EGYPT AND THE U.S.: BILATERAL TIES NOT REFLECTED

C O N F I D E N T I A L USUN NEW YORK 001073

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 05/25/2016
TAGS: PREL PTER PHUM ECON AORC KUNR EG
SUBJECT: EGYPT AND THE U.S.: BILATERAL TIES NOT REFLECTED
IN MULTILATERAL FORA


Classified By: AMBASSADOR JOHN R. BOLTON FOR REASONS 1.4 (b) AND (d).


1. (C) Summary and Comment: The prevailing atmosphere at the
UN is one of increasing polarization between the UN's top
donors (chiefly the U.S., Japan, Europe and CANZ) and the
G-77. This sharpening divide manifests itself in debates
across the full spectrum of reform issues: administrative,
budgetary, institutional and policy. Within the G-77,
several prominent states consistently oppose U.S. positions,
and employ rhetoric or tactics inimical to U.S. interests.
Of those states, Egypt -- drawing on its history as a NAM
leader and its strengths in multilateral negotiations -- is
one of a handful of countries otherwise generally friendly to
the U.S. (including India, Pakistan, Brazil and South Africa)
that band together with countries widely understood to be in
direct confrontation with the U.S. (e.g., Cuba, Iran, Syria)
to frustrate U.S. objectives. This cable is the first in a
series on the troublemakers.


2. (C) In addition to its leading role in formulating G-77
positions, Egypt is also an active force in the NAM, the
Africa Group, the Arab Group and the OIC. Egypt currently
serves as the coordinator of the NAM's working group on
mandate review and reform of the Secretariat, a position that
allows it to serve as principal drafter for many NAM
statements on issues of importance to the U.S. As much of
the policy work in the UN is conducted in these regional and
other groups (in which the U.S. does not participate),Egypt
can achieve a "force multiplier" impact by advancing its
views under their names. Some Egyptian positions, such as an
insistence that the actions of national liberation movements
constitute resistance not terrorism, are issues on which they
have stood in opposition to U.S. policy for many years.
Other Egyptian positions, and their aggressive rhetoric in
support of them, have developed in response to the current
debate on UN reform.


3. (C) The net result is a paradoxical asymmetry: despite our
close bilateral relationship with Egypt, Egypt routinely
opposes U.S. policy priorities at the UN. A mathematical
comparison underlines this asymmetry: the U.S. provides 22
percent of the UN's assessed budget but provides much more
than that amount to Egypt annually in ESF alone. Egypt's
actions at the UN may embolden other member states to oppose
U.S. positions when they see a "friend of the U.S." doing the
same. Egypt, along with other opponents of U.S. policies at
the UN, increasingly seeks to rally support for its positions
by widening the divide between the developing countries
(which have the votes) and the developed world, for which the
U.S. is the most prominent symbol. The result is a
deteriorating atmosphere that will make meaningful reform
difficult to achieve. End Summary and Comment.


4. (C) Below are some of the issue areas since September in
which we have encountered Egyptian opposition to key U.S.
objectives at the UN. We do not claim that Egypt is alone in
its opposition to our position on any one of the issues noted
below. However, Egypt's consistent opposition, aggressive
rhetoric and disruptive tactics, particularly behind the
scenes, place the Egyptian mission in a league with few
others, and often in unsavory company. Other delegations are
loath to lobby Egypt hard, assuming that this task rightfully
belongs to the U.S. as a result of the strong bilateral
relationship. Moreover, when other G-77 delegations observe
Egypt getting away with its hostile behavior, they are
inclined to conclude the U.S. doesn't really care about the
issue at hand.

Budget and Management Reform
--------------


5. (C) By November 2005, Egypt had established itself as a
vocal opponent of U.S. efforts to secure meaningful
management reform. Egypt referred to the U.S.-led effort to
address management problems within the UN Secretariat as the
"overblown ramifications" of the Oil for Food scandal.
Reform proponents were attempting to "advance a narrow
nationalistic agenda under the banner of management reform."
(2005 USUN 2554). Egypt has consistently advocated for
management reform initiatives to be considered in the UNGA's
Fifth Committee (which considers budget issues),an arena in
which their particularly aggressive delegate has been able to
create significant gridlock. (2005 USUN 2765). Last
December, Egypt was one of the loudest G-77 voices in
opposition to the central U.S. position that reform of the UN


must be tied to UN finances, a position Egypt continues to
advocate. (2005 USUN 2888). The agreement on a six-month
spending cap last year was reached only after a small group
of Perm Reps pulled the issue out of the Fifth Committee,
where Egypt was one of the leading opponents of compromise.
(2005 USUN 2936). More recently, the Egyptian delegate to
the Fifth Committee told his U.S. counterpart that "the time
for consensus decision-making on budget issues was over" and
that there was a need to return to voting.


