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发帖数: 29846 | 1 Egypt’s New Leader Spells Out Terms for U.S.-Arab Ties
By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK and STEVEN ERLANGER
CAIRO — On the eve of his first trip to the United States as Egypt’s new
Islamist president, Mohamed Morsi said the United States needed to
fundamentally change its approach to the Arab world, showing greater respect
for its values and helping build a Palestinian state, if it hoped to
overcome decades of pent-up anger.
A former leader of the Muslim Brotherhood and Egypt’s first democratically
elected president, Mr. Morsi sought in a 90-minute interview with The New
York Times to introduce himself to the American public and to revise the
terms of relations between his country and the United States after the
ouster of Hosni Mubarak, an autocratic but reliable ally.
He said it was up to Washington to repair relations with the Arab world and
to revitalize the alliance with Egypt, long a cornerstone of regional
stability.
If Washington is asking Egypt to honor its treaty with Israel, he said,
Washington should also live up to its own Camp David commitment to
Palestinian self-rule. He said the United States must respect the Arab world
’s history and culture, even when that conflicts with Western values.
And he dismissed criticism from the White House that he did not move fast
enough to condemn protesters who recently climbed over the United States
Embassy wall and burned the American flag in anger over a video that mocked
the Prophet Muhammad.
“We took our time” in responding to avoid an explosive backlash, he said,
but then dealt “decisively” with the small, violent element among the
demonstrators.
“We can never condone this kind of violence, but we need to deal with the
situation wisely,” he said, noting that the embassy employees were never in
danger.
Mr. Morsi, who will travel to New York on Sunday for a meeting of the United
Nations General Assembly, arrives at a delicate moment. He faces political
pressure at home to prove his independence, but demands from the West for
reassurance that Egypt under Islamist rule will remain a stable partner.
Mr. Morsi, 61, whose office was still adorned with nautical paintings that
Mr. Mubarak left behind, said the United States should not expect Egypt to
live by its rules.
“If you want to judge the performance of the Egyptian people by the
standards of German or Chinese or American culture, then there is no room
for judgment,” he said. “When the Egyptians decide something, probably it
is not appropriate for the U.S. When the Americans decide something, this,
of course, is not appropriate for Egypt.”
He suggested that Egypt would not be hostile to the West, but would not be
as compliant as Mr. Mubarak either.
“Successive American administrations essentially purchased with American
taxpayer money the dislike, if not the hatred, of the peoples of the region,
” he said, by backing dictatorial governments over popular opposition and
supporting Israel over the Palestinians.
He initially sought to meet with President Obama at the White House during
his visit this week, but he received a cool reception, aides to both
presidents said. Mindful of the complicated election-year politics of a
visit with Egypt’s Islamist leader, Mr. Morsi dropped his request.
His silence in the immediate aftermath of the embassy protest elicited a
tense telephone call from Mr. Obama, who also told a television interviewer
that at that moment he did not consider Egypt an ally, if not an enemy
either. When asked if he considered the United States an ally, Mr. Morsi
answered in English, “That depends on your definition of ally,” smiling at
his deliberate echo of Mr. Obama. But he said he envisioned the two nations
as “real friends.”
Mr. Morsi spoke in an ornate palace that Mr. Mubarak inaugurated three
decades ago, a world away from the Nile Delta farm where the new president
grew up, or the prison cells where he had been confined by Mr. Mubarak for
his role in the Brotherhood. Three months after his swearing-in, the most
noticeable change to the presidential office was a plaque on his desk
bearing the Koranic admonition, “Be conscious of a day on which you will
return to God.”
A stocky figure with a trim beard and wire-rim glasses, he earned a
doctorate in materials science at the University of Southern California in
the early 1980s. He spoke with an easy confidence in his new authority,
reveling in an approval rating he said was at 70 percent. When he grew
animated, he slipped from Arabic into crisp English.
