A few hours ago the news of the arrival in Tartous, Syria, of Egyptian officers. The Arab military, would be accompanied by Russian colleagues for joint training activities close to the territories controlled by the Islamists.
The news makes the bang and can be the prelude to an important reassembly for all the geopolitical balance of the Middle East.
Unable to understand what is happening without a rapid recovery of the history of relations between Egypt and Iran, at the basis of the recent Syrian-Egyptian evolution.
Let's just say that Cairo and Teheran have not spoken for half a century. From the second post-war period onwards, the Persia of the shah Reza Palhavi was the American bastion of the Near East and Egypt's scorbutic of Nasser, represented the Arab nationalist boils, and the ideological, demographic and military workshop of all the frictions with Israel. The western world, from the Suez crisis on, would have looked to Egypt as a bomb to be defused, placed among other things in one of the most strategic nodes of the world, by virtue of the rising weight of oil.
At the end of the 70s, the positions of Iran and Egypt were reversed. With Khomeini's Islamic revolution, Tehran inaugurates a forty-year period of isolation and hard confrontation with the US and the Western world. The Camp David accords and Sadat's new course in Cairo, on the other hand, produce precisely the opposite effect: Egypt renews its friendship with the West and unleashes the anger of the more extremist Arab brothers (the hand extended to Israel it will cost exclusion from the Arab League which will change headquarters from Cairo to Tunis), puts itself under the umbrella of the United States. In essence, the two countries change places, keeping the sidereal distance that divides them unchanged: having granted exile (and burial) to the shah, will be "avenged" by Iran even with a street in memory of the murderer of Sadat ...
Iranian weapons, for decades provided by the US, become Soviet, Chinese and North Korean; the T-62 Egyptians on the contrary, leave more and more place to the Abrams Books, who will defend Mubarak for the whole thirty years of the new fortress.
This state of affairs lasted until the so-called Arab Spring, stalked by the West but evidently escaped the hand. The fall of Mubarak, followed by a one-year short circuit Muslim Brotherhood of Morsi (among other things, the first Egyptian president to visit Teheran in the 2012), he introduced some unforeseen political reassignments throughout the Middle East region. The key figure for this change is the figure of Al Sisi, the new strong man in Cairo, chosen with a coup designed to put an end to the possible Islamic drift in Egypt. 
Chosen to give continuity to Mubarak's stabilization policy on the level of internal stability, the new Egyptian president inaugurated a season of international political initiatives that make Egypt the most interesting laboratory in the region today.
To put it briefly, Al Sisi is not Mubarak and after an enigmatic period of running in, he makes it clear without half measures. Some of his choices are in evident contrast with the guidelines of the United States (and Europe in tow):
- He supports Haftar in Libya, making Cyrenaica a protectorate de facto. Although the media minimize, the government of Al Serraj, recognized by the UN and wanted by the West, finds in the Libyan general his most stubborn enemy, at present able to occupy the hub major oil fields and to prevent the reunification of Libya under the flag of Tripoli.
- It tightens with Putin's Russia, to the point of foreseeing joint military maneuvers and to treat the use of military bases in the Mediterranean.
- Despite the initiative in 2015 alongside Saudi Arabia to stem the onset Houthi in Yemen, relations with Riyadh are cold, leading to a withdrawal of the air forces from the Arab-Sunni Coalition and fueling rumors that speak of collaboration between the Egyptian Navy and the rebel forces themselves Houthi active in the Red Sea (armed just from Iran ...).
- It re-establishes diplomatic relations with Iran, the Shiite colossus that has cast a shadow over the whole Arab Sunni world for decades, of which Egypt is a secular champion. The rapprochement with Tehran comes precisely in conjunction with the friction with Saudi Arabia, Cairo's privileged oil supplier and is sealed with the visit of Iranian President Ahmadinejad to Cairo in 2013.
- Reacts diplomatic relations with Assad Syria, interrupted by Morsi in 2012.
- Blocking the French resolution to the UN Security Council to condemn the Russian-Syrian raids on Aleppo and with great dismay of the West, by the mouth of Foreign Minister Shukry declares welcome the Russian intervention in Syria. Iran, the fourth largest oil producer in the world and involved up to its neck in the Syrian war, does not miss the opportunity and proposes Egypt as a mediator for the peace talks in Geneva for the Syrian crisis.
The cuddles between Egypt and Iran are linked to the Syria war, where the Cairo's historic allies have taken a hostile stance in Damascus (and Russia) right from the start. If the news of advisor Egyptians in Syria were officially confirmed, one could even speak of Russia-Iran-Syria-Egypt axis.
For the truth, as mentioned above, the good relations between Iran-Russia and Egypt-Russia are not new. With inverted phases and bilateral bilateral interest, the two Middle Eastern colossians have already looked to Moscow, at least to rebalance the ontological alliance between Israel and the West. However, close contacts today take on a different value, no longer framed in the compensation logic. Especially captain at the same time, adding to the traditional Shiite Tehran-Damascus axis, an unplanned ring.
If flirtation between Iran and Russia has a strategic value on the political and military level (see article) the convergence of Egypt towards Iran, can in fact open up unprecedented scenarios. The energy dependence of Cairo from Saudi Arabia could end soon and with it there would be less conflict between the Sunnis and Shiites, behind which there is a geopolitical confrontation between Riad and Tehran.
Despite the opening of the horizon, Egypt remains fundamental also for the policies against international terrorism, dear to the USA and Europe. In this regard, the role of Cairo is central for contacts with Israel, consolidated for more than thirty years and necessary for the Jewish state to keep its guard against Hamas. With regard to terrorism, Al Sisi breaks off diplomatic relations with Turkey in 2014: the close relationship between the Erdogan administration and the Muslim brotherhood, closely connected in turn to Hamas, emphasizes the political independence of Egypt, which becomes an even more important interlocutor for Tel Aviv.
While Israel carefully observes the evolutions looking for guarantees in the new (and good) relations with Moscow, the shocks arrive overseas. The new American administration will have to try to cope with the haemorrhage of friendships, now overt throughout the Middle East. If the fast track with Egypt were to fail, the diplomatic cataclysm would be difficult to manage.
Egypt and Iran are the two demographic reservoirs of the region (160 million souls) and represent, after Israel, the major military powers in the Middle East. If Assad were to remain in the saddle (at least until 2021, as stated in an interview with New York Times), the geopolitical map of the coming years would be very different from the one imagined only a few years ago.
Those who will not fit in with a healthy realism are likely to be out of the game.
(photo: القوات المسلحة المصرية)
