With Egypt signalling its readiness to return to Iraq, what effect will this have on Iranian ambitions in the country, asks Salah Hemeid A visit by Egypt's foreign minister, Ahmed Abul-Gheit, to Iraq late last month has ushered in a new era in the country's regional diplomacy in a move that may have far-reaching political consequences. Abul-Gheit was the first foreign official to visit Baghdad after the formation earlier last month of a new Iraqi government led by incumbent Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki after nine months of political stalemate. During his one-day visit, Abul-Gheit met with top Iraqi leaders, including Al-Maliki and President Jalal Talabani, parliamentary speaker Osama Al-Nujaifi and key political and community leaders. He also travelled to Irbil to meet Kurdish leaders and open a new Egyptian consulate in the provincial capital of Kurdistan. After talks in Baghdad, Abul-Gheit said that Egypt would lend its full support to the newly formed Iraqi government and disclosed that a ministerial committee for strategic cooperation and dialogue would hold its first session next month. "Egypt is committed to helping Iraq overcome difficulties and obstacles faced in the past," he said in a joint press conference with Iraqi counterpart Hoshyar Zebari. According to remarks made by Abul-Gheit and Iraqi officials, top on the minister's talks while in Baghdad was bilateral economic cooperation, including a key Egyptian role in Iraq's infrastructure projects and in its electricity, oil and gas sectors. While cementing economic ties with Iraq remains paramount, the visit underlined Egypt's desire to play an active role in Iraq as a means of countering increasing Iranian influence. Ahead of the visit, Abul-Gheit told the conference of Egypt's ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) that Iraq ranked high on the country's foreign-policy concerns and that Egypt would take further measures to advance ties with Iraq. "Iraq is the eastern flank of the Arab nation," Abul- Gheit told delegates. "Iraq needs support from the Arabs to counter non-Arab influence." According to a recently leaked US cable by whistleblower WikiLeaks, Egypt views Iran as a significant strategic threat. The cable, dated 28 April 2009, quotes Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak as telling an American congressional delegation that he saw "Iranian influence spreading like a cancer from the GCC [Gulf Cooperation Council countries] to Morocco." Egypt has repeatedly expressed concern over Iran's increasing influence in Lebanon, Gaza and the Arab Gulf, arenas which it considers to be closely related to its economic interests and national security. Egypt and Iran also remain sharply divided over key Middle East issues, among them the Arab-Israeli conflict and the peace process. While Cairo has been a major player in brokering a Palestinian-Israeli peace, Iran has strongly opposed it. Relations between Cairo and Tehran worsened after the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq, with Iran increasing its influence in the Arab country through Shia allies now in control of the Baghdad government. Egypt fears that rising Iranian influence in Iraq may be helping Tehran increase its foreign-policy cards at the expense of Arab interests, especially major Arab powers like Egypt and Saudi Arabia. The two countries have had fraught relations since the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran, and despite occasional efforts at rapprochement, diplomatic ties remain severed with the two countries regarding each other as rivals. There have been attempts by Tehran to break the ice with Cairo, including one by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, but these have failed because of Egypt's insistence that Iran change its behaviour in the region first. With the robust return to Iraq signalled by Abul-Gheit's visit, Egypt is taking a lead in Arab efforts to contain Iran's interference in Iraq ahead of the US troop withdrawal expected in December next year. Washington's plans to withdraw its combat forces from Iraq by the end of the year have sent ripples of alarm through the capitals of key Arab countries, which fear that Iran may step in to fill the vacuum. Sunni Arab countries worry about the repercussions of growing Iranian influence in Iraq, fearing that the country's Shia majority could try to deprive Iraq's once-dominant Sunnis of their share of power, sparking sectarian instability in Iraq that could spill over into the region as a whole. However, many Iraqis, including members of the new Iraqi parliament and government, have been urging Egypt to return to Iraq in order to counterbalance the influence of Iran. The two countries broke off diplomatic ties following former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait in 1990 and Egypt's joining the US-led international coalition that drove Iraqi forces out of the emirate. Before the 1991 Gulf war, the volume of trade between the two countries has reached some $3 billion, mostly in Egypt's favour. In the wake of Abul-Gheit's recent visit, Salam Al-Quraishi, an Iraqi government adviser on economic affairs, predicted that trade exchanges with Egypt would reach $5 billion annually. Egypt has already initiated a training programme for Iraqis in various fields, with some 60 Iraqis graduating last week after receiving business training from experts at Egypt's General Investment Authority. Osama Saleh, the authority's president, said that some 488 Iraqis from various institutions had received training over recent years in efforts to help Iraqis rehabilitate their country. Hundreds of thousands of Egyptians moved to Iraq in the 1970s when the then Baath Party government of the country allowed them to stay without the need for a visa and for any length of time. A decade later, the number of Egyptians working in Iraq had reached more than three million, most of them working in the government and the public and private sectors of the economy. Egypt is considered to have one of the largest source of workers in the world and in the Arab world in particular, and it could now send workers to Iraq to work on infrastructure projects as part of an ambitious reconstruction programme. However, even with the formation of a new government in Baghdad, there is still uncertainty about whether this will be able to govern, or whether it will remain the prisoner of neighbouring countries' continual jockeying for influence in Iraq. Iran remains the wild card in Iraq, and the regime in Tehran may consider that it will be able to place the beleaguered country centre stage in its bids for regional hegemony after the American withdrawal. In this context, Egypt's return to Iraq, especially when linked to other Arab efforts, could well usher in an Arab strategy to end what now looks like the high noon of Iranian triumphalism.
