Every added value to any Arab country adds to the overall strength of all Arabs. When this occurs during times of strife and tribulation, civil war, terrorism, death, destruction and failure, the value of the addition is many times greater. Today, Thursday, 6 August 2015, marks the inauguration of the new maritime passage, the new branch of the Suez Canal. It is a form of response to the challenges of terrorism and the decline precipitated by the era of revolutions. Perhaps it is also a beacon of hope for more to come. From the purely geopolitical perspective, the strategic value of the Arab world was founded on a number of factors. Oil is generally regarded as a major one. Another major factor is the maritime passages in Arab waters, such as the Suez Canal, the Bab Al-Mandeb straits, the Straits of Hormuz and the Straits of Gibraltar. When the capacity of the Suez Canal is increased from 49 ships a day to 98, or even more, depending on the growth of the global economy by the end of this decade, then we are looking at a leap in transport capacities, whether of Arab oil or Arab trade, to Europe and North America. This development, in addition to the Suez-Mediterranean (SUMED) pipeline for transporting oil from the port of Ain Sukhna terminal on the Gulf of Suez to Sidi Kerir on the Mediterranean, enables the geo-economic value of Egypt and its Arab allies to compete strongly against all other transit and passage projects for goods and products in the world. It puts paid to the Russian dream to create a maritime passage across the arctic and the Israeli dream to create an alternative to the Suez Canal running between Eilat and Ashdod. It is important, here, to bear in mind three points. The first is the UAE contribution to the new addition to the Suez Canal by means of the Emirati companies that specialise in digging and dredging in aquatic areas. Second, the Arab Petroleum Pipeline Company, which is operating the 320-kilometre-long SUMED pipeline, represents one of the most successful “Arab unity” projects and one that has remained unshaken by all the wars and crises in the region. The company is owned by Egypt (50 per cent of the shares), Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Kuwait (15 per cent each), and Qatar (five per cent). Third, the new Egyptian addition to the overall capacity of the Suez Canal is, in fact, the beginning of a larger project involving the development of the Suez Canal axis. This project will increase the maritime capacity of this region (with six new ports) and create an industrial base for maritime and commercial uses that will become a state-of-the-art window onto an important passageway for international trade between the east and west. Certainly the elimination of terrorism, the recuperation of the Arab state from the storms that have swept it, and the protection of the maritime routes at the Bab Al-Mandeb from Iranian intervention are all major security and strategic priorities. However, the current war, whether we speak of the front in Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Egypt or Libya, requires the same degree of determination in the processes of building the economic base, and the social base that supports it. In short, the current Arab coalition between the Gulf countries, Egypt and Jordan must sustain the drive to development and the construction of its economic foundations as though terrorism did not exist, and it should sustain the fight to defeat terrorism as though a development drive were not in progress. Both are a battle in which we need to be victorious. Perhaps the battle for development and the construction of economic foundations is the one whose consequences will be felt most tangibly in the long run. From this perspective, the Suez Canal project, as both a maritime passageway and as a development corridor, paves the way to a broader understanding of the strategic nature of the areas stretching from the Bab Al-Mandeb to the Suez Canal and from Aden to Port Said. In this framework, the entire Red Sea is a single strategic sphere in both the military and developmental sense. A mere glance at a map tells us that this sea forms a vast and profound contact point between the Arabian Peninsula and the Nile Valley, with only desert and water in-between. The New Suez Canal project, as a passageway and corridor, furnishes an example of how to cross the expanses of water and the desert and how to create a large realm for demographic and productive interplay to fill the voids that, historically, had been the pathways for invaders and that today has served as the roaming grounds for terrorism. The Egyptian project is one that helps take Egyptians from the river to the sea. From the practical standpoint, it will inject life into an area no smaller than that of Singapore. This area is bounded at its base by the Cairo-Suez Road, to the east by the Suez Canal with a depth extending into the Sinai via the major canal cities (Suez, Ismailiya, Qantara and Port Said), to the west by the Damietta branch of the Nile with its extension into the Delta, and to the north by the Mediterranean and the Damietta-Port Said Road. This huge developmental zone has a depth that extends 100 kilometres square down the eastern and western coasts of the Gulf of Suez, where we find Ain Sukhna, Zaafrana, Ras Sidr and Tor. As for the Gulf of Aqaba, from Sharm El-Sheikh to Taba, it has already been injected with life and has become one of the best tourist destinations in the world. All of this can be integrated with the Saudi coast and its depth extending to the Gulf if we work to connect the east and west shores of the Red Sea. In fact, perhaps now is the time for the historic Saudi project to link Saudi Arabia with Egypt at the Straits of Tiran. Whether done by a bridge or a tunnel it would serve as an artery to complete the vascular system carrying human beings, goods and services between Africa and the Arabian Peninsula and who knows? perhaps the entire Levant at some point in the future. The Red Sea, for its part, is not a preserve for sirens to lure ferries to their demise. It is an important transit area that could become an Arab sea, not by virtue of a claim, occupation or seizure of control, but rather by usage. Egypt's current plans call for linking the southern governorates with the Red Sea coast through a large transportation network to which will be added a series of major development projects such as the Golden Triangle. These plans represent another arc in the move of Egyptians from the river to the sea. The Arabs in the peninsula across that sea, who have excelled in water desalinisation processes, could invest extensively in that area, extending thousands of kilometres from Zaafrana to Halayeb and Shalatin, with the Egyptian strategic depth only a stone's throw away. The first experiences of success already exist in Hurghada and Marsa Alam, and there are 81 islands along the Egyptian coast of the Red Sea waiting for someone to develop them. The New Suez Canal project merits celebration in its own right. However, it will eventually fade to a memory unless it becomes the turning point for strategic changes in the demographic and economic structure of the region, making it both more prosperous and more resilient. The memory will be passed down through history. The world has never forgotten the pyramids because they embody the idea of “eternity”. Perhaps no one will ever forget these times because they brought a new generation of Arabs capable of forging a future filled with strength and resilience. Blessed be all the great builders among peoples and leaders.
