Egypt and the Destruction of Churches Strategic Implications

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Egypt and the Destruction of Churches: Strategic Implications

January 4, 2011

By George Friedman

Over the past few days, Christian churches have been attacked in at least two countries Nigeria and Egypt

while small packages containing improvised explosive devices were placed on the doorsteps of Christian families

in Iraq. Attacks against Christians are not uncommon in the Islamic world, driven by local issues and groups, and

it is unclear whether these latest attacks were simply coincidental and do not raise the threat to a new level or

whether they indicate the existence of a new, coordinated, international initiative. There is a strong case to be

made for the idea that there is nothing new in all of this.

Yet I am struck by the close timing of events in three distant and dispersed countries. Certainly, Egyptianintelligence services are looking for any regional connections (e.g., whether Iraqi operatives recruited the Egyptian

bomber). While there have been previous bombings in Egypt, they have focused on tourists, not churches. What is

important is this: If the recent attacks are not coincidental, then a coordinated campaign is being conducted against

Christian churches that spans at least these countries. And it is a network that has evaded detection by intelligence

services.

Obviously, this is speculative. What is clear, however, is that the attack on a church in one country Egypt is

far from common and was particularly destructive. Egypt has been relatively quiet in terms of terrorism, and there

have been few recent attacks on the large Coptic Christian population. The Egyptian government has been

effective in ruthlessly suppressing Islamist extremists and has been active in sharing intelligence on terrorism with

American, Israeli and other Muslim governments. Its intelligence apparatus has been one of the mainstays of

global efforts to limit terrorism as well as keep Egypts domestic opposition in check.

Therefore, the attack in Egypt is significant for no other reason than that it happened and represents a failure of

Egyptian security. While such failures are inevitable, what made this failure significant was that it occurred in

tight sequence with attacks on multiple Christian targets in Iraq and Nigeria and after a threat al Qaeda made last

month against Egyptian Copts. This was a warning, which in my mind increases the possibility of coordinated

action, but the Egyptians failed to block it.

Egypts Historical Significance

Egypt is the largest Arab country, with a population of about 80 million. Cairo is the historic center of Arab

culture and served as the engine shaping the Arab response to the collapse of the British and French empires.

Under Gamal Abdul Nasser, the political founder of the Pan-Arab (as opposed to Pan-Islamic) movement. Egypt

was a radical, militarized engine in the region. When Egypt allied with the Soviet Union in 1956, it redefined the

geopolitics of the Mediterranean region. When it switched alliances in the 1970s, geopolitics changed as well.More than any other Arab country, Egypt matters. When it is assertive, it frames regional politics. When it

withdraws into itself, the region becomes prey to outside forces, Islamic and otherwise.

That last major move made by Egypt was signing a peace agreement with Israel in 1979 that demilitarized theSinai Peninsula and removed the strategic threat to the Israels south. This in turn freed Israel to focus its primary

interests to the north and to develop its economy, leaving Syria isolated and dependent on Iran. The consequences


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of the treaty were enormous and have defined the geopolitics of the region for a generation.

The death of President Anwar Sadat in 1982 and the subsequent elevation of Hosni Mubarak to the position led toa period in which Egyptian national strategy was frozen into place. Egypts core relationship was with the United

States. It was secure on all external fronts. However, as Sadats death showed, the treaty with Israel generated

resistance inside Egypt. Whereas the Egyptian regime derived from a secular Arabist point of view, for which the

peace with Israel posed ideological but not theological problems, the opposition, built around the MuslimBrotherhood, was Islamist and therefore opposed to the treaty on theological grounds.

The assassination of Sadat initiated a period of intense activity by Egyptian security forces to destroy theassassins organization as well as Islamist forces in the country that opposed the regime and the treaty with Israel.

A combination of ruthless intelligence and security services, disorganization among the Islamists and deep

divisions in Egyptian society reduced the Islamist threat to the regime to a weak political force and terrorism to a

fairly rare occurrence.

