CAIRO: There is no doubt that Russia has succeeded in taking advantage of the failure of American policies to forcibly change the map of the Middle East by using its religious extreme right-wingers.
The historic meeting between the Egyptian Defense Minister and his Russian counterpart Sergei Shoigu, and the Egyptian Foreign Minister with Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov, was one of the most important frameworks which will help in shaping the future relationship of the two nations.
Such meetings are only held between great countries, and reflect Russia’s political and diplomatic vision towards Egypt, which ought to realize its size, not by talking about its past or by releasing silly statements about history and geography, but by defining priorities and formatting them to create a clear vision for its future relations.
Russia is not the Soviet Union, nor is Egypt its governments under Abdel Nasser, Sadat, Mubarak, or the Muslim Brotherhood. Egypt must get out quickly from the trap of mixing its desires and ambitions on one side with abilities and powers from the other side.
The belief that the U.S. controlled 99 percent of the political game in the Middle East was misleading, deceptive and conspiratorial; oppressive systems collaborated with Washington to deliver 99 percent of the political game to America, and succeeded in persuading their people for many years that the U.S. actually has such enormous clout. And, after years under such oppressive systems, America was able to enter all areas in the Middle East region, and it became difficult to stop it by one strike, even with new alliances with Russia or China.
Egypt’s new approach to engagement with Russia requires a relationship based on pragmatism, not on releasing rumors and wrong information about unlimited Russian support and deals for new and sophisticated weapons.
The talk about military cooperation seems silly, as if Egypt is about to fight a regional or international war, whilst western and American weapons have existed in Egypt for decades, in addition to American military aids and other financial aids. Rallying the Egyptian public opinion behind the past without a strong base would reflect negatively not only on Moscow and Cairo, but also on Washington and other Euro-Atlantic capitals.
So, Does Russia have interest in creating military disorder in the Middle East region? Does Egypt need such step? Is Egypt able to pay the $2 billion or even $4 billion price tag for weapons? Who will pay the price of Russian wheat to Egypt? Will America and its Euro-Atlantic’s alliances stay idly by? Does Russia have interest in weakening Israel? Are there signs for war between Egypt and Israel or other countries in the region? None of these can be answered easily.
But the main questions which will able to shape the real features for the Russian and Egyptian relations are: What will Egypt and Russia offer to each other? What is the amount of commercial exchange, and in favor of Russia or Egypt? What are the Egyptian abilities in exporting products, if they are able to vie and enter the demand and supply’s market or not? What are the Egyptian markets’ capacities? All of these questions take us to square one. Without internal stability, reviving the local market, and running the productive wheel, Egypt cannot make relations with Russia, nor with any other country.
