The Anti-Terror Quartet (ATQ) — Bahrain, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) — severed diplomatic and economic ties with Doha June 5 due to a host of issues stemming from Qatari foreign policy. Nonetheless, these four states joined the ATQ for unique reasons based on specific grievances. For instance, although the ATQ’s three Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states interpret Doha’s ties with Tehran as a major dimension of the "Qatari threat" that must be addressed, Egypt’s reason for punishing Doha stemmed from the emirate’s support for Sunni Islamist groups — chiefly the Muslim Brotherhood — and not from Qatar’s relationship with Iran nor Doha’s alleged support for Iranian-backed militias in the Levant and Arabian Peninsula.

Illustrating Cairo’s opposition to the other ATQ members’ plans for stepping up confrontation with Iran in the Levant, Egyptian President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi expressed his position against military strikes on Iran and Hezbollah on Nov. 8. Although Sisi reassured the other ATQ states that “Gulf national security is Egyptian national security,” his view is that shifting efforts toward countering Hezbollah would jeopardize Lebanon’s power-sharing equilibrium that has left the Mediterranean country in relative peace this year and potentially upset global/regional efforts to combat the Islamic State (IS).

Having allied Cairo with Damascus after ousting Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood President Mohammed Morsi in 2013, Sisi views the Syrian nation-state’s preservation as serving Egypt’s interest and Bashar al-Assad’s regime as a bulwark against radical Islamic extremism in the Levant, which has fueled tension in Egypt-GCC relations. Odds are good that Egypt would oppose efforts to weaken the Lebanese group, whose operations in Syria have largely contributed to the Damascus regime’s victories over GCC- and Turkey-backed Sunni rebels. Moreover, as the Egyptian military is bogged down in the Sinai Peninsula combatting ultra-violent Salafi-jihadis and busy cooperating with Field Marshal Khalifa Hifter’s fight against Islamist militants in Libya, Egypt is not interested in stepping up confrontation with Hezbollah.

As the Egyptian regime is focused on IS-affiliates and the Muslim Brotherhood without any significant "Shiite threat" in Egypt, Cairo believes that the ATQ should extend its targeting of alleged state sponsors of terrorism to Turkey, not Iran. Although the UAE shares Egypt’s opposition to Turkey’s pro-Muslim Brotherhood Justice and Development Party, Abu Dhabi — along with Riyadh and Manama — is keen to avoid letting the Qatar crisis jeopardize its ties with Turkey. The fact that the Saudi/UAE-led bloc did not heed Sisi's call to boycott Turkey after the Gulf dispute broke out highlighted this gap in the ATQ members’ perceptions of the pro-Muslim Brotherhood leadership in Ankara.