That I have chosen to write again on the actual and potential effects of recent developments in the Ukraine on Egypt and Egyptian foreign policy does not signify that I overrate Egypt's global importance, although I do believe that its geographic location and history are crucial factors in determining events inside it and in its environment. Nor does it mean that I only see other countries from a purely Egyptian perspective, although I suspect that most of my opinions are influenced by circumstances and conditions in Egypt, just as my judgements on other people and things are affected by my psychological and mental states and my personal impressions of what takes place around me. I am interested in the effects of developments in the Ukraine on Egypt for objective reasons that do not have a direct bearing on the Ukraine. I believe they are obvious. They include for example: - We — and Egypt — live in an interconnected world whose crises, problems and concerns are intertwined and whose peoples communicate with one another more closely, frequently and intensively than ever before. - Egypt — by which I mean contemporary Egypt — is fighting hard and under conditions that have been both forced on it and of its own making in order to emerge from a long period of inertia and stagnation. In some phases, it had coiled into years of isolation. In others, its powers-that-be would look around to find themselves facing an alien world with unfamiliar modes of behaviour, means and methods. - Egypt had to struggle as it began to interact with this strange world. It had to struggle to understand, to change, to embark on new and unfamiliar horizons, or at least horizons it had long been unable to discern with eyes that had grown accustomed to inertia, seclusion and wavering. I could almost feel, sometimes from a distance, at others close up, the efforts it took diplomatically to make positions shift, to open windows and roads, to leap over walls and, before that, to overcome fear. I know they were trying. - After years of isolation and stagnation came years in which Egypt immersed itself into the conflicts of revolution. So focussed were we on the internal conflicts that we ignored those abroad and failed to appreciate the risks of ignoring conflicts taking place abroad. It was very late by the time we woke up to this fact and realised that we had to catch up and simultaneously realised the costs of non-involvement and neglect. - Many have written, recently, about the “butterfly effect” — based on that metaphorical story of how a fluttering of butterfly wings in China precipitated storms in the Middle East. Today, the butterfly has fluttered its wings twice. The butterfly that concerns us here is not in China but in Eastern Europe and, specifically, the Ukraine, and it has stirred stormy winds in the Arab world. There are many concrete circumstances and objective reasons why officials in Egypt need to take an interest in developments in Ukraine. These circumstances and reasons should compel them to pay as much attention to the champions of change through revolution and reform as to the enemies of change and those pushing to turn things back to the way they were before, especially those who have discovered that there is no hope of doing this unless they grasp, through reason and in practical ways, the causes and repercussions of the Orange Revolution. There are many direct reasons why I and many other analysts and intellectuals in the Arab world have felt compelled to pay close attention to developments in Ukraine. The following I believe are the most important and significant: Some months ago, we — by which I refer to Egyptians and others in the Arab region — began to turn our sights again to Russia and Russia has taken an interest in us again. Otherwise put, we and the Russians are working to draw closer together again and work out mutual understandings. As most of the dimensions of the Ukraine crisis are an immediate Russian concern, it was only logical for developments there to enter the realm of mutual concern with us. Ukraine has become a party in the question of “the international order under construction” and a party in regional strategic defence plans for Eastern Europe, the Middle East and everything in between. Developments in the Ukraine have given rise to non-depletable sources of curiosity in Egypt. The string of revolutions began in Ukraine or its vicinity and the chain of counterrevolutionary actions began there or in that vicinity. The forces of the Orange Revolution have reoccupied the squares of the Ukrainian capital and ousted the counterrevolutionary government. But their jubilation brought in its wake the spectres of civil war, national disintegration and international conflict. In Kiev at present there is an illegitimate president while the legitimate one, who had been voted in through free and fair elections, has fled to exile. Speculation is rife with regard to the tactics to which Moscow will resort in the event that the US imposes sanctions and escalates the facedown with Russia. Will Moscow try to upset US/ Western diplomatic drives on the Syrian question? Will it work to forge a new anti-Western front in the Middle East and try to elevate its relations with Arab states to the level of military and political pacts and alliances? What is certain to me is that developments of such a nature would put Arab foreign ministries in a very delicate position and force them to make choices they are not ready or equipped to take. In Washington and other Western capitals there have re-emerged scholars and commentators who claim long experience in Cold War affairs. Suddenly, the newspapers, lecture halls and brainstorming chambers have filled with voices clamouring to drive the US-Russian facedown to Cold War temperatures. To me they are very similar to those Egyptian and Arab thinkers who have suddenly rekindled Nasserist slogans and have begun to call for the return to the policies that were once used to capitalise on the polarisation between the Cold War parties. People involved in the search for solutions to the problems of energy and food in Egypt know that if the crisis in the Ukraine drags on the prices of wheat will soar. Ukraine is among the top wheat exporters to Egypt. In addition, if the US ups sanctions against Russia, this could complicate the implementation of the arms and energy agreements between Egypt and Russia as the Gulf backers of these agreements could be prevented from fulfilling its financial obligations to Moscow. By occupying a portion of Georgia, Putin succeeded in restoring some stability and security to the Caucasus. By occupying the Crimean peninsula and laying the groundwork for the secession of eastern Ukraine, Putin would be in a better position to safeguard Russian strategic interests on the Black Sea. By succeeding in securing a Russian role in the negotiations on Syrian and Iran, Putin enhanced Russia's prospects for regaining an appropriate status in the Mediterranean region. It will remain for Putin to set his cards in order with Poland and the Baltic nations. Then he will be able to tell the Russian people that he has delivered his response to NATO for punishing him and recovered Russia's prestige and dignity. The writer is a political analyst and director of the Arab Centre for Development and Futuristic Research.
