Conflict over the Blue Nile Dam Could Destabilize the Middle East

April 14 2021

While Ethiopia is engaged in bloody internecine fighting in its Tigray region, and Sudan is in the midst of a significant political transition, plans for the Great Ethiopian Renaissance Dam—constructed athwart the Blue Nile, which flows into Sudan and there joins the waters of the White Nile and continues on to Egypt—continue apace. Since work on the dam began in 2011, it has been the subject of tension between Addis Ababa and Cairo, the latter fearing its potential effects on the Nile’s waters in Egypt. Both Egypt and Ethiopia have longstanding friendly relations with Israel, while Sudan only recently signed a peace treaty with the Jewish state. Alberto M. Fernandez examines the implications for the Middle East:

The [dam] should, in normal rainy years, bring benefits to all three countries in terms of regularizing waterflow, but in years of drought, Egypt would be at the mercy of a foreign power 2,000 miles away. . . . [T]here is no doubt that the distrust and tension are rising.

[Meanwhile], the military dimension of a possible conflict is closer to the surface than ever before. Parts of the Sudan-Ethiopian border now host not only regular Sudanese and Ethiopian armed forces, but irregular forces and ill-disciplined tribal militias. Sudan’s former Janjaweed, [an Arab militia], face [Ethiopian] Amhara militias known for their brutality against local people. With the chance of inadvertent, escalating clashes and public saber-rattling so prominent, a first step must be to ensure that a dangerous, volatile situation does not deteriorate even further into open military conflict before the rains come.

The rising regional conflict places Sudan’s fragile transition toward democracy and national peace at great risk. . . . Sudan is assaulted by remnants of the Omar al-Bashir regime broadcasting daily anti-government Islamist propaganda in Arabic from Istanbul. (The Erdogan government was very supportive of the brutal Bashir regime in its last years). . . . The UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Israel can all play a role in making the situation better or worse and need to be in constant dialogue with international mediators to ensure they play, at least, a non-negative role.

Read more at MEMRI

More about: Egypt, Ethiopia, Middle East, River Nile, Sudan

Egypt Is Trapped by the Gaza Dilemma It Helped to Create

Feb. 14 2025

Recent satellite imagery has shown a buildup of Egyptian tanks near the Israeli border, in violation of Egypt-Israel agreements going back to the 1970s. It’s possible Cairo wants to prevent Palestinians from entering the Sinai from Gaza, or perhaps it wants to send a message to the U.S. that it will take all measures necessary to keep that from happening. But there is also a chance, however small, that it could be preparing for something more dangerous. David Wurmser examines President Abdel Fatah el-Sisi’s predicament:

Egypt’s abysmal behavior in allowing its common border with Gaza to be used for the dangerous smuggling of weapons, money, and materiel to Hamas built the problem that exploded on October 7. Hamas could arm only to the level that Egypt enabled it. Once exposed, rather than help Israel fix the problem it enabled, Egypt manufactured tensions with Israel to divert attention from its own culpability.

Now that the Trump administration is threatening to remove the population of Gaza, President Sisi is reaping the consequences of a problem he and his predecessors helped to sow. That, writes Wurmser, leaves him with a dilemma:

On one hand, Egypt fears for its regime’s survival if it accepts Trump’s plan. It would position Cairo as a participant in a second disaster, or nakba. It knows from its own history; King Farouk was overthrown in 1952 in part for his failure to prevent the first nakba in 1948. Any leader who fails to stop a second nakba, let alone participates in it, risks losing legitimacy and being seen as weak. The perception of buckling on the Palestine issue also resulted in the Egyptian president Anwar Sadat’s assassination in 1981. President Sisi risks being seen by his own population as too weak to stand up to Israel or the United States, as not upholding his manliness.

In a worst-case scenario, Wurmser argues, Sisi might decide that he’d rather fight a disastrous war with Israel and blow up his relationship with Washington than display that kind of weakness.

Read more at The Editors

More about: Egypt, Gaza War 2023