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Understanding Egyptian foreign policy and implications for Ethiopia

Tegenework Gettu (PhD) by Tegenework Gettu (PhD)
May 1, 2020
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Egypt’s  rulers   have   relied   upon for   their  foreign policy on   foreign patrons and rent seeking behavior to reinforce their position.  This policy is stubbornly persistent in the face of changing Global and Regional realities.

The    main    reasons    being    the relative success enjoyed by  both President    Nasser   and   President Sadat in obtaining geo strategic rent during the Cold  War, first from the Americans, then  the  Soviet Union, after 1973, the Americans again, this time with more backing from Europe. The last hurrah of this strategy came in 1990 to  2001, when Mubarak sent troops  to   Kuwait  to   participate  in the  US-led   Desert  Storm  operation to   throw Iraqi  troops  back  across the border.  He  garnered about USD 25   billion  in  debt  forgiveness  for what was symbolic rather  than real military participation. This dramatic event   was   virtually   coterminous with the end of the Cold  War, which undermined one   pillar  upon which Egyptian government geo-strategic rent-seeking had rested.

The second, more important pillar for success of their strategy was Egypt’s relative power, primarily  hard  but also soft.  When Egypt could threaten neighboring states with substantial, even overwhelming Military Power, and could mobilize Arabs via   Arab League, wherever and whatever they are (notice Djibouti’s and Somalia’s vote in the recent Arab League resolution on  the Nile).  This could either   be    opposed  or   supported, but both East and West had to  deal with it. The current  threat  on   the Ethiopian Dam and the dragging of the US  into it using this strategy is a classic example, even if  Ethiopia is no banana republic that can easily submit to it.

Generally, it was easier to  pay both for  the East and West to  pay rather than fight with the exception of 1956, 1967, and 1973, which was modus operandi in relations with Cairo. Egypt  became  one   of   the  World’s largest recipient of public foreign assistance and in 1980,  the World’s second largest beneficiary of military assistance, the first being Israel. But the relative value of  that assistance has declined in tandem with Egypt’s shrinking power, both hard and soft. Preoccupied with  its  own welfare, the military has lost its capacity to genuinely address the core national issues and with a growing opposition, and moving to  scenarios of  foreign military adventure.  Soft power of Egypt as  Arab Center of Gravity has also shifted in General to  the Gulf and to State Based Nationalism, even if  phony  votes and  empty  rhetoric still  persist  in  the  Arab  League such as  the one  on  the Nile. While the Arab League is insignificant in addressing the plight of Palestinians, Syrians, Iraqis, Libyans, Yeminis its voting on  the Nile shows the highest level of political hypocrisy and its dishonesty. Egypt no longer has much to offer potential patrons, so they are offering more rhetorical  as  opposed to substantial support to it.  Western support   and   aid     have   declined steeply in  proportional  terms  and even in nominal ones, where as  key GCC    countries,   originally  willing to   Bankroll  the  Egyptian  Military as  a useful counterweight to  the Muslim Brotherhood, have decreased the resource flow.  The Egyptian Regime is providing too little in their investment, and in  any case could do  little to  threaten  them with the exception of the Iranian card.

This leaves Egypt having to  depend for  continued rent on  being seen as either too big to fail  by its traditional supporters,  Key   of   which  are  the US,  Europe, and the GCC  states, or being viewed by  opponents of  those supporters, including China and Russia,  as   a  new entry  point  into the  Region, or  as   a counterweight, in the case of  Iran, to  its Regional antagonists   and   the   US.    Neither option  is  likely  to   produce geostrategic-rents in the magnitude of  the  glory days of  the cold   war, nor even the very recent past when Gulf   States supported the Egyptian Military  to  crush  the brotherhood. The Military adventure in the Red Sea   with  the objective of   keeping Ethiopian interest  out, will also not work due to  the significance of  the Ethiopian Economy and Military interest  as   well   as   Ethiopia’s neighbors  whose  interest  is  more with peaceful cooperation and development  with  Ethiopia  as opposed to  Egyptian adventurism in the Horn and the Red Sea.

