Delinking Brotherhood fight from Egypt’s regional role

Will new authorities be able to?

In addition to autocracy and corruption, the regime of former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak was blamed for the country’s shrinking role in the region and beyond. Now with the formation of the new government after the removal of the Mubarak regime and the Brotherhood president Mohammed Morsi, questions have emerged about how the country’s foreign policy edge can be regained, noted Abdullah Iskandar in a column for the London-based paper Al Hayat.

Egypt has suffered significant losses from the decline of its position in the Arab world and Africa. And now its ties with its traditional ally, the US, and with European countries are tense.

This chillness of relations came following the removal from office of Mr Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood colleagues. It was the same action, however, that has led to a significant rapprochement with the GCC states except Qatar.

The GCC states rushed to rescue post-Morsi Egypt by providing a multibillion aid package, including soft loans, donations and deposits. Helping to restore the Gulf-Egypt ties, this assistance was largely in response to the West abandoning Egypt at a critical moment.

Certainly, the confrontation with the Muslim Brotherhood has been the unifying factor for the Gulf and Egypt after a period of frosty relations. Yet it is in the best interest of both parties to establish a strong partnership that transcends the current clash with the Brotherhood.

The new authorities in Egypt consider themselves to be at war with a terrorist group, Ansar Beit Al Maqdis (the Champions of Jerusalem), which might be affiliated to Al Qaeda.

Egypt’s new government sees terrorism as its biggest challenge, blaming the Brotherhood and suspecting a role by Hamas for emerging terrorism in the country. While the new authorities cannot be blamed for countering terrorism and dealing with Hamas’s involvement, they must be very careful not to pin the blame on all Palestinians in Gaza for Hamas’s ties with the mother organisation in Egypt. Also, the disharmony must not overshadow the Egyptian role in the Palestinian cause.

There are concerns that Egypt’s dwindling role in the Palestinian cause is due to the new authorities looking at the Arab issues in light of their battle against the Brotherhood. This remark is also true for the Syrian conflict. The reigning opinion has been that Syria is a breeding ground for terrorists and that a fall of the regime will benefit the Brotherhood and its offshoots.

To perfectly converge with the Gulf, Egypt must see what is going on in Syria as a battle for freedom and against dictatorship at home and regionally as a part of a conflict imposed by Iran, the columnist said.

Evacuation of civilians from Homs is worrying

The sight of the elderly, women and children being evacuated from the besieged city of Homs last Friday was heart-wrenching. Their faces betrayed the sheer horror those in Syria’s besieged areas are forced to endure, noted Al Bayan, the Dubai-based daily in its Sunday editorial.

“The evacuation of civilians from the old city was the first fruit of the second Geneva conference,” the paper said. “For as crucial as the political issues that were discussed at the conference are, the humanitarian aspect of the crisis doesn’t tolerate any further delay. Famine is spreading among civilians and the basic necessities of life are depleted.”

The humanitarian aspect of the Syrian war shouldn’t have been put up for negotiation in the first place. It is preposterous that one side of the conflict imposes death on a civilian group to use them in its political manoeuvres.

But then, the Syrian war did make the unreasonable a matter of deliberation. “Understanding” the humanitarian plight requires international mediation, which implicitly acknowledges the Assad regime’s right to take the besieged as hostages.

The interest given to chemical disarmament should also be applied to the humanitarian issue in Syria. Hundreds of thousands of civilians have lost their homes in Aleppo and have nowhere to hide from explosive barrels. The eschewed international interest is worsening the Syrians’ plight and it must be readjusted.

Why don’t the Yemeni authorities intervene?

The clashes that erupt from time to time in the north of Yemen prompt Al Khaleej columnist Ahmed Mustafa Ai to ask several questions about the government’s non-intervention policy.

“These clashes raise questions about the Yemen government’s refusal to impose its authority in the North through military or, at least, civilian intervention, especially after national dialogue led to a decision to address the violence in the North.”

The Houthis and Salafis have breached the terms of their shaky truce before, but never with the ferocity seen in Dammaj recently. The two rival factions took to using heavy artillery in the clashes, claiming dozens of lives in an ongoing struggle for power in the northern province of Amran, the writer added.

The government is responsible for stopping the violence through diplomatic measures of creating dialogue and establishing a ceasefire between the two parties. If that proves a failure, the government must use military force to maintain the peace, the writer said.

It falls upon the government, as the sovereign of the state, to maintain order and peace in the country with whatever means necessary, as has been detailed in the recent national dialogue. By no means should violence be tolerated by the Yemeni authorities.

* Digest compiled by The Translation Desk