Did President Obama watch Egypt swing from pivotal ally to potential opponent? Versions of that question have hovered around the presidential campaign from the early Republican primary debates through Mitt Romney's comments on his recent trip to Israel about the Islamist electoral victories in the wake of the Arab spring.
@import url(http://graphics8.nytimes.com/projects/assets/agenda/agenda-inline.css);But the debate has taken on new intensity this month as President Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood - Egypt's first elected president and first Islamist leader - has for the first time consolidated his power, pushing into the background his country's Western-friendly military leaders and taking his first steps into foreign affairs.
Mr. Morsi's willingness to visit Iran for a meeting of the so-called Non-Aligned Movement set off alarms from commentators in Washington and Tel Aviv that Mr. Morsi might seek cl oser ties to Iran, an enemy of the United States and Israel that Egypt under Hosni Mubarak helped keep in check.
But his first major initiative in foreign affairs - a bid to include Iran along with Saudi Arabia and Turkey in a four-nation regional contact group to help resolve the Syrian conflict - indicated that Egypt's future course may be more complicated than a simple win or loss for the West. (“Egyptian Leader Adds Rivals of West to Syria Plan,†Monday, Aug. 27)
Unlike Mr. Mubarak, Mr. Morsi displayed an appetite for regional leadership and regional solutions independent of the United States or any other great power. His success in such efforts would surely diminish American influence in the region.
But he also showed a pragmatic willingness to reach out across ideological lines: although some Westerners tend to think of Iran, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Turkey as four Muslim states, the Sunni Muslim Brotherhood is also a longstanding opponent of the Saudi monarchy and the Iranian Shiite theocracy, which are both inimical to each other. And Mr. Morsi's move, accompanied by explanations from his spokesman, clarified that he sought conversations with Iran to obtain specific strategic objectives, not because he sought closer diplomatic ties with Tehran as a goal in itself. What's more, his aim - a regional solution that could end the Syrian bloodshed - is one that both the United States and Israel might welcome.
With the end of the Mubarak dictatorship, the United States has surely lost a reliable client. A more democratic Egypt will surely be more responsive to Egyptian public opinion, which is cynical at best about America's role in the region. But Mr. Morsi's Syrian gambit suggests that the loss of American influence may not be a gain for any rival, merely an Egypt with its eye on its own region instead of any global power.
