In pursuit of Arab backing for the Annapolis conference, today Condoleeza Rice was in Cairo. The Egyptians, our ostensible allies, have by far been the singularly most unhelpful Arab state in Rice’s effort to promote Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. While the U.S. and Israel have been trying to isolate Hamas, Egyptian officials have repeatedly called for reconciliation talks between Hamas and Fatah and the formation of a unity government. Worse, in recent months Egypt has allowed its border with Gaza to be turned into a terrorist- and weapons-importation superhighway through the proliferation of a large network of smuggling tunnels. This has brought, among other things, Grad-type Katyusha rockets into Gaza that are more accurate, more deadly, and have a significantly longer range than Hamas’s crude homemade Kassams. These rockets can be employed by Hamas at a time of its choosing to scuttle any Israeli-Palestinian progress in negotiations and provoke significant Israeli military action in Gaza. The Israelis have been strenuously pointing this out to Rice for weeks.

So one would think that upon visiting Cairo, Rice would be prepared to deliver some stern words to the Egyptians about their conspicuous antagonism toward what is supposed to be a serious American Middle East initiative. But it actually appears that the reverse happened: Rice went to Cairo not to deliver a warning to the Egyptians, but actually to assuage them.

…after talks Tuesday with Rice in Cairo, [Egyptian FM] Aboul Gheit promised Egypt’s backing for the gathering. Rice “has helped us to understand the American objective. She shed a great deal of light on the current American efforts,” he told reporters.
“We feel encouraged regarding what we heard from Secretary Rice and promised her that we would help and we would help the parties as well in order to achieve the objective which is launching the permanent status negotiations that would lead to the establishment of a Palestinian state on both the Palestinian territories,” he said.

It is of course possible that behind closed doors Rice delivered a bruising critique of Egypt’s campaign of sabotage and laid out the consequences of such continued behavior. But I highly doubt it. For Annapolis to happen, she needed public approval from Egypt, and today it looks like she got it. And in her desperation to acquire this totem, more important and long-term problems were disregarded. It appears that Egypt’s acquiescence to the arming of Hamas will continue apace.