US Calls for "Orderly Transition" in Egypt
The New York Times reports:
WASHINGTON — Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton called on Sunday for “an orderly transition” to a more politically open Egypt, stopping short of telling its embattled president, Hosni Mubarak, to step down but clearly laying the groundwork for his departure.
Mrs. Clinton, making a round of Sunday talk shows, insisted that Mr. Mubarak’s future was up to the Egyptian people. But she said on “State of the Union” on CNN that the United States stood “ready to help with the kind of transition that will lead to greater political and economic freedom.” And she emphasized that elections scheduled for this fall must be free and fair.
President Obama reinforced that message in phone calls on Saturday and Sunday to other leaders in the region, including King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, as the administration tried to contain the regional reverberations.
Mrs. Clinton confronted one such ripple effect when she said on the ABC News program “This Week” that the United States did not intend to cut military aid to Egypt, despite the White House announcement Friday that the nearly $1.5 billion in annual assistance was under review.
The prospect of a cutoff of aid alarmed the Israeli government, an Israeli official said, because it is linked to the 1979 peace treaty between Egypt and Israel and could alienate the Egyptian military, which Israel views as a stabilizing force in an otherwise deteriorating situation.
Israel has conveyed its concerns to the United States about the risk of a sudden collapse of the Egyptian government, this official said. It worries about who would replace Mr. Mubarak, viewing the ascendant opposition leader, Mohamed ElBaradei, with some wariness.
In Mr. Obama’s phone calls, which also included the leaders of Turkey and Britain, he “reiterated his focus on opposing violence and calling for restraint,” a White House statement said.
