jordan pulse -

By Dr. Rashed Al-Shashani
The timing of the inauguration of Egypt’s new Strategic State Command Center, "The Octagon," was not isolated from a message that the state found imperative to send to the world, namely: Egyptian decision-making does not follow specific regional, international, or interest-driven blocs imposed by how others deal with their own interests. This new status quo is something Israel has attempted to market as a nascent threat—one built on displacing the danger of Shia political Islam through an infiltration that favors the rise of a Sunni political Islam led by Turkey.
Despite the cooperative relations between Egypt and Turkey, particularly in the military sector and recent joint maneuvers that followed a period of turbulent relations, Egypt still fears a Muslim Brotherhood infiltration that could disrupt its internal stability. The new relationship with Turkey and others is based on absorbing forces capable of backing opposing internal trends, rather than clashing with them on one hand, while granting Egypt a clearer vantage point over sources of anxiety through its military and strategic prowess on the other.
Egypt's move seeks to abort a potential infiltration within the framework of Sunni political Islam's capabilities. This branch is no different from its Shia counterpart in terms of infiltrating via proxies pushed to the forefront, even as it seemingly retreats while holding the rosary of wisdom and prudence. We must keep in mind that the Sunni branch is more capable of doing so due to internal factors embedded within the popular base, and regional factors supported by nations that have a vested interest in unsettling Washington and Europe "for the sake of blackmail" by brandishing threats against Israel from time to time.
Egypt is highly experienced in dealing with these factions, especially their use of entities or even states to broker deals with the West and the United States in markets of sacrifice and propaganda of struggle. Thus, Egypt preferred to deal closely with such barriers, demonstrating its ability to maneuver and shielding itself from the ignorance imposed by a total prohibition on "normalization," which would otherwise obscure the details of what is being plotted in secret.
Despite Egypt's interest in rallying allies alongside its ranks to confront American-Israeli dangers on one hand, it has not neglected to block any ally's attempt to swallow its capacity to strike an infiltrating domestic front after isolating the Egyptian state’s maneuvers on the other.
The Egyptian observer’s eye remains fixed on the NATO summit, where Erdoğan was keen to himself capable of shifting unyielding positions by bringing Trump together with his "partners in aversion," and granting Syria a role in Lebanon under a warm international umbrella that no one—not even the Syrians themselves—favors. This coincided with Turkey inaugurating its own new Turkish Pentagon on the occasion of the NATO meeting. Furthermore, Turkey's endeavors to unilaterally rebuild the Syrian army—through training, supplying drones, and defense systems, etc.—was not palatable to Egypt, which refuses to play the follower in a bloc led by Turkey. It appears that Egypt's hosting of talks with Hamas was one of the stops to pull the rug out from under Turkey, which handles Hamas and other regional movements in a manner similar to Iran's handling of its proxies, though with an added layer of danger given the grassroots popular embrace of these movements.
In the face of such a scene, talk of a Sunni axis in the region, regardless of its components and objectives, will not be robustly present. It will amount to nothing more than Israeli attempts to market a certain propaganda, or mere cooperation among regional states to avoid a clash with Iran—which Egypt and other nations no longer view as a more malicious adversary than any other. Mere military cooperation here or there will not alter this reality.