It is clear that the Morsi regime has been facing a real challenge in Sinai. Beyond the direct threat terrorists pose to the security of Egypt, the ruling regime, with its banner of Islamic reference, will inevitably have to address the rising wave of fundamentalism and domestic, regional and even global implications. Many across the political spectrum of Islamists have described Mohamed Morsi's victory in the presidential elections as an explicit sign of what they have dubbed the “Islamic tide”. Morsi cannot deny the impact of this tide on groups of Sinai jihadists who are actually high up on the ideological ladder pertinent to political Islamists. As such, these jihadist groups represent an ideological challenge to the Muslim Brotherhood and Salafis. For the jihadists, the Muslim Brotherhood is a moderate Islamic group that wandered far from the authentic path of dedicated and highly puritanical groups like the Salafis, not to mention their extremist, zealous jihadist faction. The Sinai incident has exposed the regime's ideological vulnerabilities when it comes to addressing militant co-ideological groups. Torn has been the regime between its shared ideological background with jihadists and the political realities of the status quo. Sooner or later the regime will be obliged to deal with the impending threat from its ideological allies. Politically, dealing with jihadists will be expensive in terms of the social capital of the regime inside and outside the so-called Islamic camp. The kidnapping of the soldiers has put the regime on the defensive against a growing sect of dissidents with intense anti-establishment convictions. It is damned if it does and damned if it doesn't. Nonetheless, the use of force against its own camp members is inevitable. Domestically, the regime has looked precariously helpless while pursuing negotiations with the kidnappers and avoiding forceful confrontations. It would be disastrous to describe the apparently peaceful solution reached with the kidnappers as a happy ending, for the threats Egypt faces are deeper and more serious. In effect, the kidnapping of soldiers is straightforward expression of a state that has lost its power of deterrence. The kidnappers would not have thought of escalating their activities had Morsi undertaken his constitutional responsibilities of safeguarding the state, its people and its land, in the aftermath of the Rafah incident in August 2012. Morsi has not addressed the rising threat posed by the expanding terrorist hub in Sinai. In his pursuit of power consolidation, Morsi opportunistically exploited the incident at Rafah, disregarding its seriousness and implications for Egypt's national security and settling scores with the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) instead. Moreover, since August 2012 the regime has become embroiled in a long series of unwinnable battles with nearly every institution or political force, while the real priority of safeguarding the state has evidently been low on the agenda of the regime. Accordingly, the kidnapping incident should be interpreted not merely as a sign of the regime's apathy, but rather a manifestation of its intrinsic dedication to its own priorities and objectives above those of Egypt. On the regional level, the incident will have an impact on the Hamas regime and Israel. Amending the Camp David Accords, though highly needed, will force a new encounter between Egypt and Israel. Jihadists will cause much embarrassment to the regime if they attempt to attack Israeli targets, and this looks highly probable in view of the rising criticism against jihadist motives and their use of force against compatriot Egyptians. On the domestic level, Morsi's regime faces a delicate situation requiring immediate retaliation against jihadists, while at the same avoiding alienating sympathisers and supporters. Such a delicate balance cannot always be guaranteed, taking into consideration pressures from many local and global actors demanding more solid steps from the regime to curb jihadists. Such pressures will be intensified by the growing dissatisfaction of some sectors within the Islamist current, even identifying Morsi's practices in dealing with Sinai jihadists with those of Mubarak. Hamas, on the other hand, has already been embroiled in bloody conflict with some jihadist cells/organisations in Gaza, and it won't be a surprise if this conflict is escalated across the highly permeable borders between Gaza and Sinai. In a regional context that has long been volatile, with a multitude of actors with incompatible overriding agendas, it would be hard to speculate the extent of the conflict among the three actors sharing the eastern border of the peninsula. But one can almost be sure that there will be conflict. Many of Morsi's supporters have claimed that his detractors have been impatient, giving his regime no chance to induce change. In fact, the opposite is true, as the ruling regime has been catalysing a chain of changes aimed at restoring the ousted regime's pillars, values and practices. Morsi's major confrontations with the opposition, namely recalling the dissolved People's Assembly, the two constitutional declarations, the draft constitution, and the war against the judiciary, have been related to his ceaseless attempts to further consolidate his regime's power and never pertained to achieving a national objective. The ongoing confrontation between the regime and Sinai jihadists has been initiated by the regime's supposedly sympathisers sharing some commonalities in terms of grand objectives. Though it had been axiomatic that jihadists fought Mubarak's regime, to rebel against Morsi's regime is evidence that this regime has become barely distinguishable from Mubarak's. The writer is a political analyst.
