Egypt and Iran joined forces in mid-April at the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) meeting in Cape Town, South Africa, to propose the adoption of a pro-Palestinian statement, Iranian news agencies report. The proposal held no authority, and the IPU is not an organization that commands even a modicum of international respect. But, when Egypt and Iran work together in any capacity, there is cause for concern.
The acrimony between Iran and Egypt stretches far beyond the much-publicized Shiite-Sunni tensions. After the 1979 Iranian Revolution, the mullahs of Tehran, then led by Ayatollah Khomeini, renounced all ties with Egypt when Cairo provided asylum to the deposed Iranian Shah, Mohamed Reza Pahlavi. Ties worsened further after Egypt inked a peace deal with the state of Israel.
Relations worsened further still with the outbreak of the Iran-Iraq War in 1980, as Egypt backed its Sunni brothers in Iraq. In response, after the 1981 assassination of Egyptian president Anwar Sadat, Iran celebrated the occasion with a four-story
mural on a large building in the Iranian capital that lionized Khaled Islambouli, the Islamic extremist who mowed down Sadat in cold blood with a hail of machine gun bullets.
Cairo and Tehran remained at odds for the next 30 years. Tehran, the rogue state, continued to test the patience of Washington policy makers, while Egypt, a valuable U.S. ally, reaped a multibillion dollar windfall in foreign aid for merely maintaining a frigid peace with Israel. Indeed, Egypt and Iran appeared to hold diametrically opposed positions on U.S. policy in the Middle East.
The rift between the two countries came into sharp relief amidst the crisis surrounding the ongoing violence in post-Saddam Iraq. Sunni Egypt grew alarmed over Iran’s influence among Iraq’s radical Shiites, and the potential for that influence to spread through the “Shiite Crescent” from Iran to Lebanon. President Husni Mubarak’s regime grew even more alarmed over Iran’s influence in Palestinian affairs. Iran, by sponsoring the violent 2006 coup that brought Hamas to power in Gaza, brought instability to Egypt’s doorstep.
Responding to reports of Hamas operatives training at military camps run by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), Egypt worked quietly in 2006 and 2007 to bolster Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah faction. Reports emerged that Cairo began training at least one Fatah battalion to be stationed in the Gaza Strip.
In late 2007, though, the Iran-Egypt dynamic shifted dramatically. As Israel and the U.S. — with the backing of the international community — moved to isolate Hamas in Gaza, representatives from Cairo and Iran began to meet frequently.
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