Egypt

After decades of offering only chaos, Baghdad is trying to become a leading force in the region. 

Egypt is again proving useful to the United States—for now.

Welcome to “Women Around the World: This Week,” a series that highlights noteworthy news related to women and U.S. foreign policy. This week’s post covers November 2 to November 9.

Last week President Trump invited reporters to listen in on a call intended to celebrate the normalization of relations between Sudan and Israel, a diplomatic achievement that comes with more than a few complications. During the course of the conversation with the Sudanese and Israeli prime ministers, the president of the United States took it upon himself to casually issue a bellicose threat to Ethiopia on behalf of Egypt and its president, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, a man Trump has referred to as “my favorite dictator." Seemingly miffed by the failure of his administration’s clumsy effort to broker a deal on the use of Nile waters now that Ethiopia’s Grand Renaissance Dam has become a reality, Trump posited that Egypt “will end up blowing up the dam. . . . they’ll blow up that dam. And they have to do something.. . . They should have stopped it long before it was started.” He also reiterated that he is holding up U.S. assistance to Ethiopia to pressure its government to agree to his administration’s preferred deal. The notion of casually inciting war in the strategically important Horn of Africa is sickening. The idea that the United States can successfully bully Ethiopia into a deal is ahistorical nonsense—a misreading of the stakes for Addis Ababa and an insult noted throughout the continent. But worse, the president is apparently completely oblivious to the United States’ own interests. The United States doesn’t provide assistance to Ethiopia out of sheer altruism; rather, officials from both parties have long recognized that a stable and successful Ethiopia is critical to the security of the region and an important part of any vision for cooperative, mutually beneficial U.S.-African relations in the future. The president’s appallingly careless statement is only the most recent example of the Trump Administration’s unforced errors in Africa. While Administration officials charge around warning Africans about the danger of doing business with China, they ignore the damage they’ve been doing to the United States’ credibility and desirability as a partner. Just as youthful African societies are mobilizing to demand more accountable governance and more of a say in shaping their own futures, the United States is making the worst possible case for itself. The current administration gives the impression that it disregards African interests in the foreign policy issues that directly affect them and that it imagines Africans as supplicants desperate for external patrons.  If President Trump is re-elected, it is difficult to imagine a change of course. But a Biden Administration would also face the immediate consequences of the damage done by the Trump years. Getting the United States on the firm footing required to meet a more assertive, transforming Africa, finding common ground, and advancing U.S. policy will be a real challenge, and it will need to be addressed immediately. Unfortunately, history suggests that this might be difficult. New presidential administrations have struggled to get their Africa teams in place quickly. Most egregiously, President Trump’s assistant secretary of state for African affairs, Tibor Nagy, didn’t take office until July of 2018, a year and a half after Trump was inaugurated. A new U.S. administration will have to move fast with a trusted and empowered team and a clear vision that rejects both business-as-usual and retrograde paradigms. Africa is poised to play a more significant role on the global stage. For the United States to meet the moment, policymakers will first have to climb out of the hole dug by President Trump. 

Recent events are straining the global watercourse governance system. Countries need to articulate and abide by universal norms and standards on sustainable and equitable water resource use to secure safe access to water.

Alvin Young is a Rangel Fellow and master's candidate at the Elliott School of International Affairs at the George Washington University. After years of negotiations, Egypt has written to the UN Security Council about what it considers to be Ethiopia's failure to reach an agreement over the filling and operations of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD). The United States, Russia, and the World Bank, among others, have attempted to mediate the dispute. However, the apparent absence of African Union (AU) leadership in the negotiations reduces the AU's credibility. The GERD is projected to produce electricity for over 75 million Ethiopians and millions more outside the country. Egypt, however, fears that the pace at which Ethiopia fills the reservoir will reduce its water supply from the Nile River. According to recent projections, if Ethiopia filled the dam over ten years, Egypt would experience a 14 percent decrease in water supply from the Nile and lose 18 percent of its farmland. Alternatively, if Ethiopia were to fill the dam in three years, Egypt's water supply would decrease by 50 percent and could see a 67 percent reduction in its agriculture area. Under these scenarios, Egypt considers Ethiopia’s goal to fill the GERD quickly as a threat to its security. The AU's absence in the GERD negotiations is not congruent with its Agenda 2063. This strategic framework aims to deliver collective prosperity and sustainable development. More specifically, the plan calls for "an integrated, prosperous, and peaceful Africa, driven by its citizens and representing a dynamic force in the international arena."  Further, not only did President Ramaphosa promise to use South Africa's chair of the AU to help resolve disputes in general, earlier this year, Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed publicly invited him to mediate the GERD talks. But Egypt is now attempting to kick the problem up to the Security Council, marginalizing the AU. It could be that the AU lacks the political will and technical background to deliver in the GERD negotiations, and in fact prefers to remain on the sidelines. Still, the GERD involves Africa's second and third most-populous states, with the potential to impact other states as well. The AU's absence undermines its credibility.

By killing the Middle East’s sense of community, the region’s dictators have helped the pandemic on its death march.

The eulogies for Egypt’s fourth president focused on his downfall, but history will remember his overlooked accomplishments while in office.

The region is accustomed to cycles of protest and political upheaval, so it’s better not to bank on successful revolutions.

The U.S. secretary of state appears to have one foot out the door—and that’s exactly what U.S. diplomats have been waiting for.

The Muslim Brotherhood, once Egypt’s largest opposition movement and a standard-bearer for Islamist groups around the world, has been once again driven underground as Abdel Fatah al-Sisi has consolidated power.