CORE Metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk Provided by St Andrews Research Repository THE FOREIGN POLICY OF EGYPT UNDER MUBARAK: THE PRIMACY OF REGIME SECURITY Nael M. Shama A Thesis Submitted for the Degree of PhD at the University of St Andrews 2008 Full metadata for this item is available in St Andrews Research Repository at: http://research-repository.st-andrews.ac.uk/ Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: http://hdl.handle.net/10023/569 This item is protected by original copyright The Foreign Policy of Egypt under Mubarak: The Primacy of Regime Security (A Thesis Submitted for the Award of the Degree of Doctorate of Philosophy) Nael M. Shama School of International Relations University of St. Andrews February 2008 1 I, Nael Shama, hereby certify that this thesis, which is approximately 105000 words in length, has been written by me, that it is the record of work carried out by me and that it has not been submitted in any previous application for a higher degree. Date: signature of candidate ……… I was admitted as a research student in September 2003 and as a candidate for the degree of PhD in September 2004; the higher study for which this is a record was carried out in the University of St Andrews between 2003 and 2007. date signature of candidate ……… I hereby certify that the candidate has fulfilled the conditions of the Resolution and Regulations appropriate for the degree of …………..in the University of St Andrews and that the candidate is qualified to submit this thesis in application for that degree. 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Date……………signature of candidate……….. 2 Table of Contents Chapter One: Theoretical Framework 6 Introduction & Research Question 6 The Evolution of Foreign Policy Analysis: Overview 7 Literature Review 9 Foreign Policy Decision-making Process 9 Insecurity in the Third World 12 Theoretical Framework 24 Case Studies 30 Research on Egyptian Foreign Policy: Sailing in Troubled Waters with a Blurred Map 33 Methodology & Materials 35 Chapter Two: Historical background (Egypt's Foreign Policy in Fifty Years) 40 Egypt’s Foreign Policy Pre-Revolution 40 Nasser’s Revolutionary Foreign Policy 41 Sadat’s Foreign Policy, 1970-1981 (Changing Course) 54 Mubarak's Foreign Policy 59 Chapter Three: The Decision-making Process (The Primacy of the Executive) 72 Foreign Policy Decision-Making in Egypt 72 From Nasser to Mubarak: Some General Observations 78 Nasser and Sadat: The Impact of Personality 83 The Presidency 85 Hosni Mubarak 85 Cautiousness 87 Obsession with Security 90 Stubbornness 97 Lack of Strategic Vision 97 Pragmatism 102 Lack of Charisma 103 Presidential Advisors 105 The Foreign Ministry 112 The Military Establishment 115 The Intelligence 117 Business Associations 119 Inter-Elite Dynamics 123 Chapter Four: Case Study I (Egyptian-Iranian Relations) 147 Egypt and Iran: Historical Background 147 1952-2007: Fifty-Five Years of Tension 148 Nasser and the Shah: Inevitable Clash 149 Sadat and the Shah: Short Honeymoon 151 Revolution and After 152 The Dilemma 153 Limited Relations, Unlimited Potential 156 3 Examining Literature: Plenty of theories, Scarcity of Persuasion Power 161 Foreign Policy Differences 163 Al-Islambouli Street: Storm in a Teacup 168 Different Type of Political Systems and Conflicting Ideologies 170 Public Opinion 173 The Missing Factor: Regime Security 173 Chapter Five: Case Study II (The Egyptian-Israeli Triangle) 198 Egyptian-American Relations 198 Historical Background (1974-2001): Origins of the US-Egyptian Alliance 199 Dimensions of US-Egyptian relations 205 Conceptualizing US-Egyptian Political Relations 205 Military Relations 210 Economic Relations 212 Egyptian-Israeli Relation (1979-2004) 217 Trilateral Relations 225 US Foreign Policy Post-9/11 227 Egyptian-Israeli Relations: From Cold War to Warm Peace 235 The QIZ Deal: Contending Arguments 239 Regime Survival 246 Chapter Six: Conclusions 266 Bibliography 277 4 Abstract: The study explores Egypt’s foreign policy under President Hosni Mubarak. It focuses on the way Mubarak's regime dealt with internal and external threats to maintain security and bolster his internal hold on power. Two case studies are chosen to test the hypotheses: Egypt’s reluctance to reestablish diplomatic ties with the Islamic Republic of Iran and Egypt’s response to the Greater Middle East Initiative proposed by the Bush administration and the series of Western efforts aimed at promoting political reform in the Middle East, in particular the measures it took to warm up its relations with Israel, including the signing of the QIZ treaty. The following arguments are made: 1- Security is central in understanding the behavior of Third World states. 