Nile Diplomacy... Why does Egypt not want to go to war with Ethiopia?

The recent official Egyptian positions in the Renaissance Dam crisis draw a remarkable transformation, as the acute dialect that Cairo pursued towards Ethiopia escalated, after Cairo has long bet on the political solution as a single alternative to dealing with the crisis. The most prominent evidence for that is the recent Egyptian movements in the Nile Basin led by the team, "Mohamed Farid Hijazi", the chief of staff of the Egyptian army, in the past three months, and was crowned with the signing of four military and intelligence agreements with "Sudan, Uganda, Burundi and Kenya", amid Ethiopian silence On the background of these visits and their consequences, which may be seen in Addis Ababa as a prelude to hostile action, especially as it is restored a stifling geographical situation similar to the Egyptian presence in the Nile Basin area a century and a half ago; It surrounded Ethiopia from all sides of the land of the Egyptian Empire.

Egypt fears in the current conflict that its share of the Nile water will be affected by the Renaissance Dam, as it seeks to ensure its annual share of water - 55 billion cubic meters - as well as signing a comprehensive agreement on the dam management. Ethiopia says that any binding framework regarding the management of the dam is a detracting of Ethiopian sovereignty will not allow it. While the signs of the war appear to be possible due to the lack of access to an agreement, every conflict remains in the end dependent on its facts. The balance of political forces has changed over the past fifty years, and Egypt has no longer the same weight that it enjoyed in Africa during the sixties and before. This is not evidenced by the issue of the Nile waters and the Renaissance Dam, which has not been pleased in the interest of Cairo along the line throughout the past decade, and Cairo fears that it will lead to a reality that does not agree with its interests. How did Egypt lose its strengths in the Nile Valley? What are the efforts made to restore it this year? What is the step that can make the war paper present on the ground, not just a diplomatic pressure tool?

There are several historical and political complications related to controlling the sources of the Nile, its modern distress began with the assumption of Muhammad Ali, the rule of Egypt, and his achievement of political independence from the Ottoman Empire, as well as the establishment of an Egyptian regular army, which are the events that later established a new rule equation by establishing an Egyptian empire that derives its strength from Expand all over its surroundings. But the south in particular is of great importance to the ruler of Egypt at the time; In addition to the gold and soldiers that Sudan can offer, controlling Abyssinia, including the sources of the Nile, and the Horn of Africa, could have been a permanent guarantee to secure the Egyptian Empire in full insurance. (1)

The Egyptian expansion began on the continent to the south in 1820, but he stopped with Sudan, and with the arrival of Khedive Ismail to the authority in 1863, the ambitions of expansion supported by the past narrators were renewed, so Khedive moved away from the Levant and poured his focus on the Nile Valley;In an effort to establish an Egyptian empire in Africa, an expansion of the Ethiopian Ethiopian Empire (Ethiopia) embodied its basic chapter as a geographical castle that is difficult to penetrate, even before the major colonial powers.The Abyssinian Emperor requested military aid from Britain to establish a Christian kingdom at that time and stand in the face of Egypt.

During a few years, Khedive Ismail succeeded in annexing Darfur in western Sudan, imposing his influence on the coast of the Horn of Africa, and all ports overlooking the Red Sea, including Suakin on the Sudanese coast, Masoua in Eritrea, and the port of Zayla on the Somali coast, and then controlled the Bab al -Mandab straitAnd put the western coast of the Red Sea completely under Egyptian sovereignty.Khedive continued his military campaign in the south, and he arrived in South Sudan, then Uganda, Tanzania and Lake Victoria, and his control over the Nile from the source to the estuary was completed, and the Egyptian flag was fluttering over those vast lands, reaching the "equator directorate".(2)

In the end, Khedive Ismail succeeded in establishing a political unit for the Nile Basin, but the Egyptian expansions suffocated Abyssinia geographically from the north and west, and with the Egyptian control of the Red Sea coast from the east and south, Cairo has actually surrounded Ethiopia by land and sea. Although Britain obtained a pledge from the Khedive not to storm Ethiopia, as it is the source of the Blue Nile, this did not end the fears of "Tunder II", King of Abyssinia, who previously demanded that Britain be provided with weapons and ammunition to confront the Egyptian progress. The request of Tuduir did not meet Britain's response, and then the escalation began, and the English ambassador and a number of British nationals were kidnapped inside his country, and when he did not respond to British threats, Britain stirred in 1868 army of 13,000 soldiers, and Egypt officially asked for the passage of forces through its territory. The battle ended with the suicide of the king, and the kidnapping of his young son from Abyssinia to Cairo, before he was captive to Britain, where he died and was buried there, and his lips are no longer to this day.

