Proposed Vision for Foreign Politics in Egypt

Introduction

Egyptian foreign policy should help Egypt to jump from a state burdened with inflation and unemployment to a rising economic pole with political ambitions to a prestigious international position and must have two main goals:

The First Goal: to direct the foreign policy to strengthen the economic relations with specific countries to improve the internal affairs for the direct benefit of the Egyptian citizen.

The Second Goal: to achieve effective political situation for Egypt on the international arena for the purpose of modifying the structure of the international system to be a multi-polar systems shared by rising poles.

The next Egyptian’s president administration must be distinguished of realizing the true magnitude of Egypt’s strength without resorting to exaggeration or even minimization. Egypt international strength is not small, and also not large but medium and must strive to amplify the role of its regional and international role, and particularly on squares of Arab, African and Islamic countries to participate more effectively in the international arena in order to create a multi-polar international system. Egypt must do so without the amplification of the size of its strength neither to act as one of the superpower countries. Egypt must learn its inability to face the superpowers countries expressing hostile confrontation such as Iran and Venezuela, but also we should not underestimate Egypt influence on Arab, African, and Islamic worlds.

Nile United States

Despite the fact that Egypt is the most powerful country in the Nile Valley basin, but it has been, for many years, ineffective regional power. But this has to be changed in the coming decades as one of the most important pillars of Egyptian foreign policy is the Union of the Nile Valley basin countries. All of the next Egyptian governments must promise deliberately and irreversibly to work hard to unite the Nile Valley basin countries by political understanding and economic integration in all its aspects, particularly infrastructure, trade, agriculture, industry, education, health, energy, housing, reconstruction, environment, justice, tourism, culture, human wealth, mineral resources, water resources, information technology, communication, scientific research, transportation, shipping by land, sea, and air and national security in all its departments

And the basis for regional integration of the Nile Valley basin countries must be represented by a strong entity "United Nile States" that embraces dialogue, understanding and peace among the founding members and Egypt must play the role of mediator in resolving disputes between the Nile Valley basin countries and try permanently to be present before the superpower countries and must form peacekeepers forces in place of the conflicts in the Nile Valley basin countries without the presence of any country outside the Nile Valley basin.

ِAfrican Regional Integration

The Egyptian foreign policy must strive to achieve the economic integration among the African countries to be represented by a strong entity “Common African Market ". Additionally, Egypt is a peaceful country since thousands of years, also a frontrunner to play the role of mediator in resolving conflicts within the ِAfrican continent and try permanently to be present before the superpower countries, as well as international organizations such as “Security Council” and “United Nations” and must create “African Defense Council” which consists of military units of the African countries and aimed at finding mechanisms to resolve conflicts within the continent and also defend the wealth from any significance assault.

So, the union with the countries of the Nile Valley Basin and the integration with the countries of Africa will give rise to a regional leadership that will set up a natural way for Egypt to be an international pole in the world. Because playing a leading role in the African continent is a logical start towards a role in the Middle East and a prelude to demand a permanent seat on the Security Council represents the countries of the Middle East and Africa.

No Dependence on North and West and Direction to East and South

Egyptian foreign policy should aim to develop an international distinct profile to Egypt, which must act as global power which cannot be underestimated, but it cannot act as a superpower country, therefore, directing Egypt to the north and west means more dependency while the direction towards the east and south means more power to find a prominent place for Egypt between the strong poles of the world's in the international system.

This guidance can be monitored as follows: -

Interest in the Middle East

The superpowers see that the Middle East region of influence of their own, but Egypt is the heart of the Middle East and the real and strong center of gravity, therefore, Egypt must maintain its leading role in all the hot issues in the Middle East to maintain stability in all countries of the region. Foreign policy should form to Egypt a distinguished political role in the important issues in the focus of the world public opinion and to play this role in a different way from the superpowers to compete and offer new solutions to appear in front of the nations of the world generally and the emerging upward polar poles as effectively rising pole in the international arena

Alliance with the Emerging Poles

Egypt must be aware that it's a medium-power country, seeks to rise and influence in the international arena through international small and medium alliances and therefore the foreign policy must be active in this matter by entering into meetings of the G8 and G20 and the foreign policy should focus its activities to enable Egypt to enter into alliances with the emerging poles, such as Brazil, South Africa, and India, which will give Egypt a strong voice to defend its interests and the interests of the Nile Basin countries and the African countries and also to defend the common interests of developing countries and to take common positions serving these interests in international organizations in order to form the power for trying to modify the structure of the uni-polar international system and influence it to become multi-polar international system.

The Constructive Competition with the Regional Powers

The evolving Egyptian role in the countries of Nile Valley Basin, Africa, and the raising international powers will be confronted with strong competition from other regional powers on the Arabic, African, and Islamic squares. On the Arabic countries square, it is expected that Kingdom of Saudi Arabia will compete with Egypt on the leadership of the Arabic countries which has already happened in the fifties and sixties of the Twentieth Century. On the African countries square, it is expected that South Africa, Nigeria and Algeria will compete with Egypt on the leadership of African countries which has already happened in the nineties of the Twentieth Century. On the Islamic countries square, it is expected that Turkey, Iran, Pakistan, Indonesia, and Malaysia will compete with Egypt on the leadership of the Islamic countries.

It is a fact that all these countries have weight that different from one country to another and it is naturally that the regional weight of every country will result in a kind of competition with the other countries for the sake of leadership. Accordingly, the Egyptian Foreign Politics should realize that it cannot convince these countries to stop the competition, but it must strive to make it a constructive competition, not cold conflict. As the political understanding among these countries will result in the unity of the point of views in the cases which are in common interest for the Arabic, African, and Islamic countries. In my opinion, the unity of Arabic, African, and Islamic countries will not happen unless a single strong country exists and has the capability to unite the point of views among these countries, and this country does not exist in the near future. The history confirms that any unity must be led by a strong country and there are many examples in the ancient and also the recent history which assures this common understanding. Therefore, the Egyptian Foreign Politics must focus on persuading these countries to construct powerful regional entities such as "United Nile States" which will result in increasing the weight of these countries regionally in the near future in preparation to unit all the Arabic, African and Islamic countries on the far future by embracing the political understanding, and economical integration in every aspect.

Conclusion

The proposed vision for the Egyptian Foreign Policy is a strategic vision which will need decades to achieve its objectives successfully and completely, therefore, the vision should not be president's vision which can be changed by changing the president, but it is a must to be embraced by the people of all classes and communities, because whatever the events evolved, Egypt will last, and the Egyptians will exist, with God's well.

 

Fouad Sabry
December, 2011