A Silent Role Struggle in the New Middle East
A Silent Role Struggle in the New Middle East
By Islam Farag, from Cairo / Egypt
It appears that the long-simmering dispute between Saudi Arabia and Egypt, which has plagued relations between them for some time, has reached a critical level, threatening to explode. This dispute was not the first of its kind in the history of their relations, and it will not be the last one. However, the leaders of both countries have always chosen to address any disagreements behind closed doors and through official channels, given the complex and intersecting nature of their mutual interests and the potentially confusing repercussions that could cast a shadow over regional issues.
At worst, some space was left for the media to release unofficial messages that might be picked up by the decision-maker in the other country to understand what could not be expressed through official frameworks.
Official Saudi mockery
However, while the rift between Cairo and Riyadh has been well-known for some time, and although it has been expressed in various indirect ways by media outlets in both countries, this is the first time this barrier has been crossed by a high-ranking Saudi official mocking a prominent Egyptian official.
A few days ago, an accident occurred on a major highway in the Nile Delta, resulting in the deaths of 19 young women and their bus driver. This incident sparked a sweeping attack on Kamel El-Wazir, Egypt’s Minister of Transport and Industry. El-Wazir came to his position from the military and enjoys great favor with President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi. The attack was attributed to technical problems with the road, which was built during the minister’s tenure as part of a vast road network that the Egyptian government boasts of as an icon of its achievements. However, there is widespread controversy over the extent to which it has been implemented efficiently and to the required standards.
The minister occasionally boasted about his accomplishments. Once, upon his return from Germany, he spoke of the Germans’ admiration for Sisi’s achievements and how he had turned the impossible into possible. However, he mispronounced the word “impossible” and instead pronounced it “possible.” Egyptians at the time joked about him, calling him “Minister possible.”
In his defense following the recent incident, he compared the cost of roads in Egypt and Saudi Arabia, a wealthy country, and how efficiently these roads were built at a lower cost than in the kingdom. Little did he realize that his words would serve as a vehicle for Riyadh’s mockery of the Egyptian regime, represented by the minister.
In a Facebook post, Turki Al-Sheikh, head of the Saudi Entertainment Authority and a close confidant of Crown Prince Mohammed Salman, wrote: “No comment… Saudi Arabia is possible.”
The next day, while the Egyptian government was insisting on passing, in a hasty and ill-considered manner, as the Speaker of the Egyptian Parliament admitted, a law that would end old, unlimited-term rental contracts and threaten millions of elderly people with eviction from their homes without any clear alternatives provided by the government, Al Sheikh posted on his Facebook account, saying: “In order to complete the regulatory procedures… His Highness the Crown Prince directs the extension of the period of studying the regulation of the relationship between the landlord and the tenant to a period not exceeding (90) days, and the completion of all requirements to ensure achieving a balance between the interests of the parties in the real estate sector.”
This post coincided with the controversy sparked by the government’s passage of the law, revealing an unusual boldness in Saudi Arabia’s official dealings with the Egyptian regime. It suggests that this is only the tip of the iceberg. What is the nature of the dispute between the two countries, and what prompted matters to reach this level of confrontation, which makes it difficult to reach pre-crisis levels.
From concession to disagreement
Prior to these stances, the two countries had been careful to maintain a normal appearance on the surface, reflecting constant understanding and coordination, particularly in public conferences and protocol meetings. However, what’s happening behind the scenes indicates escalating disagreements between them.
About two months ago, some of this disagreement surfaced in a report by Mada Masr, a platform known for its independence and impartiality in addressing public issues and its ability to communicate with informed sources. Although the Egyptian regime is uncomfortable with its publications on various issues, they represent an important window for it to disseminate highly credible messages for specific purposes without any accountability. This has happened several times over the past years.
What was published concerned the islands of Tiran and Sanafir, over which Egypt ceded sovereignty to the Kingdom in 2016 as part of an agreement demarcating the maritime border between the two countries. This agreement sparked widespread public anger, given Egyptians’ belief in their ownership of the two islands.
