In his recent debut on the international stage, Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi clearly laid out his first major foreign-policy objective. Speaking at the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) meeting on Syria on August 15, he stated that “It is time for the Syrian regime to leave.” Then again on August 30, speaking in Tehran, Morsi called for Iran to join Egypt, Turkey and Saudi Arabia in forcing a regime change: “Syria is the responsibility of all of us and will not stop until there is real intervention to stop it.”
In office for less than two months, Morsi has made a large leap from his inaugural address, in which he merely stated, “The shedding of the Syrian people’s blood must stop.” Egypt’s new president has paid lip service to other international causes popular with the Egyptian street and especially the Muslim Brotherhood, from which Morsi hails, including support for the Palestinians. But these recent speeches represented the new Egypt’s first attempt to re-exert its influence by urging a contact group of regional power brokers to manage the Syrian crisis.
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