Egypt’s reinstatement at the heart of Arab politics is very welcome. Far too many Arab states have suffered from civil wars that may well continue for decades unless regional action is taken to stop the fighting, cope with the humanitarian disasters and find long-term political solutions in these failed states. The Gulf states have become a bastion of stability in a collapsing Arab world, but they are not able to roll back the chaos without support from other Arab states like Egypt.
For far too long former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak’s single-minded support for the US and its ally Israel had confined a great Arab nation to the periphery of the region’s politics. The chaos of the 2011 revolution did not help at all and the subsequent year under the rule of the Muslim Brotherhood kept Egypt well out of the mainstream. Therefore, after so many years, it is significant to see Gulf states like Saudi Arabia working hard to bring President Abdul Fattah Al Sissi’s government back into the active diplomacy of the region.
Saudi King Abdullah Bin Abdul Aziz has been the key to getting Egypt involved in supporting the reconciliation in the Gulf between Qatar and its GCC partners the UAE, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia. There is no doubt that Gulf states have invested heavily in Egypt, both economically and politically. Gulf governments have given the Egyptian government large loans and Gulf companies are very active in the country as well. On the political side, the Gulf is looking for Egypt to support its various joint efforts to promote political stability in a very uncertain region as Iraq, Syria and Libya are consumed by civil war and fragile states like Lebanon and Jordan may well start to disintegrate unless regional action is taken to support them as well as to find solutions in these warring states.
The end of the dispute with Qatar allows all GCC states and their Arab allies like Egypt to move ahead on the vital task of helping root out the curse of extremism in their neighbourhood and restore stability in the very troubled areas where sectarian militias have taken over.