Specialists competed to present historical arguments and evidence supporting this claim, and the matter reached the judiciary, which invalidated the ceding of the islands. However, the Supreme Constitutional Court ruled that the judiciary had no right to object to the agreement, considering it an act of sovereignty. Faced with the public outcry, President Sisi was forced to respond to his opponents and defend his position at a specially held press conference attended by a prominent legal figure who supported the official position.
Last April, Mada Masr reported divisions within Egyptian decision-making circles over a Saudi request to establish a US military base on the two islands, which are located at the entrance to the Gulf of Aqaba and enjoy strategic importance.
From Cairo’s point of view, which, despite having ceded the two islands, has not yet completed the transfer of sovereignty, it cannot tolerate any American foothold in the Red Sea.
In Riyadh’s view, which Tel Aviv may agree with, establishing this US base will secure the entrance to the Suez Canal and prevent the entry of any suspicious ships that could be used to transport weapons from Iran to Gaza or Lebanese territory. However, Cairo strongly opposes this, considering the base a direct threat to its national security, especially in light of regional volatility and growing Israeli influence in the Red Sea.
Riyadh then attempted to circumvent Egypt’s objection, proposing the installation of cameras and a comprehensive surveillance system on the two islands. However, according to Egyptian national security agencies, the coverage of these cameras exceeds the scope permitted by Egypt, and would cover the entire Sinai Peninsula. Cairo therefore stipulated that the surveillance cameras be under full Egyptian control, including servers, storage, and connectivity, to prevent any third parties from having real-time access to what is happening in this sensitive waterway.
Egyptian concerns
The considerations underlying Egypt’s concerns are not only security-related; some are political and economic. Egypt not only fears that this move will undermine existing security arrangements in Sinai, under which Israel has allowed Cairo to increase the number of Egyptian troops and build new security posts as part of its war against the ISIS-affiliated Wilayat Sinai.
Cairo also fears that the increased US military and security presence in the region will impact foreign investments in the Gulf of Suez, particularly those granted to Chinese and Russian companies. Egypt also fears that establishing a US base on the two islands will lead to increased direct security ties between Saudi Arabia and Israel, with negative repercussions for Egypt’s regional role.
The dispute between the two countries has deepened recently due to Saudi Arabia’s agreement to lease an area near the port of Yanbu on the Red Sea coast to US forces, in preparation for the establishment of a permanent military base there.
The kingdom justifies its position by citing its desire to protect shipping and its massive investments in the Neom area, as well as its need for the base to be out of range of Iranian missiles. The New York Times reported on this base a few days ago, stating that it is unclear whether the United States used it to bomb Iran recently.
However, Cairo categorically objects to this Saudi position, arguing that any foreign military presence in the Red Sea would undermine the geopolitical balance in the region and open the door to the internationalization of the waterways. This comes at a time when Egypt is seeking to assert its leadership role in the Red Sea, which Cairo believes should remain a purely Arab lake.
This was alluded to by Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdel Atti in a television interview a few days ago, where he expressed Egypt’s categorical rejection of the “militarization” of the Red Sea, deeming it a “red line” for Cairo.
A clash of visions in Syria and Yemen
The Egyptian-Saudi dispute does not end with this issue. Another dispute exacerbating tensions between the two countries is the position on the new Syrian regime led by Ahmed al-Sharaa. While al-Sharaa enjoys broad Saudi support, driven by the kingdom’s desire to consolidate his regime in the hope of replacing the Iranian presence under the previous regime with a hardline Sunni regime ideologically hostile to Iran and its Shiite proxies, Egypt has strong reservations about this regime.
Since the collapse of Bashar al-Assad’s regime and the rise of the current regime in Syria, communication between Cairo and Damascus has remained extremely limited and does not reflect Egypt’s actual position toward it. Egypt fears the hardline nature of the Syrian regime, which it may pose to its security due to its suspicious ties to extremist groups with extensions in Sinai and Libya, both of which constitute highly sensitive points in Egypt’s national security calculations. Incidentally, the United States and Israel may see in this regime an opportunity—the former to advance its interests and the latter to facilitate its expansionist agenda in Syria.
