Clinton treads carefully through Egypt's political minefield

Hillary Clinton stepped up pressure on Egypt's military leadership to surrender its political powers as she concluded one of the most sensitive diplomatic missions of her career on Sunday.

In a highly symbolic moment, the US secretary of state smiled and exchanged pleasantries with Mohammed Morsi, Egypt's new Islamist president, who was jailed by Hosni Mubarak's regime that Washington sustained for many decades.

It was a trip that required the deftest of diplomatic manoeuvring as Clinton sought not only to navigate the treacherous waters of Egyptian domestic politics, but also to recalibrate Washington's troubled relationship with a core ally.

She broached the subject of Egypt's power struggle between its generals and Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood delicately, looking forward to "the military's return to a surely national security role".

It was not the most strident of calls. But it could hardly have been otherwise given the precariousness of Egypt's present position following the dissolution of the Islamist-led parliament at the military council's request just before Morsi was sworn in last month.

Shortly before she met the military council's chief, Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi, Clinton praised the generals for not following the Syrian army's example of "murdering their own people" as she gently prodded them on to a democratic course.

"Democracy is hard," she said. "It requires dialogue and compromise and real politics. We are encouraged and we want to be helpful. But we know that it is not for the United States to decide; it is for the Egyptian people to decide."

Her encouragement did not appear to yield immediate results as Field Marshal Tantawi raised the stakes in his standoff with Morsi by declaring that he would never let the Muslim Brotherhood dominate Egypt. The president, left largely powerless by the generals' expropriation of legislative authority, is fighting to overturn the order dissolving parliament.

Clinton's trip is the most significant by a US politician since President Barack Obama made a speech in Cairo in 2009 intended to mend relations with the Muslim world after the acrimony of the George W Bush era.

But Obama's support for Hosni Mubarak, overthrown in last year's revolution, has cost him dearly. Opinion polls show that 76 per cent of Egyptians view him unfavourably. Grappling with that legacy, Clinton has also had to find a way to respond to the rise through the ballot box of political Islam, with its deep anti-Western and anti-Israeli traditions.

"Things change at kind of warp speed," she acknowledged ruefully.

Despite a loss of US leverage, Clinton also sought to use soft diplomacy to influence the Muslim Brotherhood into pursuing a moderate course. She promised Morsi major US financial support if he undertook to respect the rights of women and minorities and agreed to maintain relations with Israel.