One person who did have some sway over Mr. Sisi was Egypt’s chief of defense staff, Mahmoud Hegazy. American officials saw him as the only person in Mr. Sisi’s inner circle with the authority to publicly contradict him, a former United States official said. They also had a personal bond: General Hegazy’s daughter is married to Mr. Sisi’s son. But last month Mr. Sisi fired General Hegazy, after an outcry over a devastating militant ambush on a security convoy south of Cairo that killed 16 police officers, and possibly many more. The move dismayed senior State and Defense Department officials who saw General Hegazy as a check on Mr. Sisi in a circle of advisers that has become ever smaller and, some fear, ever more sycophantic, said the former official, who spoke anonymously to protect internal deliberations on an important ally that rarely receives public criticism well.
So, this is an insight from within the US securocrat establishment that the key part of their military cooperation with Egypt rested on the relationship of a single person with President Sisi. There is no strategy, just a hope that one person, now fired, can bring a message to the top.
Incidentally, since that orb clutching moment in Riyadh, there have been two massive terrorist attacks in Islamic countries, the Friday atrocity and the Mogadishu bombing a few weeks ago.
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