The Joplin Globe, Joplin, MO

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September 22, 2011

Speaker: New Egypt will likely draw from Arab, Western governments

By Roger McKinney news@joplinglobe.com

JOPLIN, Mo. — Egypt will look to Western democracies, to other Arab countries and cultures, and to Islam when developing its new government, John Duke Anthony said Thursday at Missouri Southern State University.

Anthony, CEO of the National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations, spoke during the first session of the annual Gockel International Symposium. His talk in Taylor Performing Arts Center was on the changing nature of America’s interests in Egypt.

An uprising in Egypt ousted longtime President Hosni Mubarak and his government. The revolution was part of the so-called Arab Spring movement that also overturned leaders in Tunisia and now Libya.

Anthony answered “yes” to an audience member who asked it if was reasonable to expect Egypt to adopt a Western-style democracy, or a form of government that is more uniquely Arab with Islamic elements.

“They will likely draw from whatever sources they feel deserve serious consideration,” Anthony said.

Anthony referred to Egypt’s situation as “the Egyptian political re-engineering experiment.”

He said more than four dozen parties have registered to run in elections that start in three weeks.

Anthony said all other Arab countries will be watching Egypt to determine what it does.

Anthony said the potential influence of Islam and Islamists in the new Egypt makes some Americans uncomfortable.

He said American interests in Egypt include strategic interests, economic interests, commercial interests that are separate from economic interests, military cooperation, political interests, and the interest of spreading democracy and human rights.

During the uprising, the Egyptian army protected protesters from Mubarak’s police. Anthony said the militaries of Egypt and the U.S. have been close since Egypt’s 1979 peace treaty with Israel. He said the militaries of the two countries participated in training together. He said he thinks the Egyptian army’s response to the protesters is because of its relationship with and training from Americans.

“You see a degree of military restraint that no one would have predicted,” Anthony said.

He said Egypt has the largest and most battle-tested army among Arab countries.

Egypt represents the intersection of three continents and three religions.

“This is the cradle of culture,” he said. “It’s the traffic jam of the devout.”

Anthony allowed his wife, Cynthia Anthony, a faculty member at the American University in Cairo, to answer an audience question about American aid to Egypt following the revolution.

She said the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development face a conundrum, because after these tremendous changes in the Arab world, they have no money.

“It’s really quite a great challenge,” she said.



Another lecture

John Duke Anthony on Thursday night was to share the stage in Webster Hall’s Corley Auditorium with Mark Long, director of Middle East Studies at Baylor University, Waco, Texas. Long will speak at 10 a.m. today in Corley Auditorium.

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