The too-big-to-fail scenario  is based on  relatively small stick and carrot. The major stick is undocumented immigration.  Egypt  can  flood Southern  Europe with  boat people, a  potential threat  which has  been a  driving force  in  Italian  policy toward  it   since  at   least  in   the 1990s.   As   if   to   remind  European decision makers of  the threat, and in  response to  US  criticism of  the Egyptian increasing role in human trafficking,  the government  passed an   anti-trafficking   law     in   2016 while also reporting  more cases of interdiction   of  human   smuggling even   as     the   numbers   of    those transiting  from Egypt continued  to increase. Just as the legislation was being enacted, the Egyptian Foreign Ministry responded to the Italian Government’s suspension of delivery of  F16  spare parts in retaliation for non-cooperation in investigating the murder of  Giulio Regeni, by  stating that the Italian government’s choice “would   affect   bilateral,    regional and  international  cooperation between the  countries,  particularly concerning immigration  across the Mediterranean  Sea.” The implied threat  was plainly obvious. The far bigger threat  is simply that  Egypt Collapses, becoming  a  failed  State like Libya, but with the population almost twenty times larger. In  this scenario, the eastern Mediterranean would swarm  with boat people and also the possibility of  some regions in the Nile Valley and Delta become terrorist heaven within easy striking distance of Europe and Israel.

As   for   the carrots, the key   one   is cooperation in “counter terrorism,” whether  in  Egypt  itself  or  more widely in  the region, most notably in  Libya and  Gaza. As   regards  to the latter, Egypt has built upon cooperation with Israeli security authorities  to   contain  Hamas  that their   Egyptian   Government’s relation with Israel has become the country’s most vital regional tie,  in large measure because of support extended to  Egypt by  the pro-Israeli Lobby in the US. The strength of the relationship was demonstrated in December 2016, when Egypt, holding the Chair of the UN Security Council, sought unsuccessfully to  postpone a vote condemning Israeli Settlements on  the West Bank as  illegal. In  the event  New   Zealand  led   a  group of four countries overturning Egypt’s decision and the vote was held, with the US abstaining, hence allowing the resolution to  pass, 14-0. That Egypt had become more supportive of Israel than even New  Zealand was cause for outrage in the Arab World. (One wonders where the Arab League was at this drama).

This episode illustrates the limits of a rent seeking Foreign Policy in today’s complex, conflict ridden Middle East and  Horn of  Africa  as   well   as   the Gulf   region, as   the  payoffs serving the interest of  external parties are relatively  small and typically come at the cost of  losing payment  from others competing parties.

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As for  potential support from challengers to Western domination in the eastern Mediterranean and North Africa, the Gulf   as  well   as  Horn of Africa, led  by  China and Russia and including  Iran,  Egypt has  been  in pursuit of it, but with mixed results. One  problem is that gains from these sources are offset by  losses from the other backers,  including  the  GCC and Western States. The rent seeking strategy towards Saudi Arabia as  it applies for Iran as  well  as  supporting US and Israel vis-a-vis Iran, the gains are  miniscule.  This  type  strategy has been used to get  concession from Ethiopia on  the Renaissance Dam which will not work.

Egypt is a second-order priority  for both China and Russia and their financial support for it will necessarily be limited. Russia may not be willing to provide the magnitude of support Egypt is looking for while China will not invest heavily in geo-strategic rents, as opposed to entering into commercial relations from which it also obtains benefits, and is unlikely to make an exception in Egypt’s cases its withdrawal in February 2017 from the project to construct new capital suggests.

Egypt’s  foreign   Policy   under President el Sisi, is similar to that of his predecessors in that it is based primarily on  pursuit of geo-strategic rents.  But  the  growing  magnitude of   Egypt’s  needs,   combined   with the changed regional and global environments, render  this  strategy redundant. The likelihood of diminishing  return from this  rent seeking strategy is real. Apart from the current  flattery, the US  backed by   Europe  will  exert pressure  in the  future  on   Human  Rights  and other abuses (at  least the Congress) and   other   abuses,   including   the failure to  deliver on  the promise of democratization. That is what exactly happened to President Mubarak.

