At few junctures in history has Germany been as politically close to Egypt as it is today. Part of this stems from the fact that, after the United States and Japan, Germany provides Egypt with its third-largest amount of bilateral development aid -- more than €200 million ($214.5 million) a year. But another factor is German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder's firm stance against any war on Iraq, which has found considerable resonance in Cairo, a modern city at the crossroads of the Muslim world.

On the eve of a whirlwind diplomatic tour of Berlin and Paris, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak (photo) praised both countries. "Gerhard Schröder, (French President) Jacques Chirac and others are going in a good direction," Mubarak told the newsweekly Der Spiegel in an interview published on the eve of his trip. "We support every honest effort to counteract the threat of war. I don't want a war."

In Germany, Mubarak is to meet on Tuesday with Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer and Development Minister Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul, where he is expected to discuss the latest Iraq developments. On Wednesday, he will meet with Schröder before traveling on to see Chirac.

Seeking Arab unity

The Egyptian president is likely to encounter similar views from his "Old Europe" counterparts. Mubarak has said he fears a war against Iraq because it would increase instability in the region, and Chirac has said he is afraid a war would "create a large number of little bin Ladens." Mubarak is hoping his European visit will give a needed boost to his effort to draft a unanimous position among Arab states at a peace summit of the Arab League planned for next week in the Egyptian resort city Sharm al-Sheikh. The deeply divided leaders of the European Union member states hammered out such an agreement in Brussels on Monday, and Mubarak is hoping to do the same.

"The Arab heads of state will issue a unanimous statement at their next summit at the end of the month. That's certain -- otherwise I wouldn't have called the meeting in the first place," he told Der Spiegel.

But unity still seemed a distant prospect at a meeting of Arab League foreign ministers in Cairo over the weekend, where proposals ranged from demands that Saddam Hussein work more cooperatively with weapons inspectors to a suggestion that he go into exile.

Iraq's neighbors in the Middle East are in a difficult diplomatic position -- Mubarak himself recently conceded that the Arab nations do not have the capability to stop a war from breaking out in the Middle East. Against that backdrop, he's now visiting Berlin and Paris in an attempt to coordinate their respective Iraq policies. Egypt has already made clear -- early on and in unambiguous terms -- that it would not send troops as it did in 1991 to participate in another Gulf War.

Trouble in its own backyard

Mubarak is also leaning more to Europe because of simmering tensions between Washington and Cairo during the past two years. Cairo has accused the Bush administration of neglecting the Middle East peace process and giving Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon free reign in his battle against the Palestinians. Mubarak has been seeking increased engagement on the part of Europe to get peace talks back on track. For Mubarak and other Arab leaders, the continuous conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians is a far greater danger than that posed by Saddam Hussein.

"As long as there is no solution to the Palestine problem, there will not be peace in the region," Mubarak told Der Spiegel.

Egypt is an important partner in the international war against terrorism, standing firmly at the side of the U.S. and Europe. But recently, Mubarak has given signs that the alliance isn't as strong as it once was. Mubarak has stated there were a number of aspects of U.S. policy that concerned him.

"The most dangerous trend is the campaign against Arabs and Muslims who are being deported in the name of the war against terrorism and the protection of democracy and human rights," Mubarak recently said. He has accused the Americans of operating under a double standard when it comes to the Middle East peace process and the hunt for weapons of mass destruction.

Nor does he think war should be a foregone conclusion. "I believe that there are enough peaceful methods still available to prevent a war," he told Der Spiegel.

In Egypt, there is growing dissent among the public about the possibility of war. And if the U.S. does engage in a military invasion of Iraq, observers fear it will breath new life into the fundamentalist Islam movement. During the 1990s, Egypt led a bloody fight against the religious radicals after a string of high-profile and deadly attacks on foreign tourists. By the end of the decade-long crackdown, more than 1,200 fundamentalists had been killed.

By aligning himself closely with France and Germany, Mubarak is seeking to reduce those risks while at the same time pushing for initiatives that will help restore stability in the crisis-afflicted region.