplomatic missions by his father, including to
the United States. Both President George Bush and Vice President Richard
Cheney have met Gamal.
Egyptian sociologist Saad Eddin Ibrahim said the State Department has
asked him to identify those who could succeed Mubarak. Ibrahim, regarded as
Egypt's civil rights champion, has presented such names as Prime Minister
Ahmed Nazif and Osama El Ghazali Harb, a former member of the ruling
National Democratic Party.
The diplomatic sources said the State Department search for alternatives
to Mubarak does not signal any erosion of support for his regime. They said
U.S. diplomats have been concerned that any successor of Mubarak would
either be openly anti-American or heavily influenced by the Muslim
Brotherhood.
Over the last year, Mubarak has arrested hundreds of Brotherhood
members. But the Egyptian opposition said the Bush administration, despite
appeals by civil rights activists, refused to threaten Egypt to release the
political prisoners. Egypt receives about $2 billion in annual U.S. aid.
On Dec. 26, Mubarak ordered parliament to revise 34 articles of the
Egyptian constitution. The articles included those that limit the powers of
the president. The proposed reforms, however, did not impose a limit on the
number of presidential terms.
"This article must be amended to allow only two terms for the
president," Wahid Al Oqsori, a member of Egypt's Arab Socialist Party who
ran against Mubarak in 2005, said.