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Russian-Egyptian Meeting in Moscow Does Not Signify a Foreign Policy Realignment in Cairo
(Washington Institute for Near East Policy) Adel El-Adawy - While Egyptian Field Marshal Abdul Fatah al-Sisi and Foreign Minister Nabil Fahmy's trip to Moscow is significant, there is no foreign partner that can replace Washington. The decades-long U.S. investment in the Egyptian military has served as an anchor. U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel has called Sisi more than twenty times in the past few months, with some calls lasting more than an hour. Washington and Cairo's mutual strategic security interests remain the central pillar in their relations. The holdup in U.S. military aid shipments in October - while the Egyptian military was fighting major terrorist cells in the Sinai and tackling serious border security threats - led to the current rapprochement with Moscow. U.S. policy toward Egypt has made Cairo open to offers of weapons sales from other countries, and Russia was quick to seize the opportunity. Yet Egypt's move should not be interpreted as a step toward abandoning Washington. The writer is a Fellow at The Washington Institute.