In a quest for geopolitical advantage, China is casting its lot with the most despised reactionaries of Islamdom—the predatory generals of Egypt and Syria, the feuding tyrants of the Persian Gulf, and the fossilized police states of Central Asia.
Many in Pakistan believe that the Saudis and Emiratis do not provide them the kind of economic support they have been providing to Egypt, especially after bankrolling the coup against the democratically elected government of Mohamed Morsi.
Provided that it also gets the support of the ten seats reserved in the constitution for the non-Serbian minorities (Ashkali, Bosnian, Egyptian, Roma, and Turks), in practice, this means that for the first time since independence a mainstream Kosovar party will be able to form a government without the support of another mainstream party.
These problems heat up when there are developments in the region, such as the dispute over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam with Egypt (GERD), and calm down when the disputes are resolved.
The Command unit coordinates operations stretching from Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen in the West to Kazakhstan, Kyrgystan, Tajikistan, and Pakistan in the East.
This is particularly true after the counterrevolution led by Saudi Arabia and the UAE in Egypt where they bankrolled the bloody coup against the democratically elected government of the late president Mohamed Morsi and installed their henchman Abdel Fattah el-Sisi.
He highlighted how war in Libya would drive refugees out into neighbouring countries and put a strain over the fragile transitions in Egypt and Tunisia.
The excessive violence in Egypt and Algeria led to a split of the movement: a mainstream approach to take over the state peacefully through the electoral process, and a minority trend supporting Al-Qaida and Daesh.
The slogan “Aish, Karama, Hurriya” (Bread, Dignity, Freedom) heralded the end of dictatorial regimes in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, and Yemen, and, most recently, in Sudan and Algeria.
In 2014, a significant diplomatic rupture occurred between the same GCC members (minus Egypt) that was only brought to a close after nine months of Kuwaiti-led mediation.
The most prominent examples of political assassinations of top state officials include the assassination of Egyptian President Anwar Alsadat in 1981, the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1995, and the assassination of Lebanese Prime Minster Rafic Al-Hariri in 2005.
The outbreak of COVID-19 in Gaza made the situation at the borders even more complicated, with the Rafah Crossing connecting Gaza with Egypt being closed more often to curb the spread of the virus.
A prominent example is when Egypt’s president Sadat visited Israel’s Knesset in 1977, but such charismatic leadership (albeit still controversial) is absent today in the Arab world where most leaders have lost their legitimacy in the eyes of their populations after the Arab Spring.
However, this compromise may need brave decisions: Turkey’s image with the Italian public is particularly poor, and the Rome-Ankara alliance may damage relations with France, Greece, and Egypt.