Mubarak’s Heir Sees U.S. Ebbing

Daily News Article   —   Posted on November 7, 2007

(by Nicholas Kralev, WashingtonTimes.com) CAIRO – The man widely seen as Egypt’s next leader is adopting a harsh tone toward the United States, saying Washington’s influence in the region has decreased significantly because of Bush administration policies in the Middle East.

During a ruling party conference regarded by many as part of an effort to legitimize the rise to power of President Hosni Mubarak’s son, Gamal, the younger Mr. Mubarak said the administration adopted “the wrong vision” after September 11, 2001.

“They went into a mode of democracy and elections,” he told foreign guests at the four-day general conference of the National Democratic Party (NDP), which concluded yesterday.

“They made the single-minded conclusion that this was the way to marginalize the extremist forces,” Mr. Mubarak said. “That was a strategic mistake. You can’t belittle the feeling of injustice and humiliation [in the Arab world] caused by Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians.”

Because of that “mistake,” and because the United States “wasted” more than six years by being “absent” from Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking, America’s “influence has decreased,” he said.

Although Egyptian officials are not shy about expressing their views about U.S. policies in private, such sharp language has rarely been used in public by Egypt, the second-largest recipient of U.S. aid after Israel.

On a more positive note, Mr. Mubarak said Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s latest effort to negotiate peace between Israel and the Palestinians is genuine and she is “trying to make a difference,” though he expressed doubt she has enough time to complete a deal before President Bush leaves office.

Miss Rice, who hopes to host a peace conference in Annapolis later this month, has said it is possible for a Palestinian state to be established before the end of Mr. Bush’s term.

Mr. Mubarak, a former investment banker in London who turns 44 next month, did not even attend an NDP conference until the last one in 2002.

Now he is the party’s No. 2 official and heads its policy-making committee. On Saturday, he also was elected to the new Supreme Committee, which will choose the party’s presidential candidate in 2011.

The prospect of a succession from father to son sparked some protests three years ago, but those scenes have since disappeared. The subject had almost vanished from public discussions until press reports last summer that the current president was ill.

Both father and son are said to be trying to avoid the scenario that occurred in Syria when President Hafez Assad died in 2000 and his son, Bashar, automatically succeeded him.

“Gamal needs to work hard in order to acquire legitimacy,” said Michele Dunne, a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and a guest at the NDP conference. “It’s not considered acceptable for the son to simply succeed his father.”

Diplomats and analysts credit the younger Mr. Mubarak with trying to turn the NDP into more of a real political party rather than just a top-down organization that exists to legitimize his father’s hold on power.

But they also say he shares his father’s authoritarian impulse, even though he is more realistic than the current president about the poor living standards and other hardships of many Egyptians.

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