Morsi's bold debut strikes a chord in Egypt and the US

The Egyptian president Mohammed Morsi, left, with, Ali Akbar Velayati, an adviser to the Iranian supreme leader, on right, and officials during the Non-aligned Movement summit in Tehran on Thursday.

CAIRO // The Egyptian president Mohammed Morsi's international debut at the Non-Aligned Movement summit in Iran has made its biggest splash at home.

After he publicly denounced Syria's regime while being hosted by Damascus's top ally Iran, Egyptian supporters and even some critics are lauding him as an Arab leader who speaks truth to power.

That may have been precisely the point. The drama of his Tehran speech boosts Mr Morsi as he works to entrench his authority in Egypt.

His speech also points to new images he is cultivating: the tough, fearless leader who speaks with the voice of a people who chose him. For Islamists, he was a Sunni hero against the Shiites.

For critics, the gushing support is reminiscent of the unquestioning praise given in state media to his predecessor, the ousted autocrat Hosni Mubarak.

Moreover, they point out that behind the dramatic gestures, Mr Morsi is so far doing little to bring actual dramatic change in Egypt's foreign policy.

Mr Morsi is being cautious, reluctant to turn sharply against Egypt's main Mubarak-era allies, Saudi Arabia, the United States and even Israel.

That is in part because he is constrained by the realities of the region and by his need for allies as he tries to address Egypt's domestic woes. Mr Morsi makes his first visit as president to the US this month for the UN General Assembly session. Washington might have been expected to be unhappy to see the first visit by an Egyptian president to Tehran since Iran's 1979 Islamic revolution. Instead, it joined in the praise.

The US State Department spokesman Patrick Ventrell welcomed Mr Morsi's comments on Syria as "very clear and very strong", particularly as they were made in Tehran "to some people who need to hear it there".

Since his inauguration in late July, Mr Morsi has promised a more independent foreign policy, saying Mubarak's close adherence to an American line made Egypt ineffectual and irrelevant in the Middle East. Mr Morsi's supporters touted his speech as an example of his new approach.

His flair in Tehran was certainly a break from the tone of Mubarak's foreign policy, which usually saw dry repetitions of long-held stances and shunned drama.

In contrast, Mr Morsi swept in to visit a longtime rival, eagerly shook the Iranian president's hand, then gave a hearty call for world support of Syria's rebels against an "oppressive regime that has lost its legitimacy".

"People haven't heard an Egyptian leader speaking in this fashion, speaking out a foreign policy position that struck a chord with the region," said Michael W Hanna, an Egypt expert at New York's Century Foundation. "This is the first time that Egypt struck a populist note in terms of its foreign policy in probably decades."

Even one of Mr Morsi's staunchest domestic critics, Mohamed Abu Hamed, a former legislator, tweeted: "To the president: a salute of appreciation for your speech in Tehran summit. I hope you implement the ideas you mentioned."

He also won praise from ultraconservative Sunnis in Egypt who are key allies for Mr Morsi and who only days earlier were loudly denouncing his trip to Iran. The ultraconservative Salafis despise Shiites as heretics. In his speech, Mr Morsi hit notes that were music to the Salafi ears. He kicked off the address with a salute to Abu Bakr and Omar, the companions of the Prophet Mohammed and his first successors. Mentioning them was seen as an implicit snub to Iran: Sunnis revere them, but Shiites hate them because they are seen as cheating the man they see as the rightful successor, Ali.

One prominent Egyptian Salafist cleric praised Mr Morsi for affirming Egypt's Sunni identity. "The comments had a huge effect and shook the hearts of Iranians like earthquakes," said Sheikh Mohammed Gweili. A hardline imam in Saudi Arabia, Suleiman Al Odah, wrote on Twitter: "Let all Arab leaders go to Iran if they will speak the truth like President Morsi did."

For some, the effusive praise was worrying. Sarah Othman, a prominent blogger and columnist in the independent El-Badil online newspaper, criticised Mr Morsi's goading of the Iranians with the Sunni Islamic references as "childish, too naive and unbecoming of someone with such a high position".

It "was only met with approval by fanatics and sectarians".

* Associated Press