U.S. faces critical test of influence on Egypt

The Obama administration got what it said it wanted when Hosni Mubarak surrendered power. Now it must deal with another daunting task: coaxing the country’s new military rulers to deliver genuine democratic reforms they have resisted for decades.

After days of being buffeted by events, President Obama moved quickly within hours of Mubarak’s departure to try to influence the Egypt that will follow. In a seven-minute address from the White House, Obama made it clear that the U.S. expects the Egyptian generals to dismantle the machinery of a repressive state, warning they would “have to ensure a transition that is credible in the eyes of the Egyptian people.”

“That means protecting the rights of Egypt’s citizens, lifting the emergency law, revising the constitution and other laws to make this change irreversible, and laying out a clear path to elections that are fair and free,” Obama said.

But even as Obama hailed the triumph of democracy in the Cairo streets, his administration was adjusting to the loss of a bedrock ally in a volatile region. Mubarak’s departure threatens to end 30 years of certainty in which American administrations could count on Egypt maintaining its 1979 peace treaty with Israel, as well as cooperating on counter-terrorism efforts.

A more representative government in a new Egypt will almost certainly include greater influence for the Muslim Brotherhood, the country’s largest Islamic group, and other factions more hostile to Mubarak’s pro-American policies.

Already, the issue of whether to favor including Islamist parties in the government is causing friction within the Obama administration.

The administration has said publicly that it believes that the banned Muslim Brotherhood can be brought into the political structure without risk if it will foreswear violence and embrace democratic goals. Some White House officials have argued that Egypt won’t be representative and legitimate unless this large group has some voice.

But there is still concern and disagreement about the strategic risks of an Egyptian government that includes Islamists. And pro-Israeli groups have been pressuring the White House to intervene to try to limit the Islamists’ role.

“The administration wants to see a government with broader representation of the Egyptian society, but one that is continuing to cooperate with the U.S. on security issues, including Israel and counter-terrorism,” said Joel Rubin, a former Egypt desk officer at the State Department who is now deputy director of the National Security Network, a policy analysis organization.

U.S. diplomats also acknowledge that events could still easily spin out of control given Egypt’s lack of experience with democracy, and say there are clear limits to Washington’s influence on key players in Cairo. A senior administration official suggested Friday that the opposition should be satisfied with Mubarak’s departure and other concessions. “This opens the door for them to begin a full dialogue,” he said.

But State Department officials warned that political reform will be a “medium term” undertaking, requiring time to develop and nurture institutions that will give the country a stable and inclusive political process. The task is difficult because Mubarak brutally suppressed any party that threatened his stranglehold on power, requiring Egyptians to now build a democracy almost from scratch.

Yet the U.S. is not without leverage. It provides Egypt with $1.5 billion in aid every year, and preserving that flow — as well as the Egyptian military’s longstanding ties with the Pentagon — is likely to be a major goal for the country’s new leaders.

Obama appeared to reach out to the military in his White House address, commending the army for not firing upon the vast crowds protesting Mubarak’s continued rule. But he reserved most of his praise for the protesters. He drew a link between the rebellion that began Jan. 25 and some of the epochal political movements of the 20th century: Gandhi’s nonviolent struggle for India’s independence; the Berlin Wall’s crumbling; Martin Luther King Jr.’s fight for racial equality in the United States.

Tom Malinowski, Washington director for Human Rights Watch, said that the Obama administration was already reaching out to other Middle Eastern allies to warn that they should respond to calls for reform to avoid the same sort of upheaval seen in Egypt.

“Already you’ve seen the administration reach out to several key governments in the Middle East with the message that evolutionary reform is the best way to stave off revolutionary upheaval,” Malinowski said.

And Obama drew a moral contrast between the peaceful protests in Egypt and the violent tactics employed by terrorists — a message clearly aimed at dispelling the notion in the region that the U.S. is interested primarily in supporting governments that provide the American military with bases and other assistance.

“Egyptians have inspired us and they’ve done so by putting the lie to the idea that justice is best gained through violence,” Obama said. “For in Egypt it was the moral force of nonviolence — not terrorism, not mindless killing — but nonviolence, moral force, that bent the arc of history toward justice once more.”

david.cloud@latimes.com

paul.richter@latimes.com

Times staff writer Peter Nicholas contributed to this report.