GAMAL GOES NUCLEAR. Last month's annual conference of Egypt's ruling National "Democratic" Party was filled with the usual empty talk about political reform. There was one big surprise, however: Gamal Mubarak, the son of President Hosni Mubarak, called for Egypt to develop peaceful nuclear energy. As this MEMRI "special dispatch" makes clear, Egyptian elites have been calling for a nuclear program for a while now, and some have even called explicitly for the country to develop nuclear weapons. Clearly, the increasingly powerful Gamal, who almost everyone here seems to think is angling to succeed his father as president, is hoping to use this issue to boost his popularity with the Egyptian street. Another angle is that if Egypt does get nuclear power, the regime will be able to stoke fears that radical Islamists would get into power and develop weapons with which they could threaten Israel. Incidentally, many analysts, including yours truly, view Egypt as a test case for the Bush administration's commitment to democracy in the Middle East. It's the most populous Arab country, and developments in Cairo (such as Arab nationalism, political Islam, militant jihadism, or even pop music) tend to influence what happens elsewhere in the region. The Egyptian government is a dictatorship. And yet it is also a critical strategic ally, which gives the U.S. preferential access to the Suez Canal, overflight rights, intelligence cooperation, and flaunts its influence with Palestinian groups and other Arab regimes in order to keep on good terms with the United States and fend off calls for reform. The Bush administration talks a good game on democracy and freedom and ponies for all, while its supporters in the media and the conservative blogosphere love to slam nameless Democrats for allegedly being opposed to these great things. But this spring, when the House Appropriations Committee was taking a hard look at the $1.2 billion worth of military hardware that the U.S. gives the Egyptian military every year, it was ranking Democrat David Obey who was on the right side of the issue. The Bush administration and the Republicans in Congress, by contrast, went to bat for the Egyptian government, rejecting calls to tie this aid to tangible progress on political reform and human rights. That makes Gamal Mubarak happy.
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Blake Hounshell