The defeat deepened the hatred between the Egyptian and Habish empires, especially since the war came after the failure of the talks regarding the Egyptian expansion, which caused the transformation of Ethiopia into a trapped state. After Egypt included the "Boujus" region, southern Sudan, Ethiopia protested and considered it lands belonging to it, and it launched attacks on the Egyptian border, and then Egypt sent two military campaigns in 1875 and 1876 to invade Abyssinia, but they were unsuccessful, and the Ethiopians still keep two artillery they got from the Egyptian forces At that time, as there is in Ethiopia until the moment a senior military medal called "Gondand", the name of the same battle in which they triumphed over Egypt.

The complexities of history still govern the perceptions of each party for its rights to the river.For its part, Egypt believes that undermining its role in the continent comes first by cutting off the water of the Nile, at a time when Ethiopia is promoting its project as a leap in its pursuit of the country economically, and the most prominent location on the African scene.

In the same year in which Egypt lost its war with Ethiopia, Cairo demonstrated its bankruptcy due to the debts and funds that Khedive Ismail enchans in its borrowing and spending, so that the star of the empire began later as a result of the British occupation. Despite the decline of the Egyptian border to include Egypt and Sudan only, away from the Horn of Africa and the sources of the Nile, the influence of Cairo in the Nile Valley and Africa did not disappear despite the weight of the occupation. Britain maintained the Egyptian influence in the source countries through the 1902 agreement, signed with the king of Abyssinia, in which he pledged not to construct any dams on the Blue Nile, Lake Tana or the Sobat River, would prevent the flow of the Nile water, except with previous Egyptian approval, and why did not The Emperor of Abyssinia has only to bow to Britain's demands.

Egypt culminated in its control of the Nile in 1929, when it signed an agreement with Britain that gave it the right to veto any projects of the Upper Nile may affect its share of water, and "Britain" was represented at this time the countries under its direct political sovereignty such as Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania and Sudan. In 1959, Egypt and Sudan signed the Nile water sharing agreement, so that Egypt will annually obtain 55.5 billion cubic meters, while Sudan gets 18.5 billion cubic meters, which are treaties that Ethiopia currently rejects, as it is considered a lack of legal adjective because it did not participate in it, as described as agreements Colonialism due to its actual signing with British officials who occupied the region and not with the countries themselves after its independence.

Even after the departure of the British occupation, Egypt maintained its African influence, through the national project led by President Gamal Abdel Nasser, who maintained the influence of Egypt Arab and Africa. In that era, Egypt launched the high dam project despite the objection of the weak countries of the Nile Basin, and the project passed safely as a result of the friendship that brought together Nasser and Emperor Ethiopia, "Haila Slassi". However, the departure of Abdel Nasser put Egypt on a different path under the presidency of Anwar Sadat and his close alliance with the United States, so Egypt adopted policies that support right -wing dictatorships and move away from liberation movements. Then many African countries stood against Egypt's policies, which is the transformation of the inclusion of the "history" knot into the "geography" knot.

In 1977, in front of a crowd that included half a million Ethiopian, they chanted against "Cairo" in the Revolution Square in Edis Ababa, "Mangisto Heilla", the Ethiopian president, destroyed six bottles of blood on the name of Egypt, which he accused of supporting chaos inside his country in favor of Western imperialism. Although "Mangisto" was an authoritarian ruler and not a liberal fighter, the role that Egypt played in Africa during that period and its bias against the anti -United States regimes, especially the socialist "Mengistu" regime, was one of its major sins that paved the way for political predicaments that will not end in the Nile Basin. . Almost half a century has passed since Egypt joined the "Safari" club under the leadership of the United States, which aimed to carry out intelligence operations against the socialist countries in Africa in alliance with France, Israel and the state of apartheid in South Africa, Saudi Arabia and the Bahwiya Iran, and is attributed to military intervention in countries allied with the Union The Soviet, where he interfered militarily in Zaire, and supported Somalia in its war with Ethiopia.

