"Even
when the two countries disagree with each other on policy, as we do with
respect to Iraq, there has
never been a question of Egypt's willingness to offer this military
assistance to the U.S."
The U.S. goal, the report said, was to make Egypt strong enough to
withstand Arab isolation and pressure "but not enough to threaten Israel."
Washington sought to ensure that Egyptian military power would make it a
major player in the Middle East.
"Over the next 30 years, U.S. security assistance programs helped Egypt
achieve these goals," the report said. "The Egyptian military is a credible,
well-equipped force, fully interoperable with U.S. forces. Our two
countries, notwithstanding widely-divergent political cultures and a history
of political and policy differences, have managed to find common ground on
three important objectives--peace, economic development, and strategic
relations."
The report, based on Kurtzer's address to the institute on Nov. 20,
cited tensions between Egypt and the United States. They included Egypt's
refusal to normalize relations with Israel and the crackdown by the regime
of President Hosni Mubarak of pro-democracy dissidents.
"During the Bush administration, this issue heated up to a boiling
point, as the administration defined 'transformational change' its phrase
denoting rapid movement toward democracy — as a high priority U.S. foreign
policy objective," the report said.
The report said the succession of Egypt's leadership would likely be
stable. Kurtzer said the United States must seek to avoid disputes with
Egypt.
"First, we must recognize the value to both of us of the intimate
bilateral relationship we have constructed over 30 years — that is, to
avoid as much as possible escalating problems and differences into crises,"
the report said.
