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Egypt-Saudi relations: An ending equilibrium?

Saudi King Salman (R) shakes hands with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi before leaving Cairo's international airport on Monday April 11, 2016.

By Mahdi Amirisefat

Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is scheduled to travel to Egypt this week for a three-day visit of a country that has become a key partner of Riyadh, especially after the ouster of former Muslim Brotherhood president Mohamed Morsi and the takeover of power by General Abdel Fattah el-Sisi. Sisi’s outreach to the Saudis has been viewed as significantly important to Riyadh especially given Sisi’s backing of the war in Yemen and his conformity to hand over two of Egyptian islands — the strategic Tiran and Sanafir islands in the Red Sea — to Saudi Arabia. All this said, relations between the two influential Arab states have not always been as cordial as it seems.Here I will take a brief look at the turbulent history of relations between two influential Arab states that at times have been rivals and at times close allies, with Egypt being the most populous Arab country and Saudi Arabia being a member of the G20, both vying for influence in the Middle East region and the Arab World.

In 2016, Egypt shockingly voted in favor of a Russian-backed draft resolution in the UN Security Council on Syria, which was opposed by the Saudis. In another diplomatic spat, the Saudi Arabian secretary general of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) was forced to resign after mocking Sisi.

Here a brief look will be taken at the turbulent history of relations between two influential Arab states that at times have been rivals and at times close allies, with Egypt being the most populous Arab country and Saudi Arabia being a member of the G20, both vying for influence in the Middle East region and the Arab World.

Era of Gamal Abdel Nasser’s secular nationalism

This is an era of extreme complexity in the relations of the two countries. In the midst of the Cold War, immediately after the Egyptian Revolution of 1952 by a group of army officers led by General Gamal Abdel Nasser, relations between Egypt and Saudi Arabia were cordial. But this was only temporary as Nasser leaned toward the Soviet Union, was an advocate of secular social-nationalism and was a founder of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM).

Contrary to Nasser and Egypt, the Saudis were allied with the US and UK, were staunch advocates of absolute monarchy and Wahhabi-brand Islam and were fearful that Nasser intended to export his pan-Arabic secular nationalism to the Arab world, including Saudi Arabia, thus upending the status-quo of the Arab world. This very concern, the influence of any-type of ideology that is opposed to Saudi-style conservative monarchy, is recurrently seen among the Saudis, and especially is a concern in the aftermath of the 2011 Arab Spring.  

A Russian-manufactured armored vehicle, captured by Yemeni royalists supported by Saudi Arabia from Egyptian forces near Haradh, Yemen

The Saudi-Egyptian rivalry in this era of heightened ideological tensions manifested itself in the North Yemen Civil War from 1962-1970 where revolutionary Yemeni republicans supported by Egypt and the Soviets, and led by Abdullah as-Sallal, fought Yemeni Royalists backed by Saudi Arabia and Britain. Saudi Arabia ultimately recognized the Egyptian supported Yemeni republicans who had dethroned the newly-crowned Imam Muhammad al-Badr and declared Yemen a republic under Sallal’s presidency. However, the eight-year war was so disastrous for Egypt -- at the height of its involvement Egypt had 75,000 troops in Yemen -- that Egyptian historians refer to the war in Yemen as their Vietnam. Historian Michael Oren has even gone further to say that Egypt's military involvement in Yemen was so disastrous that "the imminent Vietnam War could easily have been dubbed America's Yemen."

Anwar Sadat era and the issue of Israel

After Gamal Abdel Nasser’s death in 1970, Anwar Sadat, a close confidant of Nasser and his vice president, succeeded as Egypt’s president. Although Sadat was an influential figure along with Nasser among the Free Officers who overthrew the Egyptian monarchy in the Revolution of 1952, he overhauled Egyptian politics, especially Cairo’s foreign policy, and departed from Nasser’s policies which the Saudi’s saw as a potential threat to their own power.

Anwar Sadat (R) and Nasser. Sadat departed from Nasser’s policies, including rivalry with Saudi Arabia.