6. (C) In the Fifth Committee's negotiations on proposals
regarding the UN's scale of assessments, Egypt supported
Russian and Chinese language that rebuffed a proposal that
permanent members of the Security Council should pay a
greater share of the UN's budget. The Egyptian position
widened the gap in positions and made agreement impossible.
(USUN 756). While the failure to achieve consensus was not
simply Egypt's doing, we found it noteworthy that Egypt took
a position that did not immediately appear to have any real
impact on its own interests. Less than a month later, the
Egyptian PR, complaining to USUN about the possibility that
the U.S. might withhold payment of its dues, said that
permanent members of the UNSC should indeed pay more into the
system -- a position directly at odds with Egypt's actions in
the Fifth Committee. These contradictions reinforce our
perception that in many cases Egyptian conduct does not
reflect a considered policy position but simply constitutes
an effort to disrupt progress and block consensus.

Mandate Review
--------------


7. (C) In the General Assembly debates on mandate review,
Egypt has been a consistent and loud advocate of the NAM and
G-77 position that only mandates that have not/not been
renewed within the past five are subject to the review.
(2005 USUN 2854). If the General Assembly accepts this
argument, the mandate review process will be stripped of any
serious content, as the vast majority of GA mandates are
renewed each year through repetitive resolutions. At the
same time, Egypt has onsistently called for the General
Assembly to declare the "politically sensitive mandates"
(i.e., the mandates that authorize biased Palestinian
committees) off-limits to the review process. This effort is
widely seen as a shot across the U.S. bow given our
well-known opposition to the Palestinian mandates.

ECOSOC and Development
--------------


8. (C) Egypt has been a difficult partner right from the
start in the effort to negotiate the ECOSOC reform and
development resolutions as part of the follow-up to the
September 2005 Summit outcome. (2005 USUN 2711). Egypt has
been reported to USUN by numerous delegations to be one of
the principal negative actors within the G-77 on this
subject. Egypt has apparently played a heavy role in swaying
more moderate countries to go along with some six pages of
radical amendments to the development resolution that would
mandate and monitor 0.7 percent ODA transfers and unravel
hard-won language obtained in the Monterrey Consensus and the
World Summit Outcome Document on the responsibility of
countries to foster good governance. USUN has heard on more
than one occasion that Egypt, along with a handful of other
states, is determined to block progress on the development
text. (USUN 267 and USUN 1034).


9. (C) In current UNGA negotiations on a declaration for the
HIV/AIDS Summit of May 31-June 2, Egypt has been blocking
consensus. As one example, Egypt has been active in the
Africa Group to promote expansive language on resource
transfers, proposing new text that goes beyond language
agreed upon by Heads of State last September.

Human Rights Council
--------------


10. (C) During negotiations related to the establishment of
the Human Rights Council (in lieu of the former UN Commission
on Human Rights),Egypt adopted a series of positions
contrary to U.S. goals. Early on, Egypt advocated for delay,
claiming that there was no time pressure to reach a
conclusion. (USUN 84). Once the negotiations commenced,
Egypt lobbied for unhelpful detail on a "step-by-step"
approach to dealing with countries that violate human rights,


an approach that would have tied the new council's hands
rather than support timely action. In addition, Egypt
opposed one of our core objectives, that is the election of
an entirely new membership; rejected a key U.S. proposal to
enable the HRC to refer particularly egregious and
potentially destabilizing abuses to the Security Council; and
suggested that the peer review of members should be based on
information from the government concerned (a position that
earned the support of Syria). (USUN 105 and USUN 154).
Following the adoption of the HRC resolution, Egypt appears
to have continued its obstructionist efforts in Geneva, where
it has recently blocked consensus on the HRC's first
president. (Geneva 1182).

Worsening the General Assembly - Security Council Split
-------------- --------------


11. (C) Egypt has also emerged as one of the loudest voices
to protest Security Council "encroachment" on General
Assembly authorities, the myth that has been adopted to
provide comfort in the face of widespread recognition that
the UNGA is playing an increasingly smaller role on the
global stage. Egyptian rhetoric fuels part of this
self-fulfilling prophecy. Egypt is now one of the primary
sponsors of a NAM attempt to bolster the UNGA's role in the
selection of the next Secretary-General by demanding certain
actions from the Security Council. (USUN 892). If
successful, the NAM effort will only increase the tension
between the two UN bodies. Egypt played up similar themes in
the negotiation of the Peacebuilding Commission (PBC). The
U.S. has sought a PBC tied closely to the Security Council so
as to properly manage post-conflict situations in which there
is an ongoing UN peacekeeping operation authorized by the
Council. Egypt took the opposite view and deplored the
Security Council's "authority in driving the PBC's work."
(2005 USUN 2919). Egypt has exerted strong influence over
weaker nations in the African Group, pushing them to grab for
more seats on the Organizational Committee and to reorder
geographic distribution, rather than supporting positions
designed to ensure the PBC will operate for the benefit of
war-torn African nations. Following the establishment of the
PBC, Egypt attempted to block the establishment of the
Secretariat's support office - even after the U.S. had

