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Sudden Split Recasts U.S. Foreign Policy

(New York Times) Helene Cooper, Mark Landler and Mark Mazzetti - After days of delicate public and private diplomacy, the U.S. openly broke with its most stalwart ally in the Arab world on Wednesday, as the Obama administration strongly condemned violence by allies of President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt against protesters and called on him to speed up his exit from power. Egypt's government hit back swiftly. The Foreign Ministry released a defiant statement saying the calls from "foreign parties" had been "rejected and aimed to incite the internal situation in Egypt." Separately, in an interview, a senior Egyptian government official took aim at President Obama's call on Tuesday for a political transition to begin "now" - a call that infuriated Cairo. But the White House was not backing down. "I want to be clear," said Robert Gibbs, the press secretary. "'Now' started yesterday." The open rupture between the U.S. and Egypt illustrates how swift and dramatic changes in Cairo are altering the calculus of the entire region and the administration's foreign policy agenda.
2011-02-03 08:38:31
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