Little known at home or abroad until just a few months ago, he was the
Brotherhood’s second choice as a presidential nominee after the first
choice was disqualified. On the night of the election, the generals who had
ruled since Mr. Mubarak’s ouster issued a decree keeping most presidential
powers for themselves.
But last month Mr. Morsi confounded all expectations by prying full
executive authority back from the generals. In the interview, when an
interpreter suggested that the generals had “decided” to exit politics, Mr
. Morsi quickly corrected him.
“No, no, it is not that they ‘decided’ to do it,” he interjected in
English, determined to clarify that it was he who removed them. “This is
the will of the Egyptian people through the elected president, right?
“The president of the Arab Republic of Egypt is the commander of the armed
forces, full stop. Egypt now is a real civil state. It is not theocratic, it
is not military. It is democratic, free, constitutional, lawful and modern.”
He added, “We are behaving according to the Egyptian people’s choice and
will, nothing else — is it clear?”
He praised Mr. Obama for moving “decisively and quickly” to support the
Arab Spring revolutions, and he said he believed that Americans supported “
the right of the people of the region to enjoy the same freedoms that
Americans have.”
Arabs and Americans have “a shared objective, each to live free in their
own land, according to their customs and values, in a fair and democratic
fashion,” he said, adding that he hoped for “a harmonious, peaceful
coexistence.”
But he also argued that Americans “have a special responsibility” for the
Palestinians because the United States had signed the 1978 Camp David accord
. The agreement called for the withdrawal of Israeli troops from the West
Bank and Gaza to make way for full Palestinian self-rule.
“As long as peace and justice are not fulfilled for the Palestinians, then
the treaty remains unfulfilled,” he said.
He made no apologies for his roots in the Brotherhood, the insular religious
revival group that was Mr. Mubarak’s main opposition and now dominates
Egyptian politics.
“I grew up with the Muslim Brotherhood,” he said. “I learned my
principles in the Muslim Brotherhood. I learned how to love my country with
the Muslim Brotherhood. I learned politics with the Brotherhood. I was a
leader of the Muslim Brotherhood.”
He left the group when he took office but remains a member of its political
party. But he said he sees “absolutely no conflict” between his loyalty to
the Brotherhood and his vows to govern on behalf of all, including members
of the Christian minority or those with more secular views.
“I prove my independence by taking the correct acts for my country,” he
said. “If I see something good from the Muslim Brotherhood, I will take it.
If I see something better in the Wafd” — Egypt’s oldest liberal party —
“I will take it.”
He repeatedly vowed to uphold equal citizenship rights of all Egyptians,
regardless of religion, sex or class. But he stood by the religious
arguments he once made as a Brotherhood leader that neither a woman nor a
Christian would be a suitable president.
“We are talking about values, beliefs, cultures, history, reality,” he
said. He said the Islamic position on presidential eligibility was a matter
for Muslim scholars to decide, not him. But regardless of his own views or
the Brotherhood’s, he said, civil law was another matter.
“I will not prevent a woman from being nominated as a candidate for the
presidential campaign,” he said. “This is not in the Constitution. This is
not in the law. But if you want to ask me if I will vote for her or not,
that is something else, that is different.”
He was also eager to reminisce about his taste of American culture as a
graduate student at the University of Southern California. “Go, Trojans!”
he said, and he remembered learning about the world from Barbara Walters in
the morning and Walter Cronkite at night. “And that’s the way it is!” Mr.
Morsi said with a smile.
But he also displayed some ambivalence. He effused about his admiration for
American work habits, punctuality and time management. But when an
interpreter said that Mr. Morsi had “learned a lot” in the United States,
he quickly interjected a qualifier in English: “Scientifically!”
He was troubled by the gangs and street of violence of Los Angeles, he said,
and dismayed by the West’s looser sexual mores, mentioning couples living
together out of wedlock and what he called “naked restaurants,” like
Hooters.
“I don’t admire that,” he said. “But that is the society. They are
living their way.” |
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