Egypt’s central place in the regional and international
strategic arena seems secure for the near future, but there are
long-term dangers. The United States does not want this demo-
graphic giant of an estimated 80 million to become unfriendly
to its interests and is likely to continue sending large amounts
of economic aid to Egypt. The United States relies on Egypt in
particular to mediate in the Israeli-Palestinian dispute, and as
long as the conflict goes unresolved, the U.S.–Egypt economic
partnership should be strong (ironically, then, regional peace
could be bad economically for Egypt). At the same time, Egypt
does not want to be seen by its Arab neighbors as a puppet of
the United States. Its struggle to maintain some political inde-
pendence from the United States may be seen in particular in
Egypt’s view of Iraq. Egypt was also slow to embrace any U.S.
expansion outside Afghanistan of the war on terrorism follow-
ing the September 11, 2001, attacks in which, as the opening of
this book pointed out, some Egyptians were involved.