75 IMPACT OF 9/11 ON THE MIDDLE EAST THE IMPACT OF 9/11 ON THE MIDDLE EAST The following are summaries of papers presented by members of the Middle East Working Group on a program of panels at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association in Boston, MA, August 31, 2002. The panels were organized by Augustus Richard Norton of Boston University and Louis J. Cantori of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. U.S.-EGYPTIAN RELATIONS Mustapha Kamel Al-Sayyid, Cairo University The events of September 11 changed some dimensions of the close relationship between Egypt and the United States as new issues became, more than ever before, issues of concern for public opinion and the governments of the two countries. As the United States became more interested in a show of solidarity by its allies and friends, Egyptian officials initially were reluctant to air their differences with the United States and more willing to get along with Washington on some issues over which the countries had differed in the past. The first sign of change was immediately noted a few weeks after September 11. When the United States called for an international coalition to support a military campaign against the Taliban, President Hosni Mubarak went public to argue that a successful fight against terrorism requires no large-scale military campaign, but rather limited security operations following skillful intelligence gathering. He was also critical of the proposal to establish a worldwide coalition, saying that such an idea would be extremely divisive. The U.S. administration did not like public disagreement on this issue. This ill-feeling on the part of the United States was conveyed to President Mubarak, probably by President Jacques Chirac of France, who came to the United States to express his sympathy to the American people and met President Mubarak later. President Mubarak changed the tone of his statements over this issue and stressed Egypt’s solidarity with the United States in its fight against terrorism but added that Egypt would not send troops to Afghanistan. Egypt was probably not asked to send troops, but it is almost certain that Egypt provided assistance to the United States in the form of intelli- gence sharing and granting overflight rights to U.S. warplanes. The Egyptian government then strove to minimize differences with the United States over most issues. President Mubarak himself would not talk about such differences, leaving the matter to Ahmed Maher, his new foreign minister, who was less fond of making inflammatory statements than Amr Moussa, his predecessor. Egypt went even further, ignoring negative elements in U.S. ideas about the Middle East, preferring to focus on what it sees as “positive ideas” and to work with the U.S. administration to give shape to such ideas. President Bush’s speech on June 24, in which he said that the United States would not deal with Yasser Arafat, was found by President Mubarak to be quite balanced. Despite calls by the Arab summit to sever links with Israel, the Egyptian government contin- ued to exchange visits with Israeli officials, many of whom were from the Labor party. The head of