Many are awaiting with greater caution and anxiety what the outcome of the coming days will be since Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi requested an emergency parliamentary session to authorize the army to help defend Saudi Arabia if the latter requests it.
In the past few days, the Houthis launched attacks on King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh and on the Saudi state oil company, Aramco, amid renewed fighting with Saudi-backed forces. The Houthi gains threaten the strategic oil shipping route in Bab al-Mandab after the collapse of the truce.
The presidency stated in a statement that the National Defense Council decided during a meeting chaired by Sisi to “provide all necessary and possible forms of support to the sisterly Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to defend its security and stability, and to preserve its capabilities, the integrity of its lands, and Islamic holy sites.”
The matter raised many questions about the nature of the military role that Egypt might play if its Gulf ally requested it.
In this regard, National Security Affairs expert Major General Mohamed Abdel Wahed explains, saying, “President Sisi set political limits to participation, which are only to defend Saudi Arabia and not to attack or start a war on any other parties.”
He added in an interview with DW Arabia that "this formula carries two parallel messages: the first is directed to the Houthis and Iran, which means that continued targeting of Saudi territory may lead to the intervention of additional Arab parties and raise the cost to them."
He continued: "As for the second message, it is also directed specifically to Tehran, which means that it is still possible to limit the confrontation to a defensive framework and avoid a broader war."
Iran denied any connection to the attacks launched by the Houthis on Saudi Arabia, after Riyadh accused it of supporting the group and encouraging it to escalate.
Military cooperation, not “ground intervention”
Experts who spoke to DW Arabia believe that the Egyptian role is likely to be limited to multiple forms of defensive and military support, with the possibility of sending ground forces to fight inside Yemen being widely excluded.
In this context, Egyptian military expert Mohamed Abdel Wahed said that the expected form of military cooperation “is not ground intervention in Yemen, because ground intervention in Yemen is something that Egypt cannot do except at the request of the Yemeni government.”
He added that "air defense systems can be deployed to intercept missiles and drones or strengthen the naval presence in the Red Sea through joint patrols to protect navigation and the Suez Canal, but they will be far from Bab al-Mandab so that they are not targeted by Houthi marches or missiles, in addition to intelligence support and operational and logistical coordination."
He said that the matter could include "exchanging monitoring data, coordinating airspace images, analyzing data, and even helping to train some Yemeni government forces. It can be said that the forms of defensive support are very many, but they do not rise to the level of ground intervention."
Egypt previously joined the Saudi-led coalition to support the Yemeni government against the Houthis, but it played only a limited role.
Expert Hussein Bayoumi, an independent economic and foreign policy analyst for the Middle East in Brussels, believes that Cairo will continue to distinguish between supporting and defending Saudi Arabia’s security, and “direct involvement in an open war inside Yemen.”
Potential dangers
Reuters said that if Egypt intervenes, it may face attacks from the Houthis, whose missiles and drones threaten the region, while the New York Times saw that any Egyptian military support for Saudi Arabia may increase the possibility of the conflict expanding regionally.
For his part, the Speaker of the House of Representatives in Sanaa, Yahya Al-Rai, who is allied with the Houthis, warned that Egypt’s involvement in the conflict may pose a “danger to its national security,” while the Chairman of the Yemeni Presidential Leadership Council, Rashad Al-Alimi, praised the Egyptian position and described it as “courageous.”
The Egyptian port of Damietta on the Mediterranean Sea was attacked by a drone last July, and no group claimed responsibility for it. Egypt did not accuse any party of the attack, but said it was taking the necessary measures to protect the country's national security.
Dr. Dawoud Al-Ansari, an expert in energy and Gulf affairs and head of the Shaheen Center, a Gulf think tank based in Muscat, said that the risks of Egyptian military intervention lie “in the possibility of a Houthi response by targeting Egyptian interests and navigation in the Red Sea.”
He added in an interview with DW Arabia: "This may also include the risk of being drawn into a long and costly confrontation that is difficult to resolve."
Arab countries, especially the Gulf states that host American bases, were subjected to repeated attacks from Iran and its allies, including the Houthis and pro-Iranian militias in Iraq, during the conflict.
For his part, Egyptian national security expert Mohamed Abdel Wahed said that Egypt, although it has “institutional experience” in air, sea and land operations and has the capabilities to operate various formations of aircraft and ships, will ultimately face “an asymmetric war, a war with low-cost missiles and drones, along with Houthi recklessness.”
مكاسب جيوسياسية، ولكن؟
On the other hand, the potential participation is not devoid of strategic calculations related to direct Egyptian interests.
Recently, following a rapid and widespread attack, the Houthis expanded their areas of control along the entire western coast, all the way to Bab al-Mandab, which connects the Indian Ocean and the Red Sea, and thus between Asia and Europe via the Suez Canal, which is of strategic importance to Egypt.
Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdel Aty said last week that the revenues Egypt lost due to the decline in navigation traffic in the Suez Canal amounted to $11 billion.
In this regard, Daoud Al-Ansari, an expert in energy and Gulf affairs, said, “Egypt has a direct strategic and economic interest in the security of the Red Sea, especially since the Suez Canal is a major source of its revenues.”
He added in his interview with DW Arabia, "Military intervention could temporarily weaken the Houthis and change the balance of power and negotiation conditions. Although it is difficult to imagine a comprehensive military solution to the crisis, intervention may be necessary to achieve progress in political negotiations."
'A worrying crisis'
Meanwhile, Al-Azhar Al-Sharif launched an initiative consisting of an urgent call to form a mediation and calm committee that includes the “wise and rational people” of the Arab and Islamic nations.
This initiative came through an appeal made by the Sheikh of Al-Azhar, Dr. Ahmed Al-Tayeb, “based on the institution’s historical and legitimate responsibility towards the nation’s issues.”
Saudi Arabia launches daily air strikes on Houthi-controlled areas, at a time when government forces seek to regain the areas they controlled during a lightning attack in September. Government forces have not achieved much success so far.
The conflict in Yemen has displaced more than two hundred thousand people, according to the International Organization for Migration, the vast majority of them since the first of last September. The organization considers that "the pace of this crisis is alarming" in light of the lack of funding to respond to humanitarian needs.
Edited by: Efaq Benkirane
