With cease-fire, US pins hopes on Egypt

WASHINGTON  — In frantic diplomacy, the Obama administration helped seal a cease-fire that puts heavy responsibility on Egypt’s young Islamist government to ensure the end of Hamas rockets from the Gaza Strip. If Egypt delivers, the United States will have rediscovered the stalwart regional partner it has lacked since the autocratic Hosni Mubarak was overthrown in a popular revolt last year. If it fails, stability across the region will suffer.

Much depends on whether the agreement brokered by Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi proves durable and halts not only a week of open warfare that killed more than 160 Palestinians and six Israelis, but definitively ends rocket attacks on southern Israel from Gaza that grew increasingly frequent in recent months.

Standing beside Morsi’s foreign minister in Cairo, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said the deal would improve conditions for Gaza’s 1.5 million people while offering greater security for the Jewish state — but the fierceness of the recent encounter meant no one was declaring it a success yet.

And US officials familiar with Clinton’s last-minute diplomatic shuttling warned against making any judgments until the cease-fire proves to hold.

The US is counting on Morsi to shepherd the peace. The former Muslim Brotherhood leader emerged from his first major international crisis with enhanced prestige and now has a track record as someone who can mediate between the two sworn enemies, something the United States cannot do because it considers Hamas a terrorist organization and doesn’t allow contacts between its members and American officials.

Hours into the cease-fire, Morsi seemed to have persuaded Hamas, a Brotherhood offshoot, to abide by its conditions.

He won immediate praise from Washington, with President Barack Obama thanking Morsi “for his efforts to achieve a sustainable cease-fire and for his personal leadership in negotiating a cease-fire proposal.” In their sixth phone call since last week, Obama on Wednesday welcomed Morsi’s “commitment to regional security” and the leaders agreed to work toward a “more durable solution to the situation in Gaza,” according to a White House statement.

The diplomacy clearly strengthened a US-Egyptian partnership that has been strained in the 21 months since Egyptians toppled Mubarak. In that time, Washington angrily protested Cairo’s crackdown on US-funded pro-democracy groups, its slow response to attacks on the Israeli and US embassies and its inconsistent control over the Sinai Peninsula. The US regularly threatened to withhold aid and Obama remarked in September that he no longer considered Egypt an ally.

That breakdown was a marked reversal from the legacy of Mubarak’s three-decade autocracy, when the Arab world’s most populous and influential country closely cooperated with the United States in fighting al-Qaida, containing the influence of Iran and mediating between Israel and the Palestinians. Although Morsi’s government has promised to abide by the 1979 Camp David Accords with Israel, his Muslim Brotherhood resume had raised concerns about his true commitment. And continued comments against the peace treaty from Brotherhood members raised ire in Israel and the US

Getting Egypt back on board as a good-faith mediator appeared to be a major selling point in winning the Israelis to the conditions of the cease-fire. In a telephone conversation with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Obama seemed to be trying to re-establish the strong triangular relationship between the US, Israel and Egypt that had been a bulwark of regional security under Mubarak.

The president expressed his “appreciation” for Netanyahu’s willingness to work with Egypt’s government on the package and reiterated full US support for Israel’s right to self-defense. But the White House noted that Obama had specifically “recommended” that Netanyahu accept the Egyptian proposal. Obama also vowed to help the Israelis address the smuggling of weapons and explosives into Gaza and pledged additional funding for Iron Dome and other US-Israeli missile defense programs.

Israel launched well over 1,500 airstrikes and other attacks on targets in Gaza, while more than 1,000 rockets pounded Israel. In all, more than 140 Palestinians, including dozens of civilians, were killed, while five Israelis died in the fighting.

According to the cease-fire agreement, Israel and all Palestinian militant groups agreed to halt “all hostilities.” For the Palestinians, that means an end to Israeli airstrikes and assassinations of wanted militants. For Israel, it brings a halt to rocket fire and attempts at cross-border incursions from Gaza.

If the cease-fire holds, Israel and Egypt will be clear beneficiaries. But Hamas, too, comes out a winner, having long been isolated by Washington’s Arab allies but now embraced by much of the region.