for their constant suppression of opposition groups with Islamic background such as the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood. In “the worst period of anti-Brotherhood repression since the 1960s,” according to Hamid, former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice waived a $100 million congressionally mandated reduction of military aid to Egypt. This came after a brief period of democratic opening that started with the year 2005. For the first time, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak agreed to hold multi-candidate presidential elections instead of the uncontested referendums that always garnered him an almost 100% of the votes. Although marred by enormous irregularities and vote rigging, these elections as well as the 2005 parliamentary elections, were considered by many, including Washington, as a notable improvement in the Egyptian political life. However, the success of the Muslim Brotherhood (followed by the election of Hamas in Palestine) ostensibly sent shockwaves through U.S. policy making circles, urging a retreat from democratisation calls that left Arab and Muslim public opinion distrustful of U.S intentions.
67 percent of Egyptians believe that America is playing a “mainly negative” role in the world, while 48 percent believe that “to weaken and divide the Islamic world”
States is aligned with authoritarian regimes at the expense of the people’s interests has resulted in an unprecedented erosion of U.S. credibility in the region, to the extent that the aforementioned worldpublicopinion.org survey showed that 67 percent of Egyptians believe that America is playing a “mainly negative” role in the world, while 48 percent believe that “to weaken and divide the Islamic world” is “definitely” among the goals of America. This requires serious efforts from all sides to repair the situation, since it only nourishes radical extremists and threatens the interests of all parties involved. The first most important step for the U.S. in its democracy promotion efforts is to be realistic. Reaching out to secular liberals alone, as the only hope for advancing democracy in Egypt and other Muslim countries, is no longer feasible. American policy makers and pro-democracy activists are aware that these forces currently hold out little hope for any meaningful reform, with the broadbased support enjoyed by Islamist parties throughout the region. Part of the solution could be to refrain from exclusive support to one faction over another. One analyst13 advised the Obama administration not to “personalise” the democratisation effort: “the outsized attention to (the two cases of Saad Eddin Ibrahim and Ayman Nour) highlights the neglect of thousands of other cases. Such narrow focus on a few high profile cases risks fuelling the perception that U.S. priorities are based on the specific personalities involved, rather than a principled and comprehensive stand against the policy of jailing and torture of political dissidents.” Further, democracy assistance programs, administered by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Middle East Partnership Initiative (MEPI), should not be exclusive to members of parliament affiliated with the ruling party (NDP), but should also include Brotherhood and other non-NDP members of parliament, to foster U.S. credibility.
Muslim Brotherhood leaders12 voiced their concern that the modest opening of the year 2005 was no more than a game played by the Egyptian regime to demonstrate to Washington and the West that the democracy they are calling for will ultimately lead to the victory of Islamists. “We reject any attempt by the Egyptian government to use the Muslim Brotherhood as a bogyman,” Habib told the author, “and we also reject DIALOGUE the U.S. administration’s unconditional Engaging in constructive dialogue with moral and material support to autocratic the Muslim Brotherhood is probably the regimes.” This perception-that the United most effective strategy to resolve “the 50
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