By Rami G. Khouri

Two major events took place this week that garnered much attention round the world: the Republican Party convention in Tampa, Florida, that officially nominated Mitt Romney as its presidential candidate, and the 120-member Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) summit in Tehran. Both generated much rhetoric and some drama, but with very different consequences.
 
The Republican convention reflects the make-believe world of American conservative ideologues, while the NAM summit captures the nuances, subtleties and tensions of our real world, especially vis-a-vis events in the Middle East. In Florida, the world witnessed entertaining spectacle; in Tehran, we witnessed history on the move.
 
The most significant development Thursday was Egyptian President Mohammad Mursi’s speech at the NAM Summit, in which he supported the ongoing revolt to topple the violent Bashar Assad family regime in Syria, while also signaling more sophisticated Egyptian regional diplomacy. We are now witnessing that phase of Egypt’s post-revolution transformation that many of us in the region have long anticipated: the start of foreign policy moves that emanate from the steady consolidation of a stable, legitimate and democratic governance system in Egypt and also reflect the majority will of the Egyptian people.
 
Mursi did not mince his words, saying that, “Our solidarity with the struggle of the Syrian people against an oppressive regime that has lost its legitimacy is an ethical duty as it is a political and strategic necessity ... The revolution in Egypt is the cornerstone for the Arab Spring, which started days after Tunisia and was followed by Libya and Yemen and now the revolution in Syria against its oppressive regime ... We all have to announce our full solidarity with the struggle of those seeking freedom and justice in Syria, and translate this sympathy into a clear political vision that supports a peaceful transition to a democratic system of rule that reflects the demands of the Syrian people for freedom.”
 
Wow! We have to take notice when a democratically elected Egyptian president speaks in the language of legitimacy, oppression, ethics and solidarity with those seeking freedom and justice in Syria and around the Arab world and he does so in the heartland of Syria’s closest ally in Tehran.
 
Simplistic analysts and dishonest ideologues in the United States and Israel wasted no time in recent months demanding that President Mursi define himself and his administration by meeting the Israeli leadership and signaling Egypt’s peaceful intentions. Mursi instead has sent a powerful reminder that what Egypt experienced last year, and what his presidency represents, is a genuine revolutionary change in how power is exercised and policy decisions are made in Cairo: The lone litmus test for Egyptian foreign policy is no longer Israel’s sensitivities, and its control room is no longer Washington.
 
Mursi signaled a nuanced, complex approach to regional issues, discarding the one-dimensional “you’re with us or against us” cartoon-like preferences of American and Israeli officials that were so evident in the Republican Party show in Tampa which saw the Middle East in terms of only “good Israel, bad Iran” and nothing else in the neighborhood. Mursi instead openly called for supporting the rebellion against Assad, but simultaneously proposed creating a grouping of regional powers (Iran, Turkey, Egypt) that could work to resolve the Syrian conflict peacefully.
 
By going to Tehran and holding bilateral talks with the leadership, he signaled a clear desire to restore normal Egyptian-Iranian diplomatic relations – but his in-your-face criticism of the Syrian regime, Iran’s closest Arab state ally, also sent the message that it cares deeply for other Arabs’ rights. He forcefully asserted Egyptian national security interests by sending tanks and military aircraft in early August to quell a terrorist threat in Sinai, then pulled back some, but not all, equipment to assuage Israeli and American concerns, i.e., he is sensitive, but not subservient, to Israeli concerns, which is a very sensible approach to the world.
 
Just before he traveled to China en route to Tehran, Mursi explicitly said that Cairo would pursue a more balanced foreign policy: “Egypt is now a civilian country ... with a democratic, constitutional and modern society. International relations between all countries are open and they must be based on the concept of balance. We are hostile to no one but we are to defend our interests.”
 
Mursi’s message in his words and trips is clear and refreshing:
 
Egypt will slowly play an important role in the region once again; that role will reflect its national interests and its sense of pan-Arab rights; it will engage with Israel, Iran, Turkey, China, the United States and others according to a basket of mutual interest and rights, rather than one-issue visions; and, most importantly, after its people exercised their right to national self-determination, Egypt is once again exercising its genuine sovereignty in foreign policy.
 
How refreshing. Welcome back, Egypt, modern history missed you very much during your recent half century of slumber and foreign subjugation.
 
Rami G. Khouri is published twice weekly by THE DAILY STAR.