Egypt’s fight against IS makes enemies

RISKY MOVE: Its policy brings it closer to Assad, Russia and Iran, at odds with Saudi

EGYPT has made fighting Islamic militants its overriding foreign policy objective, a decision that has brought it closer to Syrian President Bashar Assad, Russia and Iran, in turn antagonising its chief financial backer, Saudi Arabia.

The policy was risky at a time when Egypt was struggling to contain a homegrown Islamic insurgency and tackling its worst economic crisis in decades.

Saudi Arabia, which had helped keep Egypt’s economy from collapse with billions in aid, had already signalled its displeasure by holding back promised supplies of fuel.

This direction of President AbdelFattah el-Sissi’s foreign policy was rooted in the military’s 2013 ouster of his predecessor Mohammed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood.

“Cairo’s single-minded pursuit of the Brotherhood — and of any Islamist group that bears the slightest resemblance to the Brotherhood — has become the guiding principle of Egypt’s foreign, as well as domestic, policy,” Middle East expert Steven A. Cook wrote in Foreign Affairs magazine.

Perhaps, no single incident showcased this direction as much as Egypt’s support this month for a Russian resolution on Syria at the United Nations Security Council.

Moscow put forward its resolution even as it vetoed a rival French resolution calling for a halt to Russian and Syrian airstrikes, which had caused hundreds of deaths in the Syrian city of Aleppo in past weeks. Egypt voted in favour of both drafts, saying it did so in hopes of stopping Aleppo’s suffering. But siding with Russia — and by implication, Assad — reflected the stance of el-Sissi’s government that defeating Islamic militants in Syria was the priority.

It led to the first public spat between Cairo and Riyadh since elSissi took office in 2014.

Adding insult to injury, Egypt this week hosted one of Assad’s top security aides for talks, while Russian and Egyptian commandos held joint war games — at a time of widespread outrage in the Arab world over Russia’s air bombardment of Aleppo.

Saudi Arabia was seeking Assad’s ouster and had strongly backed rebel factions, including ones with hard-line Islamist ideologies.

Egypt, in contrast, saw militants in Syria as a threat. It had been far cooler to the prospect of removing Assad.

Egypt’s direction undermined Saudi Arabia’s hopes to build a Sunni axis to block the influence of its top rival, Shia, non-Arab Iran. In fact, Cairo’s show of support for Assad put it closer to Iran, the Syrian leader’s top ally.

Egypt had sided closer to Russia even though Moscow had banned commercial flights to Egypt ever since the downing a year ago of a Russian jet full of tourists in the Sinai Peninsula. The crash was blamed on a bomb placed onboard by Egypt’s branch of the extremist Islamic State group.

The flight ban had been devastating to the tourism industry, which Egypt desperately needed to shore up its economy.

The campaign against Islamic militancy was integral to el-Sissi’s claim to legitimacy, said Ayman alSayad, a prominent analyst.

El-Sissi took office in elections held a year after he led the military’s 2013 ouster of Morsi, whose one year in office sharply divided the country.

Security forces had since moved to crush the Brotherhood and other Islamists, killing hundreds and jailing thousands of others. AP