Barack Meets Mubarak

James Phillips / August 18, 2009

President Barack Obama meets Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak at the White House today amid an upswing in bilateral relations caused by a mutual interest in containing Iran, defusing Israeli-Palestinian tensions, and reducing the destabilizing threat posed by Islamist extremist groups such as Hamas, Hezbollah, and al-Qaeda. Relations between Cairo and Washington had soured during the Bush Administration because of the Iraq war and the fact that Bush’s Freedom Agenda clashed with Mubarak’s restrictive approach to political freedom and lack of tolerance for political dissent. Although President Obama has backpedaled away from public criticism of Mubarak’s autocratic proclivities, he must privately maintain pressure on the Egyptian leader to reduce his government’s harassment of democratic opposition movements while working closely with Egypt to contain Iran’s expanding power, reduce the terrorist threat posed by Hamas, and revive the long-stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations. (more…)