2- The traditional 'balance of power' model should be substituted with the 'balance of threat' theory. 3- Faced with a combination of internal and external threats, Third World states most often tend to 'omnibalance' between both sets. 4- Foreign policy decisions in the Third World are determined by the level of internal and external threats, the availability of regional and international allies and the idiosyncrasies of leaders, their type of legitimacy and the interests of their ruling coalitions. 5- The foreign policies of Third World states, which tend to be lacking in strong institutions, democracy or national consensus and facing threats from within as well as without, are less likely to be shaped by or serve a national interest than a regime interest. 5 CHAPTER I THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK Introduction & Research Question: In analyzing the foreign policies of Third World states, scholars have been primarily concerned with issues like how these states aim to maintain (and enhance) their national security amid an unfavorable regional and international environment (the Cold War or after), their efforts to promote economic development (and the impact this has had on their political independence), how sectarian cleavages affect the conduct of foreign policy in multi-ethnic states, as well as the role of Ideology (Islam or Arab Nationalism) in foreign-policy making. When it comes to the study of Egyptian foreign policy under its three post-revolution presidents (Nasser, Sadat and Mubarak), scholars have dealt with issues like the pursuit of leadership in the Arab world and the different forms it took across fifty years, the changing impact of economic factors upon the decision-making process, the nature of the relationship with superpowers (i.e. where it lies on the dependence-independence spectrum), decisions of war (1962 in Yemen, 67 and 73 with Israel and 91 against Iraq’s Saddam) and peace (77 with the Israeli foe), in addition to the relationship between ideology and foreign policy. In studying these topics, various foreign policy inputs have been investigated: geographic realities, characteristics and size of population, economic and military power, type of political system and the role of different state institutions (the Presidency, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the military establishment) in the decision-making process. This study is about the way Egypt’s foreign policy under President Mubarak was used to bolster his internal hold on power. Therefore, it explores an area rarely touched upon by researchers before, which is the relationship between regime security (and survival in the long-run) -as opposed to “national security”- as an objective sought by decision-makers and the conduct of foreign policy in authoritarian Third World states. With a very few exceptions, this question has been overlooked by previous studies of Egypt. Two main reasons explain this. First, the lines between national security and regime security are, generally speaking, blurred and not always easy to distinguish hence hindering the possibility of conducting a sound research. According to Ayoob, it is often “difficult to disentangle issues of state security from those of regime security in the Third World”1. Second, the high risk entailed by 6 Egyptian researchers upon crossing the “red lines” in an authoritarian state inhibited most of them from studying such a sensitive topic. The general questions here are: How do Third World regimes deal with internal and external threats? What factors affect their type of response to these threats? Do regime security considerations leave their print on the way foreign policy is handled as they obviously do on the way domestic policies are administered? More specifically, could foreign policy be used by elites in the Third World to maximize their chances of political survival? If this is the case, then what are the mechanisms by which this is executed? And why is this mostly common in the Third World? And what conclusions could one drive from the case of Egypt under Mubarak? And what examples could essentially prove this hypothesis? The findings of this research are useful in providing a better understanding of Middle East politics, the foreign policies of Third World states and the politics of pivotal states.