Egypt, then, abandoned its role as the Kaaba of revolutions and liberation, and turned into the policeman of the western continent, and many African regimes did not forget that coup in the corridors of Egyptian diplomacy in favor of the West at their expense; It is a coup whose echoes are still hesitant to this day. The dialectic continues between liberation and revolutions on the one hand, and the dictatorships supported from outside the continent on the other hand, and it may have caused the severe sensitivity that African countries received the news of the military coup in Cairo in 2013, after which the African Union decided to freeze Egypt's membership six years before it returns. Water to its streams and President Abdel Fattah El -Sisi becomes the President of the African Union in 2019.

That year witnessed an attempt to adapt the union to serve the regional interests of Cairo and the agenda of its political system at the same time. The Egyptian role in Sudan has been hidden over the weeks of the Sudanese uprising that confused the military regime in Egypt, and even Cairo tried to obstruct the transfer of power to civilians in Sudan after the overthrow of the rule of Bashir. At a time when the African "Peace and Security" Council asked the Sudanese Military Council to hand over the authority to a civil transitional government within 15 days, Sisi held a mini -African summit, in which he announced his coup against the decision of the Peace and Security Council, and the Askar of Sudan granted a three -month period to hand over the authority to civilians. Again, Cairo stood on a side, and the liberation and revolutions on a side, so the protesting revolutionaries rose up in front of the General Command of the Sudanese Army in Khartoum in demonstrations in front of the Egyptian embassy.

Khartoum did not come out of the dark tunnel at the time except with the help of Ethiopian Prime Minister Abi Ahmed, who was just over the rule of Ethiopia on a reform ground (before that reform tone quickly hidden and revealed his ugly authoritarian face only within two years). Abe then succeeded in mediation between civilians and military personnel in Sudan at a moment when everyone sensed Egypt's absence from its natural role as a result of the burden of the political agenda of the ruling military regime. Before the outbreak of the "Tigray" region and the Ethiopia slipping of the civil conflict again, Abi Ahmed assumed the presidency of the "IGAD" organization that brings together East African countries, and has been toppled the problems of his neighbors and their mediation to solve political differences in diplomatic ways to reinforce the Ethiopian presence. His endeavors soon reflected in the support of some of his neighbors during his war against the Tigray region, as well as in the Renaissance Dam crisis. Abe prepares his neighbors with economic prosperity after the start of the dam, as Ethiopia plans to fill the electricity deficit in its neighboring countries, which has already rushed to sign several agreements to import electricity from Addis Ababa.

Egyptian sins have accumulated for years for all years until Egypt began to dust its important African files when the Renaissance Dam negotiations reached a recently imposed road, and then the Egyptian movement recently began in the Nile Basin countries under the auspices of the major leaders of the Egyptian army during the past months, especially with the decline of Ethiopia internationally and its occurrence Again in the quagmire of the Ahli conflict, which was an influential for the Egyptian policy. With many positive transformations in foreign policy, Cairo has begun inaugurating successive economic and military agreements with East African countries, as it has for the first time the military action paper indirectly inspired by President Sisi, and if his foreign minister dislikes the reassurance of the Egyptians sometimes that filling the dam will not affect them And waving at other times that Egypt will not allow it to happen without an agreement.

Egypt does not have geographical borders adjacent to Ethiopia, nor does it have a hand that comes to the source of the threat represented in the Renaissance Dam, which deepens the questions about the cost of the military option, and raises concerns about its usefulness and effectiveness. Although the desire to fight can be already present with the Egyptian army, which has long been looked at the list of the best Arab and African army, this time the vocabulary of war is changing, and not only depends on what the weapon might do. It is certain that a work of this size will be broken a volcano of Egypt's hostile feelings in Ethiopia and a stream of international and legal troubles. In addition, there is no evidence that confirms that targeting the Renaissance Dam will make Ethiopia be reluctant to build another dam or seek to reduce Egypt's share of the Nile waters again in the future, not to mention that Egypt does not have until the moment a visualization of the countries that may support it in the Nile Basin after decades of Her absence from the region.

