Brothers in arms

Notwithstanding differences, overriding mutual interest in countering Iran is likely to keep Cairo and Riyadh on the same page.

By BRUCE MADDY-WEITZMAN
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. (photo credit: AMR ABDALLAH DALSH / REUTERS)
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.
(photo credit: AMR ABDALLAH DALSH / REUTERS)
THE SAUDI-LED bombing campaign against advancing Iranian- backed Houthi rebel forces in Yemen marked a new turn in the kaleidoscope of Middle East geopolitics. It signified the determination of Saudi Arabia’s new king, supported by Egypt and eight other countries, to push back forcefully against Iran’s expanding influence in the region.
Coming concurrently with the climax of the P5+1 negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program, the campaign in Yemen was also a clear signal to Saudi Arabia’s longtime US ally that it did not intend to remain passive in the face of Iran’s assertiveness and Washington’s decoupling of the nuclear negotiations from Iran’s behavior.
Nonetheless, the prospects for a Houthi rollback and stabilization of a united Yemen appear remote, and the possibility of a deeper military entanglement considerable. In addition, renewed unrest among Saudi Arabia’s Shi’a minority provided the Saudi leadership with further “proof” of Iran’s malevolence.
Ironically, Yemen was the arena for a proxy war between Egypt and Saudi Arabia during 1962-67, in which the Saudis supported the royalist Zaydi camp against pro-Nasser republican military coup-makers, and which came to be dubbed “Nasser’s Vietnam”.
Following the June 1967 war debacle, Nasser abandoned his revolutionary ideology in favor of a rapprochement with the Saudis and access to its desperately needed financial largesse. Since then, the two countries have been broadly like-minded on regional issues and global orientation, together constituting the main pillar of the Arab regional order. But over recent decades, and notwithstanding Saudi and Gulf oil wealth, power in the region has increasingly shifted to non-Arab states – Turkey, Iran and Israel.
From the beginning of the Arab Spring turmoil, the Saudi-led Gulf Cooperation Council was the only relatively cohesive bloc of Arab states, using military, economic and political tools, including the mechanism of the much maligned Arab League, to try and protect its interests in Bahrain, Libya, Yemen and Syria.
The toppling of the Muslim Brotherhood government in Egypt, in July 2013, delighted Riyadh – together with Kuwait and the UAE, it has poured more than $20 billion into Egyptian coffers, enabling Abdel Fattah al-Sisi to consolidate and stabilize his regime.
Sisi, for his part, makes no bones about his intent to restore Egypt’s traditional leading position in Arab and regional affairs.
Currently, his primary focus is on the need to combat jihadi terrorism (which, by his definition, also includes the now banned Muslim Brotherhood). Crushing the jihadist insurgency in Sinai is an ongoing priority, albeit difficult to achieve. The worsening civil war in neighboring Libya, and particularly the beheading of 21 Egyptian Copts by Islamic State supporters, prompted a retaliatory Egyptian bombing raid, the first use of Egyptian military power beyond its borders in many years.
Hosting the Arab summit conference on March 28-29 was intended to signal that Egypt was “back.” So was its promotion of a joint Arab defense force that would be able to respond rapidly to crises that threatened “Arab national security,” particularly those fomented by terrorist groups. The summit endorsed the idea in principle and Arab League Secretary-General Nabil Elaraby was charged with convening Arab chiefs of staff to discuss the details.
To be sure, however, the idea was hardly new. Mutual suspicions and rivalries had always interfered with its establishment in the past, and were likely to be an obstacle again. Indeed, the Saudis refrained from explicitly endorsing the concept, focusing instead on cobbling together a Sunni coalition to combat the Houthi advances in Yemen. Egypt was a willing participant: naval units were dispatched to the strategically crucial Bab el Mandeb Straits, marking Egypt’s determination to protect access to the Suez Canal. But the idea of Egyptian ground troops participating in a ground operation evoked ghosts of the 1960s, and would constitute a difficult decision for Cairo.
The Saudis were also keen on expanding the circle of Sunni coalition states beyond the Arab sphere.
Pakistan, a longtime military ally, symbolically participated in the air campaign, and would presumably be asked to provide ground troops, as well, in the event of the war’s widening. More disquieting to the Egyptians was Riyadh’s avid recruitment of Turkey, a vocal supporter of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, to the anti-Iranian coalition.
The Saudis, for their part, were displeased with Sisi’s cozying up to Vladimir Putin, a staunch supporter of the hated Assad regime in Syria.
Notwithstanding these differences, their overriding mutual needs and interests in countering Iran and maintaining stability at home and among other Arab coalition members, for example Jordan, are likely keep Cairo and Riyadh on the same page. 
The author is a Principal Research Fellow at the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies, Tel Aviv University