Will Egypt Seize Libya with Laurence Solomon?

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The Islamic Imperial dream isnaturally compelling and has been for thirteen hundred years.  Yet it has consistently foundered on theutter failure of Islamic governance.  Forthat reason alone the emergence of a competing empire and really a competingempire of shared association driven by channeled ethnic rivalries which bestdescribed Christendom swiftly overwhelmed Islamic pretentions.  The final insult to the Islamic Caliphate wasthe marvelously Machiavellian reengineering of the Islamic political environmentby Christendom as it withdrew.
The boundaries are oftenunrelated to known ethnic borders and worse than that they made it a practiceof favoring a minority as they left, ensuring serious divisive conflict.  Thus Iraq makes little historical ethnicsense and the same holds true elsewhere. Yet we live in the modern world in which ethnic hatreds can use moderntools to hurl itself across distance and community.  This is what Al Qaeda is exploiting today intheir evil pursuit of power.
So yes, Egypt and Libya could make common cause andin a historically sensible world under the original Christian dispensationprior to rise of Islam this would certainly have happened.  Sinai provides a natural defensiblegeographic border.  Crossing it hasalways been a bad idea.  Yet the originalemergence of the Egyptian state in Ancient times was effectively the Delta andwhat is now Libyabecause the coast was fertile.  It was alarge east west state with a distant frontier to the west.
So right now the danger of theEgyptian taking advantage is a real threat. It is worse than that.  Anycalculation will factor in Obama’s response and that does not look like adeterrent.  Moving now would confront thenext president with a fait accompli and plenty of good reasons to establish anegotiated settlement.
I am sorry but there is way toomuch incentive out there and yes we need to be nervous.  I thank this item for waking me up.
Will Egypt seize Libyafor its oil?
LawrenceSolomon | Oct 5, 2012
http://opinion.financialpost.com/2012/10/05/will-egypt-seize-libya-for-its-oil/#
Will Egypt seize Libyafor its oil? Given Egypt’spolitical ideology, its history with its neighbours, and its material needs,this must be a live issue.
First, Egypt’sneeds. Since the Arab Spring began almost two years ago, the Egyptianeconomy has been collapsing. Egypt’s foreign currency reserves have more thanhalved and many expect the Egyptian pound, already at its lowest point ineight years, to be devalued. Discontent is widespread. According to Gulf News,“In the past three months, Egypt has experienced increased power cuts thatsometimes last for hours, while a fuel and diesel crisis has at times paralyzedthe country, with mile-long queues forming outside petrol stations.” The blackmarket price for gas canisters is 10 times higher than the official sellingprice; for bread it’s five times higher.
The Muslim Brotherhood government desperately needs a $4.8-billion IMFbailout to stop the bleeding but it refuses to curtail its subsidies, as theIMF demands, for fear of triggering a popular revolt. It is instead hoping foraid from oil states and the U.S.government, but even if this materializes, it will be at best a stopgap. Withtourists, the country’s chief source of foreign exchange, steering clear ofEgypt because of its anti-Western riots, and with foreign investors equallyfearful of venturing into the country, Egypt’s options are daily becoming morelimited. The temptation to look next door to Libyacould be irresistible, particularly since Egyptviews union with Libyaas inevitable.
Unlike most of the world, where nationalist sentiments run deep, prideof country is a largely alien notion in the clan-oriented Arab Middle East. Since the 1950s, Arab rulers have made atleast 10 attempts to merge their countries together, all but one of them (the United Arab Emirates)short-lived failures that collapsed in five years or less. Among others, Egypt attempted a union with Libya in 1972 and two with Syria in 1958 and 1976; it attempted federationswith Libya and Sudan in 1969 and with Libya and Syria in 1971.
If plebiscites taken at the time to ratify the new countries are to bebelieved, these pan-Arabic arrangements tended to be wildly popular at theoutset, the peoples of the region quick to embrace new flags and tounsentimentally discard old ones in the name of Arab solidarity.
The lack of national allegiance is all the more striking because Arabgovernments in the decades following the Second World War were predominantlysecular, often military dictatorships that overthrew monarchies and kept theMuslim Brotherhood and other religious zealots at bay. Today the religiouszealots are ascendant. And their ideology eschews national borders in favour ofa caliphate across the Arab world and beyond.
 “We are seeing the dream ofthe Islamic Caliphate coming true at the hands of Mohammed Morsi,” clericSafwat Higazy enthused earlier this year at a Morsi political rally.
Following the Arab Spring, the Muslim Brotherhood not only rules Egypt, through its affiliates it controlsneighbouring Gaza and part of Syria to the north and may be close to seizingpower in Jordan.Across the north coast of Africa to the west, with one exception, MuslimBrotherhood groups control Tunisiaand Moroccowhile its Algerian wing, not yet in power, warns of revolution. The oneexception is Libya,an immediate neighbour, where the Muslim Brotherhood lost the electoral contestbut not the war. An anatomy of the Sept. 11 terrorist attack on the Americanconsulate in Benghazipoints to troubling Egyptian involvement.
The Libyan organization believed to have masterminded the attack, theJamal Network, was set up by Muhammad Jamal Abu Ahmad, an Egyptian released bythe Egyptian government following the Arab Spring. Ahmad, in turn, isaffiliated with al-Qaeda and its Egyptian leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, who priorto the Sept. 11 attack had called for revenge for the death of a Libyan memberof al-Qaeda. Egypt’s president Morsi himself, on the eve of his inauguration aspresident of Egypt, announced, “I will do everything in my power to securefreedom for … detainees, including Sheikh Omar Abdul Rahman,” the “blind sheik”responsible for the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.
Egypt’s government, it is clear, does not eschew associations withterrorists and it cannot be pleased that Libya, its nearest Arab Springneighbour, has escaped Muslim Brotherhood control. In 1977, Egypt and Libyaengaged in war motivated, claimed Libya,by Egyptian designs on Libya’soil. If a new Arab union ever emerges in the form of an Islamic Caliphate,as Morsi wants, Libya’soil would be at its disposal. Morsi and others may be wondering, though, whywait?