The crisis is struck by its roots in geography, starting;In addition to the occurrence of Egypt and Sudan at the end of the Nile, about 80% of its water stems mainly from the Ethiopian highlands, which gives Addis Ababa a natural possibility to pressure Cairo.Despite Egypt's contraction of Africa, with the exception of late movements, and the growth of the influence of some countries of the Nile Basin, led by Ethiopia, there is a vast gap that still separates the Egyptian army and the Egyptian state and their counterparts in the Nile Basin, a gap that means that the possibility of war in theory and an Egyptian victory in it is not difficult, but thatSeveral complications between the Egyptian regime today and the playing paper actually.

The complexities of the first war of politics, not the battlefield, begin, targeting the dam in the existence of the principles agreement, signed in March 2015, is a hostile action in the eyes of international law. The agreement provides for allowing the three countries (Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia) to build dams on the Nile River to generate electricity, which means an Egyptian -Sudanese recognition of the legitimacy of building the Renaissance Dam. In addition, the agreement itself gave Ethiopia a complete authority in building dams without guarantees or control, and the African Union implicitly granted the right to freeze Egypt's membership if the latter targeted the dam militarily, and Ethiopia has the right to file a complaint to the Security Council. While the agreement includes a clause specializing in the settlement of conflicts and how to arrange issues related to negotiations, Ethiopia has interpretations of the principles agreement that you find sufficient to win any case before the International Court of Justice, a proposal that Washington later affirmed by indicating that the tripartite agreement does not include binding provisions to preserve Egypt's water share.

The geographical dimension between Egypt and Ethiopia imposes an economic dimension in charge of war, as it imposes a political dimension of the necessity of involving an external party surrounding Ethiopia geographically: Who will agree to hit the dam then? Egypt is not expected to obtain African support at a time when the Ethiopian Prime Minister made the umbrella of regional allies. Because Egypt does not have any military bases in Africa, it will be covered by the crossing of Sudan first or the passage of any surrounding country in Ethiopia to reach the dam, and it is not expected that any of these countries will agree to enter into a conflict of this kind. Adis Ababa has previously signed a joint cooperation agreement with both Sudan and South Sudan, and also directed an official warning to the "Somaliland" region, which is not recognized internationally, against the backdrop of African press leaks that revealed that an Egyptian delegation discussed plans to establish a military base there.

Although Juba is committed to public neutrality towards the Renaissance Dam crisis, and recently signed a military agreement with Addis Ababa, it has already moved previously to obstruct the Ethiopian movement in the water struggle, and formed an anti -Ethiopian alliance by trying to persuade countries not to agree to the "Entebbe" agreement to divide the Nile water. Over the years, South Sudan announced through its president, "Salva Kiir" that his country will not move against Egyptian interests regarding water issues. However, a decisive mistake remains between the alignment with an ally position in conflict and drawing into a war on his behalf, which may expose southern Sudan to confirmed sanctions from the African Union.

The obstacles to the military option to deal with the Renaissance Dam crisis are revealed by the secret documents of Egyptian intelligence during the era of ousted President Hosni Mubarak. According to the internal email messages issued by the American intelligence company "Stratfor" for the year 2010, quoting the Egyptian ambassador to Lebanon, then Omar Suleiman, the director of Soliman, put three possible scenarios to target the Ethiopian dam, all of which require the cooperation of other parties with Egypt: the first by flying with the use of a state African fuel suppliers back and forth, and the second is the use of thunderbolt forces to carry out a sabotage action, which requires reaching one of the countries that have direct borders with Ethiopia, while the last scenario includes the formation of friendships with Addis Ababa's enemies through the support of Uganda, South Sudan and Eritrea, and providing support to the armed Ethiopian opposition To carry out operations against the dam.

Added to the accounts related to Sudan, which is the country that is now closest to Egypt, in addition to the complexities of politics and history, there are also economic considerations that are complicated by Khartoum accounts. After the first filling, the dam reserved about 4.9 billion cubic meters of water, in addition to its current plans by storing about 13.5 billion when implementing the second filling, which means that the result of targeting the dam will be disastrous for Sudan, which will witness a destroyed wave of torrents that will be its human and economic consequences. Late last year, when the Nile level reached its highest level in a century, caused the collapse of 100,000 homes, and about half a million people were damaged; Hence, Sudan has strong reasons for not agreeing to the military option, given the "complications of the economy", which is first in the first place.