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compromised to accept what was understood to be the G-77
position. (The description of the Egyptian delegate's
efforts, in USUN 747, provides a detailed example of Egyptian
obstructionism.)

Counter-terrorism and Middle East
--------------


12. (C) In a General Assembly review May 11-12 of the
Secretary-General's recently released report of

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recommendations on a global counter-terrorism strategy, Egypt
criticized the "foreign occupation" of Iraq, claiming the
"reason for terrorism in Iraq is foreign occupation." The
Egyptian representative also blamed Israeli occupation of
Palestinian territories for violence, and argued -- as Egypt
has in the past -- that resistance activities are not
terrorism. (USUN 977 and USUN 1040). In the negotiation of
last September's Outcome Document, Egypt was among those
(joined by Pakistan, Iran, and others) who blocked inclusion
of widely agreed language because they were not satisfied
with the portion on national liberation movements. In the
negotiation of the Comprehensive Convention on International
Terrorism (CCIT),Egypt has been one of the consistent
opponents of progress and compromise.


13. (C) During negotiations over the documents negotiated at
the March meeting of the Commission on the Status of Women,
Egypt sought to include multiple references to "alien and
colonial domination" and "foreign occupation," knowing these
phrases were unacceptable to the U.S., but hoping that at
least one instance of their use would be accepted by the
Commission. They also attempted to insert an irrelevant
reference to "nuclear disarmament" into a document dealing
with women and economic development. Last fall, when the
General Assembly adopted by consensus the Israeli resolution
to mark January 27 as World Remembrance Day for Holocaust
victims, Egypt was the only Arab state and one of only four
states (the others were Indonesia, Malaysia, and Venezuela)
to make a statement of reservation, arguing "no one should
have a monopoly on suffering."

Nonproliferation


--------------


14. (C) Over the course of the last two years, Egypt
consistently has disrupted efforts aimed at focusing the
world's attention on nonproliferation and at making the UN's
security-related bodies and conferences more responsive to
the current international security environment. Egyptian
diplomats in New York have been quite skillful in helping to
direct the focus of NAM concerns away from current WMD
proliferation-related threats and onto the programs and
policies of the U.S. and the other NPT Nuclear Weapons
States, thus ensuring that the U.S. and its allies receive
most of the blame when security-related meetings fail to
produce results. However, in certain instances when the
balance of opinion at the UN seemed to begin to shift away
from Cold War-era thinking (outdated disarmament
initiatives),Egypt resorted to tactics that were more overt
and anti-U.S. in nature.


15. (C) Two significant examples where Egypt employed these
tactics are the 2005 Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT)
Review Conference and the negotiations on the 2005 World
Summit Outcome Document. In both instances, Egypt almost
single-handedly blocked consensus on language that the U.S.
and many non-nuclear weapons states could support, and then
sought privately and publicly to blame the U.S. when
negotiations failed to produce results. To this day, very
few are aware that Egypt, with support from Iran and
Pakistan, scuttled a compromise text that otherwise could
have ensured the inclusion of key security-related provisions
in the 2005 World Summit Outcome Document.


16. (C) On a related subject, Egypt in 2004 joined other NAM
radicals in the disarmament field in an unsuccessful effort
to block the equation of nuclear nonproliferation with
nuclear disarmament as "priority issues" within the Strategic
Plan of the UN's Department of Disarmament Affairs (DDA).
Had Egypt and the others been successful, DDA for the past
two years would not have enjoyed its current mandate to
support the UNSC's 1540 Committee in its efforts to assist UN
member states to develop national legislation to curb the
illicit transfer of WMD-related articles and technology to
rogue states and terrorist organizations.


17. (C) Comment: Regardless of Egypt's possible motivations
-- which likely include concerns that an international focus
on Iranian noncompliance with its NPT and IAEA obligations
could divert regional attention away from Israel, or
precipitate limitations on possession of the nuclear fuel
cycle -- it would be difficult to conclude that Egypt is not
at least aware that Iran is a direct beneficiary of its
actions, and the U.S. and its allies direct victims. End
Comment.

BOLTON