In 1979, Sadat signed the Camp David Accords, making Egypt the first Arab state to sign a peace treaty with Israel. In the Arab world, including Saudi Arabia, Sadat was almost universally condemned and only Sudan issued an ambivalent statement of support. Saudi Arabia and other Arab states suspended all official aid and severed diplomatic relations with Cairo, expelling Egypt from the Arab League. However, Egypt’s condemnation was only temporary and relations between Egypt and Saudi Arabia warmed considerably during Sadat’s reign.

Anwar Sadat was assassinated during a military parade held in Cairo, on October 6, 1981.

To Riyadh’s approval, Sadat expelled 20,000 Soviet military advisers from Egypt and the Saudis substantially increased the amount of money they sent to Egypt in subsidies and offered low-interest loans to Egypt. Sadat also clamped down on the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamic organizations, a policy supported by Saudi Arabia, which led to warmer ties between Cairo and Riyadh, but ultimately, along with opposition to Camp David, led to his assassination by Lieutenant Khalid Islambouli, who would succeed in assassinating Anwar Sadat in the October of 1981. Sadat’s departure from the Soviet-bloc was another boost to relations with a Saudi regime that was already traditionally aligned with Western powers.     

Hosni Mubarak era

Mubark’s long rule from 1981 until his topple in 2011 by massive street protests was an era of tranquil relations between the two Arab states. Mubarak no longer represented an ideological or political rival to Saudi Arabian monarchs, neither was Egypt the sole country to engage in diplomacy with Israel as was the case during Sadat’s time.

Mubarak’s decision to side with Saudi Arabia and the United States in opposing Iraq's invasion of Kuwait on August 2, 1990 painted an even rosier picture of relations between the two countries. Once close Socialist allies at the time of Nasser, Mubarak stated on the January of 1991 that he had made twenty-six futile appeals to executed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein to abstain from attacking Kuwait. In an unprecedented symbolic move of support for Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, Mubarak even sent a force of 35,000 Egyptians to Saudi Arabia to defend them from Iraq’s aggression. In return, the Saudis and oil-rich Arab states provided Egypt with further financial aid.

During the 2011 revolution that ultimately led to Mubarak’s ouster from office, Saudi Arabia provided full support for Mubarak. Once again at play was the Saudi royal family’s fear that any form of democratic progress in Egypt could result in a domino effect in the Arab world and therefore threaten the Saud household.  This is why the late King Abdullah of Saudi had expressed his support for Mubarak --questioning the anti-dictatorial nature of the protests --in the face of the massive Egyptian protests of 2011:

Better times: Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak (L) and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad (R) along with the deceased Saudi King Abdullah in Riyadh, March 2009.

“No Arab or Muslim can tolerate any meddling in the security and stability of Arab and Muslim Egypt by those who infiltrated the people in the name of freedom of expression, exploiting it to inject their destructive hatred,” the Saudi Press Agency had quoted Abdullah as saying at the time.

“As they condemn this, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and its people and government declares it stands with all its resources with the government of Egypt and its people,” Abdullah had said, basically supporting Mubarak against the majority of Egyptians who wanted him removed from office after three decades.

After the 2011 Egyptian revolution and overthrow of Morsi

After the 2011 uprising against the regime of Hosni Mubarak, Mohamed Morsi of the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood served as Egypt’s first democratically-elected president. In his first foreign trip in July 2012, surprisingly, Morsi chose Saudi Arabia as his first destination, maybe signaling his pragmatic approach toward foreign policy regardless of years of tension between his Islamist organization and the Saudi regime. In order to calm Saudi concerns over claims that his administration intends to “export” Egypt’s revolution to the Saudi monarchy, he emphasized that he had no plans to export Egypt's revolution.  He had also asserted what he called Egypt's commitment to the security of Saudi Arabia and its Persian Gulf Arab allies in a subtle reference to the tension between them and Iran over various issues in the Middle East.  Morsi even went so far to praise the late King Abdullah by saying the Saudi king spoke with "wisdom and knowledge and love for the Egyptian people.”

Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi made his first foreign trip to Saudi Arabia, for talks with the late King Abdullah.

However, all such assurances by Morsi would never help him avoid Saudi wrath or to buy him time in office until things in Egypt went to normal. Morsi was removed from office in a coup led by former head of the armed forces and current President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi on the grounds that included inciting the killing of opponents protesting outside his palace, espionage for foreign militant groups including Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran, for escaping Wadi el-Natroun Prison during the 2011 revolution prior to his election as president, leaking classified documents to Qatar, in addition to "insulting the judiciary." Since Morsi’s ouster, tens of thousands of Brotherhood members have been arrested and prosecuted while senior party leaders face death or life sentences.

Morsi’s successor, Sisi, is in many ways viewed as a suitable ally for the Riyadh regime. Firstly, Sisi is a staunch opponent of the Muslim Brotherhood, a group which has always had tense relations with Saudi Arabia over an array of issues from the Brotherhood’s amiable relations with Qatar, to their relatively friendly relations with Iran.

In the past, many years before the Arab revolts of 2011, Riyadh was constantly worried that the Brotherhood was supporting Islamic groups in the Arabian Peninsula and turning Saudi Wahhabis into political activists that call for the overthrow of the House of Saud. In recent times and with the election of Mohhamed Morsi as Egypt’s president in 2012, the Muslim Brotherhood became a key player in forging a new form of democracy in Egypt which could have potentially become a role model for other Arab states. Obviously the Saudis did not appreciate such a role by the Brotherhood and in fact the Saudis went as far as supporting the Salafis in Egypt -- which are really a rival to the Muslim Brotherhood’s moderate Islamic approach, and are close to the Saudis. Later when the Saudis supported the overthrow of democratically-elected president Morsi, the late Saudi King Abdullah issued a public endorsement of the coup just two hours after General Sisi announced Morsi had been deposed and the constitution suspended. After Morsi’s ouster, Sisi continued his crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood gaining the praise of his Saudi and UAE backers, who had also outlawed the organization.    

To even come closer to the Saudis and their financial favors, in April 2016, Sisi gave the Saudis their ultimate prize and agreed to hand over two of Egyptian islands of Tiran and Sanafir to Saudi Arabia, triggering protests at home.

As a response to all such friendly gestures, the new Saudi King Salman visited Cairo in the spring of 2016, signing several trade agreements as well as an agreement to build a bridge across the Red Sea.

Two kings cannot reign over one kingdom

Both the Saudis and Egyptians have historically claimed a leading role in the Arab world. However, both countries cannot be leaders at the same time and it seems Egypt is losing its undisputed leadership role it once enjoyed in the 60s and 70s. Since the 70s, Egypt’s power and influence in Arab politics have been waning due to a combination of reasons, including poor economic growth, a growing population and increased dependence on foreign aid, especially from Saudi Arabia and oil-rich Arab states.  A leaked tape of Sisi from February 2015, in which he discusses obtaining tens of billions of dollars from Arab States, reveals this attitude and expectation in Cairo. In the leaked conversation, Sisi makes offensive remarks about some Persian Gulf countries, stating Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Kuwait have more money than they need, and that Egypt should have a share in their wealth. The three countries have provided key financial aid to Egypt after Morsi was ousted from power in July 2013. The kingdom’s GDP is at least twice that of Egypt’s with less than a third of the population, and the Saudi per capita GDP is nearly eight times larger. Egypt is highly dependent on outside aid whereas Riyadh is a major donor to Egypt

This means, either Egypt should think about improving its collapsing socio-economic status, specifically improving its financial situation so it would become independent of foreign aid, or it should abandon its claims to Arab leadership and past glories, as such claims will buy it the wrath of donor states. Egypt is in a hard position where Saudi Arabia seems to have gained access over many of its decisions, to the extent of questioning its territorial sovereignty. Whether such a situation in the two countries’ relationship stays permanent is a matter of time and events that might unfold in the region. In the past, there was always a nuanced equilibrium between the two states. It seems that the equilibrium is not so balanced anymore.       

 


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