It is certain that the loss of Egypt is the battle for the Diplomatic Renaissance Dam, without alternative solutions, will have political and economic consequences, perhaps the worst threat of Egypt's share of the Nile waters, and the mobilization of Ethiopia countries of the Nile Basin to complete the signatures of the "Entebbe" agreement, which is an official coup against the historical waters of Sudan And Egypt. The roots of this thorny agreement dates back to 2010, after five countries approved the agreement: Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda and Burundi. According to international law, the agreement can enter into implementation if the "two -thirds of the Nile Basin countries", that is, seven countries, which means that the quorum will not be completed until the signing of one other country.

According to a remarkable statement to the Egyptian President, Cairo incurred between 2014-2019 about 200 billion pounds (12.7 billion dollars) to provide 1.5 million cubic meters of water per day. If the crisis continues until 2037, Egypt will have spent 900 billion pounds (57.2 billion dollars) on water, which is a similar number about 40% of the budget. And if Egypt is cut off from its stake in water, it is desalinated by about 55 billion cubic meters of water, as the quantity will require a huge budget, and it is long -term economic complications that will not be resolved by urgent decisions previously and the government has taken to avoid the effects of filling the Renaissance Dam by lining the canals, and preventing the cultivation of crops to the water, And the establishment of desalination plants for sea water.

Egypt will also not be able to resort to international arbitration mostly. According to Article 36 of the United Nations Charter, no country may resort to the International Court to present any dispute that arises between it and another country except with the approval of the opposing state. Ethiopia has already refused to publicly resort to international arbitration, a narrow path that pushes Egypt to negotiate to the end, or to resort to a military solution in the end. According to an Egyptian intelligence document, published by the WikiLeaks website, belonging to the rule of ousted President Mubarak, Egypt believes that the Ethiopians aim to push Cairo to respond in the wrong form, and then Egypt remains a high degree of restraint and reassurance to diplomacy and the negotiating table. (3)

Until now, Cairo will make the political solution a single alternative to addressing the crisis, so in November 2020, its president visited South Sudan, on a visit, the first of its kind, centered on the revival of the upcoming "Jongley" channel project, which is the same goal that necessitated another previous visit. The Director of Egyptian Intelligence, Major General Abbas Kamel. The channel is an old Egyptian ambition project that started to be implemented in the seventies, and it includes the incision of a channel between the White Nile and the swamps of southern Sudan with a length of 360 km, which will benefit Egypt and Sudan by adding about 5 billion cubic meters of water to the Nile River, and although the project remains about 100 km , He faces a financing crisis and financial issues pending between the two countries.

In the event that Egypt decided to resort to the military solution, it may return to the old intelligence papers that are based on a sabotage action in the dam’s body through forces loyal to Egypt, as well as a limited military attack that does not lead to the pouring of fatal floods in Sudan.But at the present time, Egypt takes the diplomatic path until the last breath, and is waving the paper of military action in order to pressure diplomatic, and it hovers around Ethiopia with a series of military and intelligence agreements politically, but without real military move on the horizon.

The Egyptian desire and ability to war is still incomplete, then the ability needs to be remedied the legacy of half a century of wrong policies in Africa, and the desire is restricted to the heaviest of the military establishment from managing all internal and external files in the country after 2013. As for the road, it is partially packed with good relations with South Sudan and the new Sudanese administration, and the great decline in stability and security in Ethiopia, and the first step is to withdraw from the principles agreement signed in 2015, which makes all the Renaissance Dam work so far illegal, and then prepares a totally different scene that tight tunnel in which the crisis is going from About a decade.

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Sources:

1. السودان من التاريخ القديم إلى رحلة البعثة المصرية (الجزء الأول) صـ17، 117، 135‬.
2. الإمبراطورية المصرية في عهد إسماعيل والتدخل الأنجلو-فرنسي (1863–1879).
3. Egypt source
4. اتفاق إعلان مبادئ سد النهضة الموقع في مارس/آذار عام 2015.
5. ذاكرة مصر المعاصرة