Originally, it was the idea of Egypt’s President Abdel Fatah Al Sissi to form the Arab force. But why are the Saudis reluctant to accept in full Al Sissi’s concept in that regard?
Inasmuch as Al Sissi’s proposal is to form a permanent force that works region wide, there are multiple reasons for the Saudi’s hesitant stand. The one that has direct significance in the current regional cascade of events is that Egypt looks at both the Syrian and Libyan crisis from a different angle than that of the Saudis. In the case of Syria for example, Cairo believes that it is possible to reach a peace deal in Syria that preserves a place for Bashar Al Assad in a transitional period and believes that the primary threat in the Syrian situation is not Al Assad but the Islamic Jihadi terrorists and the collapse of the state structure.
Cairo is still stubbornly pursuing an effort to gather the moderate Syrian opposition around the idea of a transitional government under the presidency of Al Assad, even as it knows that Saudi Arabia and Qatar profoundly oppose the idea. This difference appeared in unusual way when Al Sissi read a letter from Russia’s President Vladimir Putin during the recent Arab summit, only to be surprised by a request from the Saudi foreign minister’s to comment. “The Russians speak about the misery of the situation in Syria while they are a main reason of this misery that affects the Syrian people,” Saud Al Faisal angrily responded and mentioned the “Syrian tragedy,” pointing to Moscow’s arms sales to Damascus.
Another area of disagreement between the Saudis and the Egyptians is Libya. Al Sissi seems to differ with the Saudi leaders in evaluating the weight of the chaos in Libya and the role of the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) there. On the surface this seems natural as Egypt shares a long border with Libya and it suffers a relentless campaign of attacks by the MB inside Egypt. Cairo’s sense of the threat level and sensibility to the consequences of the Libyan crisis are therefore higher. But deeper than that, the difference has its roots in conflicting views related to the Muslim Brotherhood (MB).
The Saudis regard the MB as a potential ally in the fight against Iran’s regional expansion. Cairo sees the MB as the primary threat for its internal stability and national interests. The MB is one major player in both Libya and Northern Syria. The Saudis want Cairo on the same line where the MB stands side by side with the main supporters of the MB: Turkey and Qatar. Cairo responds: “Our army is only for Egypt,” as Al Sissi said in a public speech at the end of March.
In general, there are two conflicting concepts that stem from the different anatomy of the sources of regional instability. In his speech to the Arab summit in Cairo on March 28, Al Sissi’s differences with the GCC views in prioritizing the strategic threats to the Middle East were crystal clear. Reading between the lines of that speech shows that the Egyptian president considers terrorism, Islamic radicalism, sectarianism, and instability to be the most urgent menace to the regional order. The GCC sees, in contrast, the Iranian threat as the main regional threat. The GCC’s views of terrorist organizations are deliberately flexible to accommodate the requirements of confronting the Iranians. Al Sissi’s speech was an exemplary illustration of how distant the two sides’ strategic perspectives are.
This difference in viewing risk priorities was reflected in the definition of the function of the Arab regional force. Saudi Arabia is seeking to place Turkey, most of the Gulf States including Qatar, the MB and Egypt in one block under the leadership of Riyadh. The Egyptians believe that if the function of the unified force is indeed to stabilize the region, the job must start from determining the list of destabilization threats in a logical sense by naming religious extremism and sectarianism as the main source of these threats.
Furthermore, Cairo believes that on practical levels, such a force should respond to, or at least consider, the concerns of its individual members, and hence avoid putting the MB side by side with Egypt unless the Egyptians are satisfied that the organization has ceased to represent an existential threat to their regime and internal stability.
The Egyptians place the MB in a broader context that warns against provoking sectarian divisions in Arab countries, assisting terrorist organizations under the pretext of fighting Iranian expansion, shaking the Arab states’ structures, and fueling religious extremism.
In a speech he gave March 31st, a couple of days after the Arab summit in Cairo, Al Sissi conveyed two indirect messages to the Saudis. The first was that the Egyptian army works only for Egypt, and the second is that anger is not a policy and that everyone should avoid crude impulses in order to come up with a “positive energy” search for diplomatic solutions. Al Sissi also made it clear that the Egyptian government will carry on “until the end” in its campaign against those who threaten the state and who spread religious hatred and sectarian division. The message was again too clear to be unheard regionally: Egypt will not change its position, unified force or no unified force.
The Saudis perceive Al Sissi’s call for a unified Arab force as a back door access attempt to get more financial help from Riyadh. But they understand that there is no unified Arab force without Egypt. They are trying to replace the central role of Egypt by bilateral deals with Pakistan in Yemen and with Turkey in the North of Syria. Will they succeed?
It depends on the unpredictable course of events, not only in these two spots, but also region wide. Egypt provides some help in Yemen, but the Saudis keep it at arm’s length by avoiding any attempt to incorporate this role within the broader concept of an institutionalized Arab unified force. Riyadh wants to keep this role within the limits of being only one individual case of cooperation. Yet, if the Yemeni situation deteriorates further, as indeed seems to be the case, and if the Pakistani role proves to be confined in simple conventional and defensive missions as it is likely to be, the Egyptian role will obtain a higher relative weight.
And there are good reasons for that. In the regional theater, it is only Egypt that can provide the backbone of a unified Arab force. Turkey has strategic and economic relations with Iran that it cannot sacrifice for a promise of growing relations with the Gulf. The Turks want to have both if possible. But when it comes to choosing, they will not give up their relations with Tehran and face a comprehensive regional confrontation with it. They will desperately try to avoid such a stark choice anyway. Pakistanis are not Arabs. They do not speak Arabic and cannot perform counter insurgency operations in an environment they are not familiar with.
One extremely important point that should be kept in mind in that regard is that the newly ascending leadership in Riyadh has put a heavy bet on the intervention in Yemen. The impulse in such moments usually goes towards continually increasing the bet. Therefore, there is no question in our view that the Yemen military operation will expand and get bloodier. The stakes at one point may become too high to remain deaf to what Cairo says, particularly when the future of certain rising Saudi power centers comes into question. Egypt will play a role in the Yemen operation. The question, however, is if this role will develop later to form a permeant Arab regional force with a clear commanding structure.
Riyadh wants to keep the diversification of its military partners based on a case by case need. This view is different than what is in Al Sissi’s mind. While the Egyptians are helping in Yemen, their role is within the boundaries of the “case by case” concept and not that of a unified Arab force. However, the difference between the two views will change according to the events on the ground and as the two countries are determined to preserve a close relation. It will not be positive or help any one of them, or any country in the region seeking stability, to see a widening gap between Riyadh and Cairo. Any differences should be solved quickly and wisely.
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