By Ahmed Eleiba The recently appointed defence minister who replaced Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi is a powerful and charismatic figure in the Egyptian army, and boasts an impressive CV. Before being promoted head of military intelligence, served as commander of the Northern Military Zone and, before this, as chief of staff of the Northern Military Zone. Such appointments followed an uninterrupted series of promotions since he graduated from the Egyptian military academy in 1977. El-Sisi also went on to pursue higher education, in the course of which he obtained two masters degrees, one from a British military college and the other through a fellowship with an American academy. This formation enabled him to develop extensive relations in international and regional military circles, and it also qualified him to serve as the Egyptian military attaché in Saudi Arabia. In view of this background, it is small wonder that his selection as the replacement for Field Marshal Tantawi, who is nearly 20 years his senior, not only obtained Washington's blessing but Riyadh's as well. El-Sisi has been one of the top Egyptian military elites to coordinate with the US in the war against terrorism in this region and he is a familiar face in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf. According to The Wall Street Journal, the man who has now become Egypt's most senior military official recently met with senior officials in the Barack Obama administration, including Obama's top advisor on counter-terrorism. Following El-Sisi's appointment, US officials expressed confidence that he will maintain close relations with their country, which provides Egypt with $1.3 billion a year in military aid, and that he will uphold Egypt's peace treaty with Israel. The newspaper cited US officials as saying that, as former head of Egyptian military intelligence, El-Sisi has close ties to the US military and intelligence agencies. It noted that Obama's top counter-terrorism advisor, John Brennan, had dinner with El-Sisi during a visit to Cairo in October. After President Mohamed Mursi announced Tantawi's replacement, rumours and conjectures began to circulate that El-Sisi had a Muslim Brotherhood background or was Muslim Brotherhood by inclination. But such notions have virtually nothing to rest on. It is difficult to imagine that a military careerist of the stature of El-Sisi who has succeeded in attaining the highest ranks could have been connected with the previously banned Islamist group. The security and intelligence investigations that would have been conducted before his promotion to positions of military command rule out such a possibility. Although El-Sisi is a member of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) he was known to have had strong reservations about the way SCAF was handling the post-revolutionary transitional phase. His objections stemmed not so much from a generational divide as they did from the fact that he had a different outlook towards and type of relationship with representatives from the diverse shades of the political spectrum and with the Muslim Brothers in particular. Muslim Brotherhood sources close to Mursi say that El-Sisi had become personally acquainted with the president a year ago, but that the two drew closer after Mursi became head of the Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party (FJP). El-Sisi began to communicate more frequently with Mursi and Mursi visited El-Sisi in his office in military intelligence. More significantly, however, El-Sisi proved the chief military key to ensuring the safe exit of Tantawi and his deputy Sami Anan. Contrary to the impression given by the media that his appointment was the result of an arrangement between the presidential palace in Cairo and the White House, the latter had no say in the matter. According to the same Muslim Brotherhood sources, the only part that Washington played was that it signalled its support. What appears certain, however, is that El-Sisi communicated directly with the president, giving him information concerning what was being planned among the military chiefs who Mursi knew were loyal to former president Hosni Mubarak and then, after Mubarak, to themselves. This information, especially coming from El-Sisi in whom Mursi has full confidence, was crucial to galvanising the president into taking the recent decisions. The new defence minister's first major task is to remedy the situation in the Sinai, which had deteriorated in part because of the poor way it was handled by Tantawi and his commanders in the field. El-Sisi's previous experience in counter-terrorism is likely to prove crucial here. However, in the long term, he sees his most important task is the restructuring and reconditioning of the military establishment which has suffered attrition at various levels during the previous era.