It was this focus on internal security that froze Egyptian foreign policy into place. First, the internal situationtowered in significance over foreign policy. Second, conducting a vigorous foreign policy in the face of internal

terrorism was dangerous, if not impossible. Third, the fight against Islamic radicalism was an intelligence war, and

Egypt needed the intelligence cooperation of other countries, particularly the United States and Israel. The internal

threat not only froze Egypts foreign policy but also contributed to social and economic inequality.

As a result, Egypt appeared from the outside at least to have disappeared from history. News from Cairo

galvanized the world from the 1950s to the 1970s, but by the 1980s, Egypt had ceased to be a player in the region.Even after 2001, when all American allies were mobilized in the war against militant Islam, Egypts role was to

control its own terrorist movement. It achieved that, which was an enormous benefit to the United States. HadEgypt radicalized, it would have been a profound strategic challenge to the United States. Far from radicalizing,

Egypt became the country neither the United States nor the Israelis had to worry about.

Egypts Current Climate

Mubarak is old and, by some accounts, suffering from cancer. He had hoped to have his son, Gamal, replace him,

but this has run into resistance from the political and military apparatus that supports him and that derives from theregime Nasser founded. The regime has the support of some of the population, particularly government workerswho make their living from it. At the same time, there are secularists who want to see a more liberal, business-

oriented regime. The argument against them has been the threat of the Islamist radicals, who had been seen as a

spent force.

Thats one reason the attack on a church in Egypt is important. The argument that the Islamist threat has been dealtwith is challenged by the attack, and with it the argument that the continued focus on a security state is archaic.

Should there be follow-on attacks, Mubaraks policies become re-legitimized, and can be passed on to whoever

follows him as Egypts leader.

And this brings us to the heart of the matter. It is unclear what is stirring beneath the surface of Egypt. Whatever it

might be is by necessity cautious. But radical Islamism has caught the imagination of people in other Muslim and

Arab countries, and it is unreasonable to assume that it has passed Egypt by. Indeed, it was very much there untilMubarak suppressed it, and it is unlikely to have gone away.

The most vulnerable time in Egypt is the period before Mubarak leaves the scene. No firm new government will

be in place, no dynamic leadership will be provided. If the radical Islamists assert themselves now, they could well

draw down the wrath of the security services. In that case, they would be no worse off than they were before. But

if the impending succession crisis divides an already sclerotic state, it might open the door to a resurgence of

radical Islamism.


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Egypts Political Future

This, in turn, would introduce two possibilities. In one, Egypt enters a period of internal strife and instability and

the regime fails to suppress the Islamists but the Islamists fail to take power. In the other, a massive Islamist

movement repudiates the Nasserite heritage and establishes an Islamic republic in Egypt. There are many

countervailing forces to the second scenario, but it is not an impossible scenario in the long run, even if instability

is probably the most Islamists can hope for. And there is, of course, a third scenario an orderly succession.

Lets consider for a moment what an Islamist Egypt would mean. The Mediterranean, which has been a

strategically quiet region, would come to life. The United States would have to reshape its strategy, and Israel

would have to refocus its strategic policy. Turkeys renaissance would have to take seriously a new Islamic power

in the Mediterranean. Most important, an Islamist Egypt would give dramatic impetus to radical Islam throughout

the Arab world. One of the linchpins of American and European policy in the region would be gone in a crucialpart of the world. The transformation of Egypt into an Islamist country would be the single most significant event

we could imagine in the Islamic world, beyond on Iranian bomb.

If this were happening in most other countries, it would be a matter of relative unimportance. But Egypt used to bethe dominant Arab power, and the last 20 years have been, in my view, an abnormal period. Egyptian inwardness

has been driven by an effective effort to repress radical Islamists. It has taken all of the regimes energy. But theinternal dynamic in Egypt is certainly changing as the succession approaches, and the recent church attack was a

rare failure of Egyptian security. If such failures were to continue, it would be difficult to predict the outcome.

For a country as important as Egypt, it is a matter to be taken seriously. It is certainly not clear how significant the

attack on the church was, whether it is the beginning of something bigger. At this point, however, anything out of

the ordinary in Egypt must be taken seriously, if for no other reason than because this is Egypt, Egypt matters

more than most countries, and Egypt is changing.

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Egypt and the Destruction of Churches Strategic Implications