I'm thinking: Intrigue in Iran

Posted

Thawing relations with Egypt

By Micah D. Halpern

Issue of July 24, 2009 / 3 Av 5769

In the Muslim world, diplomacy is an art.  In the Western world, the art is interpreting Muslim diplomacy in order to predict not what was said, but what was really meant when those things were said.

In a very unusual diplomatic move for the Middle East, the foreign ministers of Iran and Egypt met last week.

For the past three decades diplomatic relations between Iran and Egypt have been frozen. Iran could never accept the fact that Egypt signed a peace treaty with Israel.  Not only was the treaty signed, but the famous handshake between Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli President Menachem Begin was televised and seen around the world — including and especially in the Muslim world. Two years later, following the assassination of Sadat, the Egyptian ambassador to Iran was called home when the Iranians re-named a central square memorializing the assassin.

The Islamic Republic of Iran is a Shiite nation, Egypt is Sunni.  Shiites are seen as heretics in the eyes of Sunnis. Iran wants to be the leader of the Muslim world, Egypt currently holds that place. And now, thirty years later, not only did the Egyptian and Iranian foreign ministers meet, they met three times in the one week. The only way to describe this historic anomaly is as a serious thawing in diplomatic relation.

So what’s up?

Once upon a time, and for many, many years, relations between Iran and Egypt were friendly. So friendly, in fact, that King Farouk of Egypt, the last king of Egypt before the Nasser revolt, had a sister, Fawzia, who married the Shah of Iran. And the Shah is actually buried next to Farouk in Egypt.  But all that has been buried and forgotten.

Egypt believes that Iran sponsors the unrest that Hezbollah plans to unleash on Egypt. And Egypt has proof. Egyptian authorities have arrested a series of Hezbollah cells, sent from Lebanon, to attack, assassinate and bomb strategic sites in Egypt. The plan would have destroyed Egypt’s economy overnight. It called for the bombing of tourist sites and attacks on ships in the Suez Canal. Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, the head of Hezbollah, admitted  in a Hezbollah TV broadcast to sending his operatives to Egypt. Egypt knows that this did not happen in a vacuum and could only happen under the sponsorship of Iran.

Despite it all, the signs are clear. Egypt and Iran are now dangerously close to resolving their differences or, at least, to let bygones be bygones and start fresh. Iran needs the support of the Muslim world — needs it so badly that Iranian leadership is reaching out to Egypt and making promises. And Egypt is responding positively. This diplomatic tale is not over.

Egypt knows that all is not as it appears with Iran. Israel knows that, too. Not surprisingly, the United States is totally oblivious to the true nature of this course of events.

Micah D. Halpern is a columnist and a social and political commentator. Read his latest book THUGS. He maintains The Micah Report www.micahhalpern.com.