(NEW YORK) MintPress – Egypt’s new President Mohammed Morsi made his debut on the global stage at the U.N. General Assembly on Wednesday by introducing himself as “the first Egyptian civilian president elected democratically and freely, following a great revolution.”
Morsi, 61, assumed the office on June 30 after winning the presidential runoff against Ahmed Shafik, the last prime minister under deposed leader Hosni Mubarak.
Now, as president of the world’s most populous Arab country, Morsi is clearly trying to re-establish Egypt’s position as a major regional and international player, and the U.N. was his first chance to grab the full attention of the international community.
During his address, Morsi struck a note of pan-Arab unity, referring to “a larger homeland that extends from the Arab Gulf to the Atlantic Ocean” and said “Egypt will work to strengthen mutual understanding between Islamic countries and the rest of the world.”
Morsi was a Member of Parliament in the People’s Assembly of Egypt from 2000 to 2005 and a leading figure in the once-banned Muslim Brotherhood, the largest opposition organization in many Arab states. It was founded in Egypt in 1928 as a pan-Islamic, religious, political and social movement by the Islamic scholar Hassan al-Banna,
He became Chairman of the Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) when it was founded by the Muslim Brotherhood in the wake of the Arab Spring uprising in Egypt. Morsi resigned from his position as the head of the FJP after his victory was announced.
“It is a historical moment for us,” a leader of the Muslim Brotherhood told Global Post. “He will change the way the Islamist movement in Egypt is perceived around the world.”
Indeed, in an exclusive interview with MintPress News, FJP Member of Parliament Dr. Abdul Mawgoud Dardery, a former academic, contends, “The Muslim Brotherhood from the very beginning is trying to create a balance between Islam and modernity.”
Domestic differences
Dardery draws a clear distinction between the FJP and the radical Salafists, whom he asserts “don’t care about that balance that much.”
“The Muslim Brotherhood is trying to create a positive relationship between the religious experience and the actual living experience. Salafists are more interested in imposing the religious experience on the living experience,” he explains.
In fact, in the first round of voting in the presidential election, the Salafists did not vote for the Muslim Brotherhood candidate. “There were so many candidates and they preferred someone other than the Muslim Brotherhood,” Dardery acknowledges. “I think that was a big political mistake on their side, but it shows you there is a difference between the two.”
In the second round of voting, however, when choosing between Morsi and Shafik, “they made the right choice,” he says.
Diplomatic missions
Dardery also points to Morsi’s stance on both Iran and Syria as indications of policies that are more in line with those of many Western nations.
Morsi used his first visit to Tehran, in August, to tell his hosts they had chosen the wrong side in the Syrian civil war. “Morsi spoke against the Syrian regime, and they are allied to the Iranian regime,” Dardery points out. “He spoke very strongly. He condemned their support as unethical. And Morsi was courageous enough to say this in Iran.”
The Egyptian president also rebuked Iran in his address to the U.N., saying that all countries should demonstrate the peaceful nature of their nuclear programs to the satisfaction of their neighbors. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has said that Iran is not co-operating with its investigation into evidence of Tehran’s past experimentation with nuclear weapons technology.
Morsi’s sentiments echoed those expressed by his American counterpart one day earlier. “Make no mistake: A nuclear-armed Iran is not a challenge that can be contained,” Obama told the General Assembly. “It would threaten the elimination of Israel, the security of Gulf nations, and the stability of the global economy. That is why a coalition of countries is holding the Iranian government accountable.”
And both men used the U.N. meeting to once again call for an end to the bloodshed in Syria. “The future must not belong to a dictator who massacres his people,” said Obama. “If there is a cause that cries out for protest in the world today, it is a regime that tortures children and shoots rockets at apartment buildings.”
Morsi called the Syrian war “the tragedy of our age” for which the whole world was responsible – and accused the Assad regime of “killing its people night and day.”
Future of US-Egypt relations
Still, the recent anti-American demonstrations throughout the Muslim world first broke out at the U.S. Embassy in Egypt after clips of the film were shown on a local television network, and Morsi was slow to respond to the subsequent violence in Cairo.
That led to a blunt phone conversation with Obama, after which Morsi criticized the protests and vowed Egypt would meet its international obligations to protect all diplomatic posts.
But the damage had been done, and Obama later said in an interview with Telemundo that in terms of Egypt, “I don’t think we would consider them an ally, but we don’t consider them an enemy.”
Morsi initially sought to meet with President Obama at the White House during his visit this week, but received a cool reception, according to his aides. Aware of the complicated election year politics of such a meeting, Morsi then dropped the request.
Still, there are overriding practical considerations on both sides. Egypt for its part desperately needs the roughly $1.5 billion in annual U.S. aid to help resuscitate it’s ailing economy. In addition to that assistance, President Obama has proposed $1 billion in debt relief for Cairo, which owes Washington about $3 billion.
“The images of protesters in Cairo breaching the embassy grounds … together with Obama’s verbal downgrade, may compel some in Congress to consider reducing the level of U.S. assistance to Egypt,” asserted P.J. Crowley, the former U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs in a piece in the Daily Beast.
“Given the centrality of Egypt to the future of the Middle East, this makes no strategic sense,” he said. “The White House needs to reinforce its support for Egypt at home.”
Dardery wholeheartedly agrees. “I think the strategic interests of the U.S. and Egypt are way more important than what happened with the film incident,” he says. “I think both sides will be able to overcome it and move forward, and hopefully the two sides will learn from what happened.”