Clinton in Cairo

Ex-president Bill wants to clean up the word "compromise"

by Tarek Atia

(cairolive.com, January 19, 2002) In a heavy-handed speech tainted by the current war-saturated global mood, former US president Bill Clinton had a lot to say to the Arab world, in a speech delivered yesterday on behalf of The Future Foundation, a non-profit NGO run by presidential son Gamal Mubarak.

Clinton, wearing an electric blue tie, was his usual charismatic self, delivering an attention-grabbing speech tempered only by the fact that much of what he said reflected the lexicon in vogue since September 11. Things like: the Muslim world had to look within itself to discover what went wrong, why it produced the likes of Osama bin Laden and the terrorists who had perpetrated the attack on the World Trade Center, Clinton said.

But Clinton also had his share of criticism for the US, and how it had to do more to help developing countries enter the new borderless global world on a more level playing field. Although Clinton, a Democrat, stressed that he supported the war efforts of his successor George W Bush, he also indicated that the same amount -- one billion dollars per month -- being spent on the war effort could perhaps be better used to help developing countries and pay the US's share in relief programs. He said history had taught that it was always cheaper to pay now to support your friends rather than fight them as enemies later.

In that vein, Clinton mentioned Hernando de Soto more than three times in the speech, describing the good that was coming out of de Soto's work to help the poor obtain legal property rights so that they could then use that property as collateral to secure micro-loans. The former US president also praised the Future Foundation's goal of providing Harvard management training for Egypt's emerging leaders. In fact, the event was designed to raise funds for that very mission.

Clinton's speech also touched on the Palestinian-Israeli problem, echoing President Hosni Mubarak's assertion that solving that conflict would remove a great deal of the causes of global terrorism. Clinton, who spent much of the last year of his presidency actively engaged in the Middle East peace process, seemed genuinely upset that he was not able to bring the parties to a successful peace. Of course he neglected to mention that it was his public censure of Arafat after the failed Camp David negotiations -- even though it has come to light since then that Barak was the more stubborn party at those talks -- that inspired the feeling, in global public opinion, that the Palestinians had turned down a historic offer.

Clinton expressed lament several times that the senior leaders of the peace process -- Yitzhak Rabin, King Hussein of Jordan, himself -- were no longer involved. He said Mubarak was the most senior player involved and that he knew more than most about the benefits of peace.

Clinton's most passionate moment by far came as he urged those involved in the process to stop considering the word "compromise" a dirty word. His words seemed to be directed more towards the Palestinians than the Israelis.

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