A recent meeting between Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and President Bush at his Texas ranch serves as a reminder of America's deep involvement in Egypt, a key Arab nation.
Aid is central to Washington's relationship with Cairo. The US has provided Egypt with $1.3 billion a year in military aid since 1979, and an average of $815 million a year in economic assistance. All told, Egypt has received over $50 billion in US largesse since 1975.
The money is seen as bolstering Egypt's stability, support for US policies in the region, US access to the Suez Canal, and peace with Israel. But some critics question the aid's effectiveness in spurring economic and democratic development in the Arab world's most populous country - a higher US priority after Sept. 11, 2001.
Each year USAID gives $200 million to the Egyptian government in cash handouts to do with as it pleases. The money is theoretically conditional upon economic reforms in problem areas such as deregulation, privatization, and free trade.
"Aid offers an easy way out for Egypt to avoid reform," says Edward Walker, the US ambassador to Egypt from 1994 to 1998. "They use the money to support antiquated programs and to resist reforms."
USAID has been ineffective at changing economic policy here because Cairo knows that in the end it will get the US money regardless of its economic policy, according to Walker, who since leaving the State Department has become head of the Middle East Institute in Washington.
Egypt is dominated by the ruling National Democratic Party, which uses a 23-year-old emergency law to restrict civil liberties. There are strict limitations on the establishment of newspapers and political parties, and presidential elections are single-candidate referendums.
[Excerpt of an article by Charles Levinson, The Christian Science Monitor]
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