The Regional Winners and Losers in Egypt's Military Coup

It's not difficult to see why the Arab monarchies took such great exception to the Muslim Brotherhood, for its rhetoric, organisation and claims to regional influence looked similar in their potential popular appeal to the Nasserist revolutionary storm of the 1950s and 60s. But, while during that period both Jordan and the Gulf sheikhdoms were shielded from the storm by a British security umbrella, no such protection is available now.

So, there was a real fear that, while the Nasserist 'awakening' ultimately succeeded in unseating only three Arab monarchies (Egypt itself, Iraq and Yemen), the current 'band of brothers' could render the very concept of the monarchy in the Middle East as extinct as Brontosaurus Rex. In a strange way - and although they were always loath to admit it publicly - the monarchies of the Gulf believed that the Muslim Brotherhood was omnipotent, and that it was supremely clever  in hoodwinking both ordinary Arabs and Western governments.

Egypt's military coup was therefore greeted with jubilation by the Arab monarchies not only because it removed their immediate challenge, but also because it seemed to indicate that, like Nasser, the pull of the Brotherhood could ultimately turn out to be a busted flush.

Jordan's King Abdullah, ever the consummate diplomat at such moments, said absolutely nothing after the coup, although his silence was deafening: the Jordanian monarch has spent months warning Western governments that they under-estimated the danger from the Brotherhood and vastly over-estimated President Morsi's intelligence, so he certainly felt vindicated by the turn of events.

The Gulf monarchies, however, were less restrained. Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the UAE foreign minister, rushed to issue a statement hailing the 'great Egyptian army's role as the country's unbreakable shield', and promising 'all necessary help to the sisterly Egyptian nation'.  Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah meanwhile congratulated Mr Adli Mansour, who was appointed Egypt's interim head of state. He also praised the Egyptian military for leading their country out of a 'tunnel that only God knows its dimensions and repercussions'. The state-controlled media in the Gulf was less cryptic, giving prominence to what it called 'sensational revelations' about alleged secret dealings between the deposed Morsi administration and Iran, making it clear that Mr Morsi's fall was beneficial for the wider interests of the Arab world.

The only Gulf monarchy not to express its satisfaction at the unfolding events was, of course, Qatar, which poured an estimated US$8 billion of credits into Egypt, and has been the main Arab backer of the Brotherhood even before Mr Morsi came to power.
The ouster of Mr Morsi is a setback for Qatar, which had hoped for broader regional influence. And, in a sign of things to come, the Cairo offices of Al Jazeera, the Qatari-financed pan-Arab TV station, were reportedly ordered shut by the military. Qatar's Middle Eastern diplomacy now lies in ruins: it failed to produce dividends in Libya, backfired in Syria and now collapsed in Egypt. And many Arabs see this as sweet revenge for years of wayward Qatari behaviour: cartoons published in a number of Arab newspapers showed deposed President Morsi running towards a Qatar Airways jet, chased by a cloud of shoes thrown at him by irate Egyptians.

Yet by sheer fluke rather than design, Qatar has the ability to extricate itself from the Egypt debacle. Emir Tamim, its new and youthful ruler, can easily brush off the Egyptian adventure as the product of 'excesses' by his country's previous generation of rulers. And that's precisely what seems to be happening: Tamim sent a congratulatory cable to Egypt's interim head of state, which vowed to 'maintain Qatar's excellent fraternal relations with Egypt and work to strengthen them to serve the interests of both countries and their peoples'.

Qatar may not get its money back, but it is not in a bad position: nobody in Egypt has an interest in humiliating Qatar, and the Qataris may yet end up being hailed as visionaries should the Muslim Brotherhood ever return to power. So, contrary to the received wisdom in the Middle East, Qatar has actually achieved its objective: it has positioned itself as supporter of the radical forces for change in the Middle East without changing any of its political arrangements at home, and that image is likely to endure whatever happens either in Egypt or elsewhere in the region.

Hamas, the radical Palestinian group in control of the Gaza Strip, cannot reposition itself as quickly as Qatar, partly because it has very little to offer to the new Egyptian rulers, but also because Hamas' association with Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood is far closer. Still, the Hamas leadership has decided that its safest course now is to distance itself from Egypt altogether: 'We only care about stability in Egypt regardless of who is in charge', said Mr Ahmad Yousef, one of its top leaders.

Nobody bought this, and especially not the Egyptian military, who reputedly began to demolish the known smuggling tunnels between Sinai and the Gaza Strip. A return to the stance adopted by Hosni Mubarak towards Hamas is very much on the cards now, partly because the last thing the Egyptian military wants is to be dragged into a renewed conflict with Israel by a Hamas adventure, but also because the generals in Cairo now see Hamas as a key conduit for potential weapon supplies to the Brotherhood, and to the various bands of Bedouins in the Sinai.

Ironically, however, none of this seems to reassure Israel, where Morsi's overthrow was received with concern, not because Israeli leaders had any confidence in the Egyptian president but because, as so often in the past, the Jewish state instinctively regards its neighbours as countries which are incapable of producing any good, and therefore prefers the devil it knows to the unfamiliar and unknown.

So, having mourned Hosni Mubarak's departure in 2011, the Israelis ended up respecting Morsi, largely because he resisted pressure to cancel the Egyptian-Israeli peace accord and generally toned down the anti-Israeli rhetoric among his Brotherhood supporters.  Israel now fears that all these achievements may now be squandered, and that extremist Islamic groups could take advantage of the chaos to launch attacks from either Egypt or the Gaza Strip. 'Instability is bad for Israel, period', is how Eli Shaked, a former Israeli ambassador to Egypt, summed up his country's reaction. Or, to put it more crudely, Israel loves the status quo for the wrong reasons: just because it cannot think of anything else to either uphold or promote in the region.

But, as was to be expected, the most interesting reaction came from Iran. Iran welcomed the popular overthrow of Hosni Mubarak in 2011 as part of what it touted as an 'Islamic awakening' (which, needless to say, was inspired by Iran) and has sought to repair its strained ties with Egypt since Morsi's election victory last year. Morsi duly visited Tehran on one of his first official trips abroad, and more recently allowed limited tourist trips to come to Egypt on a relaxed visa programme. But the two countries have found themselves supporting opposite sides of the Syrian civil war, and Morsi often used the threat of forging a good relationship with Iran as just a blackmailing instrument in order to extract more cash from Gulf states.

 

Either way, Morsi's departure was a classic case of 'six on the one hand, half a dozen on the other' for the Iranians. Teheran knows that, at least for the moment, it is unlikely to find an interlocutor better than Morsi in Egypt. But at the same time, the Iranians believe that Egypt's internal troubles will mean less attention to Syria and greater chances of survival for the regime of Bashar al-Assad. So, the Iranians adopted a wait-and-see approach: they hailed the 'legitimate demands' of the 'Egyptian people' but also warned against 'foreign and enemy opportunism'. That was a change from the position the Iranians adopted last week, when an Iranian official said that the Egyptian president had been elected by the will of the nation and called on the armed forces to 'take heed of the vote of the people'.

The real question in the Middle East - and one to which a tentative answer would only be apparent in the months to come - is whether any of the region's government will get more actively engaged in influencing Egypt's internal political scene. Qatar is clearly out, at least for the moment, and wants to stay this way. Israel would want to remain utterly silent. But Hamas and Iran? And what about Saudi Arabia which frequently dangled large credit packages to Morsi in return for the Muslim Brotherhood's good behaviour, and now has a chance of delivering on these promises by supporting a transition government in Cairo?