Foreign Policy is also determined by what  is  taking  place  domestically, the  Egyptian military  ruling  class is busy extending its reach into the organs of the state and the patronage networks through which organized political life had long been controlled. Constitutional changes, intimidation of the independent minded politicians and public, direct intervention  into the judiciary system to effectively subordinate   the   legal   branch   to the   all-powerful  military   class  is the order of  the  day.  Civil society organizations  were being choked by a more restrictive  legal framework and interdiction by  the government of their sources of funding, primarily foreign.  The  media  grudgingly accepted the  regime’s more  tightly drawn “red lines.”

Over the past few  years, the military played the mongoose against the Brotherhood cobra, first handling civilians’ power to  it as  a check on the more radical, democratic secular forces, then  skillfully  undermining it before dramatically overthrowing it by  coup d’état in July 2013. In  the interim the officers and Brothers collaborated to  rehabilitate  the much-discredited  security  services, as  both sought to  use them against the other and against their common enemy, the civil society activists who had initially triggered the uprising. They  also  cooperated  in  drafting a  new  constitution  that   awarded the  military  powers it  had  never previously exercised, the trade off being an electoral law  that virtually guaranteed   the   Brothers   victory, hence control over parliament.  State institutions, including the Judiciary, parliament, and virtually the entirety of the public administration, suffered extensive collateral damage from this struggle for power that frequently played out within and between those institutions, destroying any pretense to their impartiality and professionalism.

Therefore, the Egyptian peoples uprising turned out to be not a color revolution, but a “couprevolution,” aptly named such by an analyst of the country’s armed forces. The military had “sucker punched” both civil society activists and the Muslim Brothers, leading the former to believe that officers would midwife fundamental political reforms, and the latter to surmise that those officers would depend upon the Brotherhood as its chief instrument
of civilian rule. Once the military elite consolidated its power it employed more draconian means than Nasser had. Once power is secured discredited Mubarak-era officials were gradually rehabilitated.

The regime’s foreign Policy therefore, in short, is  intended to maximize rent while preserving the regime. Neither is a suitable or appropriate objective. The rents are increasingly marginal, while the primary threats to  the regime are overwhelmingly domestic,  beyond  the capacity  of any external  actor to  substantively influence or counter. Therefore, posturing against Ethiopia or biting the Drums of  military threat provide only short-term benefits that could have  medium- and  long-term disastrous negative consequences. Ethiopia is quite content and capable of  coming with its  own strategy  to counter all  round  covert and overt attack from Egypt and in the Long run  it  can be   extremely  costly  to Egypt  as  well  as  Ethiopia.  In  this rapidly changing Global and regional environment  Cooperating  between the two  is the only long-term solution and   the  Egyptian  better  think twice. Both Ethiopia’s and Egypt’s primary  challenges are  developing their respective nations. Seeking an external enemy to divert attention is no  solution. They both need to think out and direct a cooperative national development  effort.  Stop  selling trying to sell  an ice to an Eskimo.

Therefore, Egypt will continue losing  time  that  could  have  been used rendering classic development. Ethiopia is also affected by  the implication of Egyptian Foraging policy. Global competition in agriculture, industry, services, information  technology, and indeed all  economic sectors requires  closer cooperation than confrontation  or rent seeking political maneuvering.

Ed. Note:  Tegegnework  Gettu (PhD) has served as the United Nations Under-Secretary-General and Associate Administrator  of the  United Nations  Development Program (UNDP) replacing María Eugenia Casar.  He   previously  held  the   post of  Under-Secretary-General   for General Assembly and Conference Management. He was appointed to this position by the United Nations Secretary-General Ban  Ki- moon on 25   March  2013.   He was the Country   Director  for Southern Africa  and  Indian  Ocean countries and  Acting Resident Representative in Liberia and Sierra Leone  before becoming a Senior Economic and Political Advisor in  UNDP›s Africa Bureau. He  later served as  Assistant Secretary-General and  Regional Bureau Director for  Africa at UNDP. Tegenework has lectured in a number of academic institutions, including Addis Ababa University, Hunter College, and the University of Rochester, New York. He was  also  a Fellow at Columbia University. The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect  the views of The Reporter Magazine.

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