Interview| Egypt’s ex-UN ambassador: 'You can’t buy your way to stability in the Middle East'

Two days before the deadline, at precisely 8 pm New York time, the world braced for Donald Trump’s promised inferno on April 7, the moment, in the president’s own words, when “Iranian civilization” would cease to exist. Instead, what came was an announcement of a two-week truce, brokered by Islamabad between Tehran and Washington. Until that moment, the Middle East had been living, quite literally, on the edge of a volcano.

As Cairo keeps a close watch on the shifting regional balance of power and the historic enmities along its eastern borders, it faces growing pressure to take “a more assertive stance” against Tehran. A demand driven by Gulf allies it cannot afford to lose, within a strategic relationship with Washington it cannot afford to jeopardize. How, then, does Egypt maintain its role as a neutral mediator and guarantor of regional stability without sacrificing its alliances? It is a near-impossible equation, and one we put to Ambassador Mootaz Ahmadein Khalil, Egypt’s former permanent representative to the United Nations, in an attempt to read between the lines of Cairo’s official positions.

Why did Cairo stay silent?

Cairo maintained silence over the American-Israeli war on Iran, even as other nations condemned it, denounced it, and declared it a conflict without legal legitimacy. Why did Egypt limit itself to condemning Iranian strikes on American bases in the Gulf? We begin with the sharpest question.

The ambassador acknowledges from the outset that the American-Israeli war on Iran is “aggressive” and its consequences plain to see. He also argues that the Iranian strikes on US bases in the Gulf “would not have happened had there been no war.” And yet he understands Egypt’s diplomatic position, its deliberate avoidance of public condemnation.

“Egypt did not explicitly condemn”, he says, “but it is clear it rejects this war. Every statement coming out of Cairo points to the necessity of stopping the war. And it did so even before condemning the Iranian strikes on American bases in Gulf states, strikes that appear to have damaged civilian infrastructure. From the very beginning, Egypt’s position has been: the war must stop, then we can talk.”

Ahmadein also links Egypt’s silence to the nature of its relationship with the United States, and to its determination to remain capable of playing a mediating role. “There is a close relationship between the American and Egyptian presidents. Trump trusts the Egyptian president and considers him one of his favored leaders in the region. That is partly why Egypt has not come out openly and condemned the American aggression. Political circumstances govern these things, and perhaps the international circumstances simply did not allow for it.”

While conceding that this position is “less than we would want,” the former ambassador insists that “Egypt’s stance is respectable compared to others, and it has actually drawn reservations from some Gulf states, which wanted Egypt to take an unequivocal stand against Iran, without even calling for an end to the war.”

What does the Gulf actually want?

While those sympathetic to Iran were dissatisfied by the absence of an Egyptian condemnation of the war, Cairo equally refused to bow to pressure from Gulf voices that had been waiting for a more overtly hostile posture toward Tehran.

The veteran diplomat interprets the attacks on Egypt from certain figures close to Gulf decision-making circles as frustration with Egyptian popular sympathy for Iran, not with Egypt’s official position. He also points to remarks by Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty, who described Egypt’s coordination with Gulf states as drawing on “diplomatic expertise” in order to pass what Ahmadein calls “very dangerous” UN Security Council resolutions, among them Resolution 2817, which, he says, “completely ignored the question of why the war started, condemned neither the war itself, nor Israel’s conduct, nor that of the United States."

Despite Gulf pressure, Egypt insists on preserving its relationship with Iran. “There is now a degree of trust between the two countries,” Ahmadein says, “to the point that the Egyptian and Iranian presidents spoke in the early days of the war, and the two foreign ministers are in regular contact. There was a phone call between the two presidents after the war began, and it was not, incidentally, the first such call in 2026."

The ambassador highlights Egypt’s ability to communicate with all sides when discussing Cairo’s mediation between Tehran and the International Atomic Energy Agency. Before the most recent war erupted, last summer witnessed an unprecedented military escalation between Iran and Israel, followed by direct American intervention on June 22 through the bombing of Iranian nuclear facilities, widening the arc of confrontation. Days of mutual escalation gave way to a fragile ceasefire, one that reflected the brittleness of the regional order and the ever-present risk of renewed explosion. It was at that moment that Egypt, repositioning its role in regional diplomacy, sought to ease tensions that were already taking a measurable toll on its economy, particularly on Suez Canal revenues.

