In the fog of wars across the Middle East, the Red Sea, and the Gulf region, including the joint US-Israeli war of aggression against Iran, the concept of a regional security architecture has been revived once again to the consternation of some observers.
I speak of a revival because the expression “old wine in new bottles” comes to mind.
In the early 1950s when the Cold War was at its height, the United States and Britain approached Egypt to become a member of new American-led security alliances. The question then was who were these alliances supposed to defend Egypt against? It was a legitimate question as alliances are normally set up to face present and future threats from “enemies” and “adversaries”.
The answer that Egypt received at that time came as a big surprise. The “enemy” was 3,000 km from Egypt and was the former Soviet Union, even though there was another looming threat at its gates.
Egypt rightly rejected the idea of becoming a member of any military alliances that did not serve its core national security interests.
Fast forward to the early 1990s when the United States and the former Soviet Union co- chaired the Madrid Peace Conference in October 1991 that resulted in the two-track peace process. The first was the country-to-country track, and the second was the multilateral track that spanned five mandates, one of them being precisely the search for an alliance system that would cater to the security interests first and foremost of Israel.
The proposals did not only cover the security field but also covered disarmament.
The strategic approach that provided the background in the two cases remained unchanged. It sought to integrate Israel into a Middle Eastern security architecture that would come under the umbrella of the United States and NATO. However, the missing detail in the second attempt was who the “enemy” or “adversary” was supposed to be after the demise of the former Soviet Union?
One outstanding feature of the history of such arrangements has always been the complete disregard of a central question when dealing with peace and security issues in the Middle East – namely the Palestinian question and the Israeli occupation of Arab territories.
This is also true when we review the present-day push for regional security arrangements. From an Egyptian perspective, the basic question should be who is the “enemy” and who is the “adversary” and most importantly what are the other countries that would be members of such a security architecture?
Over the last three decades, the answers to such questions came within the context of an imagined and Israeli-inspired Sunni-Shiite divide in Middle Eastern politics. This was a divide that singled out Iran as the “enemy”, along with Syria before the downfall of the former Al-Assad regime in December 2024.
Some called this divide the “Shiite arc”, claiming that it was holding the “Sunni powers” in the region as hostages and that it should consequently be dealt with. After the fall of Syria under the rule of an Al-Qaeda-affiliated leadership in December 2024, Iran needed to be dispensed with – and hence there was a war of aggression against Iran as a prelude to a third attempt to install an Israeli-centred regional security alliance in the Middle East, the Red Sea, and the Gulf region in the total absence of a negotiated solution to the Palestinian question.
A negotiated solution to the Palestinian question would be one that would be based on UN resolutions and the withdrawal of Israel forces from Arab territories. Who would agree to become a member of any regional security arrangements under the present status quo, all the more so when senior Israeli officials and opposition figures are declaring that Turkey will be next country on their list of targets after the war on Iran ends?
In the meantime, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said that Israel will work to set up an “alliance” among what he has termed as “friendly” and “like-minded” Arab, African, and Muslim countries to counter what he has called an “extremist Sunni axis”.
One can almost guess what he has in mind – an open war on seven fronts, which, as he has liked to say, will reshape the geo-strategic map of the Middle East.
Regional security plans and scenarios are not credible or sustainable under such circumstances and in the wake of such Israeli threats. Egypt has no strategic interest whatsoever in such a security architecture.
The writer is former assistant foreign minister.
* A version of this article appears in print in the 23 April, 2026 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly
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