Sunni-Shiite Tensions Flare in Egypt-Hizbullah Dispute
DEVELOPMENTS
Abdel-Magid Mohammed has had a busy two weeks. On April 8th, Mohammed, who is Egypt’s public prosecutor, announced he and his staff were interrogating fifty operatives detained on Egyptian soil for allegedly spying for Hizbullah and conspiring to destabilize the Egyptian state. As details of the operatives’ intent emerged, and the number charged with spying for Hizbullah narrowed from fifty to nine, the flames of political discord between Arab powers were fanned. Though the arrests occurred months before, their public revelation now has heightened tensions between Shiite Hizbullah, its patron Shiite state Iran, and Sunni Egypt.
The claims against the detained Hizbullah operatives are concerning to the Egyptian government not just because of the inherent Sunni-Shiite tension, but equally if not moreso because of what they suggest about the ambitions of Hizbullah, and by proxy Iran, for the Red Sea region. Hizbullah claims its operatives in Egypt were merely present to support Gazan Palestinians. Yet Egypt has accused the detained operatives of recruiting members on behalf of Hizbullah in Egypt to target Israeli tourists. More broadly, at least one analyst asserts that Hizbullah operatives in Egypt seek to install an “infrastructure of violence” in the Red Sea through operations that target Suez Canal traffic and destabilize Egyptian towns bordering the Sinai and crossing to the Gaza Strip.
BACKGROUND
The conflict between Egypt and its Shiite neighbors is not new. The Sunni-Shiite conflict began 1400 years ago (before the state of Egypyt even existed) after the death of Muslim prophet Muhammad in 632 AD, with the Sunni-Shiite split. After Muhammad’s death, the caliph would inherit Muhammad’s position as the chief religious and civil leader of the pan-Muslim community. The Shiat-Ali, or partisans of Ali, Muhammad’s cousin and son-in-law, thought only direct descendants of the prophet were worthy to become caliph. Now known as Shiites, they favored Ali to assume Muhammad’s mantle. The Sunni, whose name is derived from the Arabic word sunnah, meaning the words and actions of the prophet, believed any worthy Muslim, regardless of lineage, could lead other Muslims. This group supported Abu Bakr, who had converted to Islam and married into Muhammad’s family. Though demographic estimates vary, today 10-15% of the Muslim world is Shiite, and most Muslims are Sunni, such as in Egypt, where 90% of inhabitants are Sunni, though in Iran, Iraq, and Lebanon with 90%, 63%, and 36% (a plurality) of their population estimated to be Shiite respectively, these demographics are reversed.
Since the Iranian revolution in 1979, which unseated Shah Reza Pahlavi and installed Shiite firebrand cleric Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, Sunni-Shiite tensions have acquired new prominence in the nation-state context. Egypt has accused Shiite governments and organizations of trying to spread Shiite thinking in Egypt and the rest of the Arab world, often under Iranian influence. By far the most populous Sunni state in the Middle East (Indonesia, Pakistan, and India each house more Sunnis than Egypt), and the one closest to the most populous Shiite states in the world, Egypt has historically feared Iran using its proxies to spread destabilizing ideology in Egypt.
Those fears acquired a new dimension in 2006, when, as Hizbullah battled Israel, its leaders called on the Egyptian people to open the Rafah border crossing, which connected Egypt to the Gaza Strip, and rise up against the Egyptian government, an exhortation not welcomed by Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak. Founded in 1982 and trained by Iran to combat the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, Hizbullah, now led by Sayed Hassan Nasrallah and continuously funded by Iran, earned credibility with the Arab street following its successful stalemated battle with Israeli forces in 2006. It is this credibility that Mubarak fears.
ANALYSIS
Yet for all the focus on the Sunni-Shiite context, Mubarak’s fears of Hizbullah encroachment are likely more geopolitically than religiously motivated. In the short-term, Hizbullah’s foray into Egypt might push Egypt closer to Israel, or at least encourage it to become a broker of Israeli-Palestinian peace, a role which Mubarak has reprised multiple times in the past with limited success. Yet even this outcome is unlikely without, frustratingly for Mubarak, Iranian acquiescence, if not involvement, in the negotiations.
The more concerning issue is for the long-term implications of heightened tensions between Egypt and Iran for arms control in the Middle East. Should Iran obtain nuclear weapons one day, and in the interim should its harassment of Egypt by proxy continue, a Mubarak-led Egyptian government would find it hard not to pursue their own nuclear weapons program, potentially sparking a regional nuclear arms race. That outcome, more than any persistent Sunni-Shiite tension, is the one that should concern Egypt, Iran, and their partners most.
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Foreign Policy Digest Editors