Saudi Motives Behind Egypt's Hezbollah Accusations

Lebanese and other Arab media are reporting that during and after the Gaza war in January, Egyptian police arrested 49 individuals the Egyptian government now claims were Hezbollah plotters sent to traffic weapons to Palestinians in Gaza and foment insurgent activities in Egypt.

L'Orient-Le Jour, the Lebanese French daily, reports that Egypt's attorney general directly accused Hezbollah's secretary general, Hassan Nasrallah, of having personally supervised an operation that entailed buying "a mass" of houses in Rafah, the Palestinian town built around the border crossing between Egypt and Gaza, below which tunnels were planned for weapons smuggling on Hamas' behalf. Egyptians are also accusing Hezbollah operatives of spying on shipping activity along the Suez Canal and proselytizing the Shiite faith in mostly-Sunny Egypt.

All of this is beginning to sound a bit far-fetched. Hezbollah made no secret of its disdain for the way Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak (himself not quite an homage to enlightened leadership) shuttered Gaza during the war and cracked down on protests against the war in his own streets. (The crackdown on reformers continues). But Hezbollah, poised to make big gains in Lebanon's upcoming parliamentary elections, has nothing to gain from playing insurgent in the Arab world's biggest country. Not that its word is beyond doubt, but Hezbollah (the "Party of God") has repeatedly disavowed any interest in engaging in militant activity anywhere beyond Lebanon's borders.

So why Egypt's accusations? Two reasons are immediately apparent.

First, Mubarak is on an anti-reformist tear, repressing demonstrations every week as he approaches what many Egyptians believe is the end of his presidency--and a hand-off, to his son, of the despotic power he's held since Anwar Sadat's assassination in 1981. The crackdown isn't doing Mubarak's image much good. Accusing Hezbollah of subversive activities diverts some attention from more domestic repressions while winning a few brownie points from Israel, and possibly the United States, to whom (simplistically) Hezbollah is an unvarnished monster.

Second, the "crackdown" on Hezbollah appears to tie into Saudi Arabia's and Morocco's concerted effort to raise the specter of the Iranian-Shiite threat to the Arab world. Saudi Arabia is still funding the Taliban in Afghanistan as a counter-measure against Shiite Hazara militants, supported by Iran, regaining a sizable foothold there. Morocco recently launched a crackdown on Shiites even though the country's Shiite population is virtually nil. Morocco paired the crackdown with bitter criticism of Iran, accusing it of proselytizing its way across North Africa. Egypt seems to be joining that chorus.

Hezbollah in this scenario, being the Shiite power in Lebanon and Syria's and Iran's client, is the foil. The real target of Egypt's crackdown is Iran. And the power behind that crackdown is Saudi Arabia, which may be worrying, like Israel, about the Obama administration lowering the antagonism toward Iran.

Obama's overtures to Iran are provoking fascinating realignments in the Middle East--most notably between Israel and Saudi Arabia. Those two official foes are now finding themselves on the same side, breathing the same overheated and at times far-fetched anxieties about Iran. No wonder Egypt is cooking up far-fetched plots to obsess about.