Gulf States Embrace Post-Brotherhood Egypt
Gulf states are lining up to support Egypt after President Mohammed Morsi's ouster, including more than $8 billion in financial assistance, but should do more to ensure the country does not repeat the mistakes of the past.
The ousted Muslim Brotherhood’s mismanagement of Egypt extended into various fields, from the social to the political, but perhaps the area that concerns Egyptians the most is its bungling of the Egyptian economy. Prior to being elected, the Brotherhood repeatedly touted its so-called Renaissance Project for the development of Egypt. The plan, the result of years of studies Egyptians were told, was to be implemented in President Mohammed Morsi’s first 100 days.
The plan, however, turned out to be nothing but electioneering rhetoric, with Morsi having “fulfilled only four of his 64 campaign promises,” according to one monitoring group. The Brotherhood government continued to assert its incompetence up to its final days, including the appointment of a member of Gamaa Islamiya as governor of Luxor, a major tourist attraction that was the scene of a bloody massacre perpetrated by the very same group 16 years earlier.
Why Egypt is such a pivotal ally to the Gulf states has been explored in earlier articles. From its sizable army to its strategic location, Egypt’s hard and soft power in Africa, the Mediterranean basin and the Middle East is hard to argue with. Nothing, however, brought this message home faster and more urgently than the rise of the Brotherhood in Egypt. One of the Brotherhood’s rare successes was the speed in which it alienated the Gulf Arab states. The Brotherhood’s overtures to Iran, culminating in a February visit by outgoing president Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, raised alarm bells not only among the Brotherhood’s former Salafi allies, but also in Gulf capitals. Senior Brotherhood leader Essam El Erian, who served as chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations in the now dissolved People’s Assembly, warned the citizens of the United Arab Emirates that they would become “slaves to the Persians.”
Less than a week after Morsi’s ouster, Saudi Arabia and the UAE on the same day offered Egypt assistance totaling $8 billion. Each would grant Egypt $1 billion and lend it another $2 billion, in the case of the UAE interest free. In addition, the Saudis offered $2 billion worth of oil and gas. Al-Monitor was informed firsthand that the UAE’s assistance to Egypt, announced July 9, is merely the “first step.”
