By Sami Moubayed

DAMASCUS – Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak will be receiving his Syrian counterpart, Bashar al-Assad, in Cairo this May. The Syrian leader makes his first visit to Egypt in four years to congratulate Mubarak on a successful gall bladder operation performed in Germany in March.

The presidential visit also aims to bury tension between the two countries that began in 2005 and improve relations that hit dramatically low levels during the Israeli war on Gaza in 2008. The Syrians were ardent supporters of Hamas in the Gaza Strip while Cairo was close to the rival government in the West Bank, headed by the pro-Western Fatah Movement.

Mubarak, although having played the intermediary in Hamas-Fatah rivalries since 2006, was nevertheless deeply concerned at the possibility of a Hamas victory in Gaza. He saw Hamas as an extension of Iranian influence in the Arab world. If it emerged victorious – legitimate and unscratched in Gaza – this meant that Egypt’s borders would no longer be with Palestine but with Iran. And for that matter, Egyptian-Iranian relations have been poor, to say the least, since the Islamic revolution of 1979.
On another level, Mubarak was afraid of the connection between Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood opposition he faced at home, which has loudly opposed his regime since 1981 and is now opposing the grooming of his second son, Gamal, who is a senior official in the ruling National Party. A Hamas victory would therefore greatly empower the Brotherhood in Cairo.

The Syrians, however, bet heavily on Hamas, upholding the banner of Arab nationalism that was once raised high by none other than Egypt itself prior to the Egyptian-Israeli peace agreement of 1978. A third reason for tension between Damascus and Cairo was related directly to Syrian-Saudi relations, which from 2005-2010 have been in shambles because of Lebanon.

Yet today, Egypt finds itself with no reason to remain at odds with Damascus. Back in March 2008, Mubarak failed to show up at the Arab summit in Syria, yet one year later, the Syrians patched up their differences with Saudi Arabia at a summit in Kuwait. Last October, King Abdullah made a high profile visit to Damascus, after the two countries hammered out their differences over Lebanon and Iraq.

The Saudis always believed, however, that not engaging Syria would only strengthen the Syrian-Iranian alliance at the expense of Syria’s relations with the rest of the Arab world. Contrary to Egypt, Riyadh never wanted to break the Damascus-Tehran alliance but rather make use of it. The Saudis reasoned that Syria had the ear of top officials in Iran and could use its heavyweight influence to moderate their behavior. Much like US President Barack Obama, the Saudis saw the Syrian-Iranian alliance as a blessing in disguise. The Egyptians, however, due to their own perceptions of Iran, were unable to digest the Syrian-Iranian axis and worked hard to tarnish it in the international community.

That too is now a thing of the past.

Mubarak wants the Assad visit to Cairo to happen, for a variety of reasons. One is a desire to defuse tension within the Arab neighborhood ahead of the upcoming presidential elections in Cairo, scheduled for 2011. There is high talk in Egypt that Mubarak – aged 82 – will not run and that the ruling National Party will nominate Gamal, 45, chair of its political committee, for the presidency of the republic. If that were to happen, the Mubaraks – both father and son – would want to secure strong Arab backing for the scenario.

Mubarak also faces difficulties in his relations with the United States. Decision-makers in Washington are still divided on how to deal with Egypt, a country that has received billions in economic and military aid from the US since 1979. One argument says that Washington should cut back its aid to pressure Mubarak to democratize.

Recently, the US Congress has tried to regulate aid to Egypt, claiming that priority should be given to democratization and educational reform. Behind closed doors, Egyptian officials argue that greater democracy would only empower the Islamists, pointing to the situation in Palestine, where Hamas emerged victorious in the elections of 2006. The Americans, nevertheless, recognize how important Mubarak has been in acting as mediator, facilitator and negotiator of the Middle East peace process, between the Palestinians and Israel, and between the two Palestinian factions, Hamas, which governs the Gaza portion of the Palestinian territories, and Fatah, whose power base is now in the West Bank.

The Obama administration has been unable to support him on that front, however, literally helpless when Israel decided to build 1,600 settlements in Jerusalem while passing laws enabling it to deport up to 75,000 Gazans from the West Bank.

Mubarak, for his part, wants to maintain his country’s relationship with the US, seeing that it would help boost what remains of his era and the career of his son. Yet he insists on minimal and very cosmetic political reforms, saying that the US has done very little to help him with the Arab-Israeli peace process.

Nor is the Egyptian president pleased with the amount of pressure he has been getting from the US. In June 2006, for example, the government froze the activities of the International Republican Institute, a US group promoting democracy in Egypt, because one member gave an interview to a local newspaper saying that Egypt was not doing enough to bring about serious democratic change to Egyptians.

The Egyptian president now has several options on the table. One is to endear himself to the many Arab nationalists on the Egyptian street by cuddling up to Syria and thereby defuse some of the tension amounting from his pro-Western policies. Nothing would better polish his image than to have his picture taken with President Assad of Syria. Another is to walk the tight rope between the moderate camp and the one that includes Syria and Iran, hammering out differences with both to serve as a deterrent to the US. A third would be to snub the Americans – as difficult as this may seem – and turn to the European Union, whose trade with Egypt has risen by more than 5% in recent years, reaching US$18.2 billion.

Or, he can sit back and passively watch, realizing that his mediation is crucial for the Arab-Israeli conflict and particularly, for the Fatah-Hamas rivalry. That, from where he stands, would spell out disaster for the Middle East.

The best option would be to revive the alliance of the titans – Egypt, Syria and Saudi Arabia, which, with the exception of 2005-2010, was the dominant power group in the Arab world for more than 50 years. The three countries summed up Arab wealth, military might, political cunning and legitimacy, all in one. That alliance, down under the presidency of George W Bush, needs to be jumpstarted today because it empowers all three states within the Arab neighborhood and provides the political umbrella that the Middle East needs in light of a helpless US administration unable to push the peace process forward.

All the reasons for its collapse in 2005 are no longer there. Perhaps the golden moment would be when the president of Syria makes his visit to Cairo this month.

Sami Moubayed is editor-in-chief of Forward Magazine in Syria