These Saudi-Egyptian disputes are not a product of recent developments. The dispute has been present and raging for more than 10 years, once due to Cairo’s rejection of Gulf approaches to dealing with Bashar al-Assad’s regime following the Syrian revolution, before the Gulf states were forced to acknowledge the revolution’s defeat and deal with the Assad regime on a fait accompli basis.
The dispute was also intense due to Egypt’s position on the war in Yemen, when the kingdom launched a military Operation against the Houthis years ago. Riyadh expected direct Egyptian military support in its war, but the Egyptian regime chose to be content with political and intelligence support and avoided being drawn into the Yemeni quagmire by engaging in direct air or ground military operations. Saudi anger at this stance increased as the war dragged on, draining its finances without achieving a decisive victory.
Despite these differences, the two capitals were able to contain the dispute away from the media and confine it to official frameworks. What happened recently that a Saudi official would mock a senior official? What happened to the extent that a prominent Saudi journalist, Qinan Al-Ghamdi, wrote a few days ago threatening the current Egyptian regime on the anniversary of the June 30 revolution?
Al-Ghamdi wrote on X website: This is the last celebration of the revolution anniversary. Farewell to the Egyptian regime and its leadership. He also predicted that Sisi’s fate would be fleeing the country or imprisonment.
These unusual confrontations did not suddenly emerge into the open. Weeks earlier, there had been simmering tensions emerging in Saudi media outlets’ calls to internationalize the position of Secretary-General of the Arab League, a position that had been monopolized by Egypt for decades, as stipulated in the Arab League Charter, which stipulates that the Secretary-General must be from the host country. They demanded the appointment of former Saudi diplomat Adel al-Jubeir to the position. The situation escalated with calls to relocate the League from Cairo to Riyadh. All of this was viewed in Egypt as a blatant attempt to weaken Egyptian influence and as a message casting doubt on its eligibility to lead Arab action at a time when its regional standing was already under increasing pressure.
Battle for existence
Observers believe that regional arrangements are being drawn up, and the continued rule of an Egyptian military leader could be a stumbling block to their implementation. Therefore, some do not rule out besieging the Egyptian regime by all means, and even conspiring to overthrow it, until these arrangements are implemented.
According to one of them, these arrangements relate to the creation of a new regional alliance based on the Abraham Accords, which could in the future include Israel, a number of Gulf states, the new Syrian regime, and perhaps Lebanon, under the pretext of establishing a buffer against Iranian expansion in the region.
But Ciro views this alliance from a different perspective. It believes that such an alliance not only seeks to confront Tehran but also aims to marginalize traditional regional powers with historical influence, including Egypt.
One of the objectives of this alliance may be to complete the process of emasculating the region militarily, following the collapse of several Arab armies in the Arab Spring revolutions. This mission was completed over the past two years by severing Iran’s military arms. While we reject their presence as militias that cause instability and are not subject to Arab security equations, they have nonetheless been a source of pressure on Israel. Following the decline of the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas and the bombing of Iran, the only remaining source of military pressure on the Hebrew state in the region is the Egyptian army.
In light of this view, Cairo is wary of any projects, however simple, that aim to reshape the balance of power in the Middle East in a way that would remove it from its sphere of actual influence in favor of a greater role for Israel in regional leadership.
According to an informed source, this alliance may be a revival of the colonial-style Baghdad Pact, which Egypt toppled in the 1950s.
The source indicated that Cairo’s concerns are not exaggerated, explaining that these projects are being implemented without coordination or genuine consultation with it.
“All these plans represent a clear attempt to redraw the map of the region without any Egyptian role,” the source added.
Whatever the future holds, we must know that the battle imposed on Iran with missiles to limit its influence in the region will be imposed on Cairo with economic and political weapons, to advance an agenda that will not serve the interests of the Middle East or its people.
The region will be dwarfed to fit Israel’s role as a representative of neo-colonialism and the leader of a new alliance that does not recognize the rights of the people of the Middle East to their wealth or to preserve their identity. This alliance does not recognize old borders and may even create new ones, seeing them as its own interests.
Egypt, like all historically significant countries, will face Shakespeare’s famous question in Hamlet: “To be or not to be.”
Will it be able to respond exceptionally to this great challenge?