Friday, January 28, 2011

Elliott Abrams has one worry about Egypt:

"For Egypt, there is one worry: Mr. Mubarak's health."  He then adds:  "At stake in the succession crisis in Egypt is not simply who will rule the country, but whether a new president will maintain Egypt's chilly but reliable peace with Israel. Here too there are shared enemies, in this case Hamas and other Palestinian radical and terrorist groups; Israel and Egypt have maintained together (though with Israel shouldering 99% of the blame) a blockade on Gaza since the Hamas coup there in 2007.   The Egyptian regime feels no love for the Israelis, but there is significant security cooperation between the two countries; Egypt's rulers see the Shia in Iran, not the Jewish state, as the more dangerous threat to Arab power in the region. Egypt's decisions in late July to bar an Iranian Red Crescent ship carrying aid to Gaza from entering the Suez Canal and to prevent four Iranian parliamentarians from crossing the border into Gaza are the most recent proof of this Egyptian attitude.""