The return of Egypt: The end of the Saudi era

Written by Nasser Kandil,

During the two decades that followed the return of Egypt to the Arab League after the signing of the Camp David Accords and before the coups of the Arab Spring, the Saudi-Egyptian-Syrian tripartite was closer to Syrian-Saudi bilateral in managing the Arab situation, because the Egyptian role was formal from Taif Agreement in Lebanon to Kuwait summit for reconciliation in 2007. It was known that the Saudi era that ruled the Arab situation since the departure of Gamal Abdul Nasser after the defeat of his project in the war of 1967 summarized the Arab situation, taking into consideration the equations of power imposed by the presence of Syria before taking the decision of getting rid of it, and ending its rebellion against the Saudi project which based on the announced coordination with Israel and considering Israel as an ally and Iran as an enemy and before ending the presence of the resistance movements on charge of terrorism.

Measuring the success and the failure of the wars launched by America and Israel under the name of the Arab Spring in the region starts from measuring the growing or the declining of the leading Saudi role at the Arab level, while measuring the direction of the Arab situation towards recovery is measured by the progress of Egypt of playing a pivotal role in the settlements of the crises witnessed by the explosive Arab arenas. At these two levels of measurement the political developments seem clear in the inability of Saudi Arabia even to emerge as a reference in the joining of its groups in Syria to the de-escalation zones, and its need to assign the mission to Egypt. What it seemed that it is a carrying out of Saudi desire by Egyptian movement in Syria becomes in reality a well-considered Egyptian timing for a Saudi need, a wide Egyptian movement rather than a direct Saudi presence, as its sponsoring of the Libyan and Palestinian files.

The Palestinian and the Libyan files are part of the Egyptian national security despite the effective Saudi presence financially and politically on each of the two arenas , on one hand Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah, and on the other hand the General Khalifa Hafter and the army foundation which he led. But Egypt succeeds due to the importance of its neighboring, the geography, the military and the population importance and the employing of the diplomatic intelligence of the Qatari crisis in which Egypt participates in the same choices but for different reasons that are related to a real Qatari role in sponsoring the terrorism which Egypt is exposing to by the Muslim Brotherhood. While the Saudi claim against Qatar about terrorism is weak and unconvincing. Although they have participated together in this sponsorship, but Egypt wins contrary to Saudi Arabia in bringing parties that were part of the Qatari system in the Libyan and Palestinian arenas to settlements sponsored by Cairo, these settlements will not achieve the national Egyptian security in narrow bilateral considerations, but they will employ all the elements of the new Palestinian and Libyan scene in a Palestinian and a Libyan settlements that put the two arenas into positive developments and thus deprive them from erosion.

The Egyptian success in the Palestinian and Libyan files will qualify Cairo to play a bigger role in the Syrian settlement where the new Egyptian role will foreshadow of new Arab stage, even if measuring the Egyptian progress remained related to the degree of the Saudi maturity. The more dilemmas which Saudi Arabia receives in Yemen, Syria, and Iraq will oblige it to impose itself on the rulers of Riyadh to ask for more Egyptian mediations and to play  more roles in the arenas.

Translated by Lina Shehadeh,