Cairo hosted talks that led to renewed cooperation on nuclear inspections, with Egyptian officials facilitating meetings in September 2025 between Iranian representatives and IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi, reviving stalled inspection agreements after months of deadlock.

“When Gulf states sought help from someone other than the US or Europe, they turned to Ukraine, not Egypt”

Egypt draws a careful line between its diplomatic coordination with the Gulf, which extends to backing Security Council resolutions against Iran, and its principled rejection of regime change by force. This explains why Cairo has not slid into hostility toward Tehran despite Gulf pressure, while simultaneously keeping its communication channels with Iran open at the height of the war.

Ahmadein does not believe the Gulf states expected more from Egypt, despite the media skirmishes and sharp remarks from some public figures there. “Gulf states do not need Egyptian military intervention to protect them from Iran,” he says. “The clearest proof is that when they sought help from someone other than the United States or Europe, they turned to Ukraine. Why? Because Ukraine has experience in dealing with missiles and drones. That experience—and with all due respect for Egypt’s military capabilities—is not something Egypt has been tested on in this particular domain, at least not to the same degree.”

A Sunni axis and an Abrahamic alliance

As the map of regional security alliances shifts, and even before the war broke out, the UAE had adopted a pragmatic position, aligning itself with Israel on security grounds, viewing defense and technology cooperation as serving its strategic interests and bolstering its military capabilities.

Under the Abraham Accords framework, Abu Dhabi and Tel Aviv have expanded joint ventures, most notably in drone technology and defense systems, with regular meetings between their foreign and defense ministers. In contrast to this regional axis, one that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had previously championed, another axis began to take shape among Egypt, Turkey, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia, a grouping Israel labeled the “Sunni alliance.”

“Routing oil exports through Israeli ports would strike at the interests of Egypt, Turkey, and the Gulf states in a single blow”

Ahmadein does not view the Egypt-Turkey-Saudi-Pakistan axis as a counterweight to the Abrahamic alliance, but rather as “an alliance of necessity.” He recalls how “Netanyahu declared that his country was opposed to both the Shia alliance and the Sunni alliance, reached out to Cyprus and other states to counter it. Then the war came, and Gulf rhetoric tilted toward the idea of a new Middle East, leaning on the United States and Israel.”

He is particularly pointed on the dangers of Netanyahu’s statements regarding the Strait of Hormuz and his suggestion that arrangements would soon be reached with Gulf states to route oil exports through Israeli ports, a scenario Ahmadein sees as a single Israeli strike against multiple targets spanning the economic interests of Egypt, Turkey, and the Gulf states themselves.

He flags another alarming dimension: Netanyahu’s claims that Israel is forging alliances with Arab states and that these states are “fighting alongside” Israel in the war, coupled with Trump’s praise for Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Bahrain for doing precisely that. “The danger of this kind of language,” Ahmadein warns, “is that it draws Iran into further confrontation with the Gulf states, and it inflames Arab public opinion.” That, he argues, makes the realignment between Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and Turkey all but inevitable.

In March 2026, the foreign ministers of Egypt, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan met in Islamabad to discuss the fallout from the US-Iran war and push for an early ceasefire. In a striking show of coordination among four heavyweights, the meeting sent what many analysts interpreted as a clear political signal: these countries were not merely calling for an end to the war, but actively seeking to reshape the regional order in ways that would reinforce stability and constrain escalation.

Beyond the context of the American war on Iran, Ahmadein sees this grouping as a response to broader regional pressures. Chief among these are the UAE’s efforts to outmaneuver Saudi Arabia in Yemen and Israel’s push for a military foothold in Somaliland to secure control over the Bab Al-Mandeb Strait.

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“Camp David stands between us and them”

The danger from the east is a permanent fixture of Egyptian strategic thinking. While Israel poses a direct threat to Sinai and the genocidal war in Gaza risked border ruptures and refugee flows, Egyptian diplomacy has navigated these threats with exceptional caution—maintaining the role of mediator rather than becoming an indirect combatant.

When South Africa filed a case at the International Court of Justice in December 2023 accusing Israel of genocide, Egypt did not formally join the proceedings, despite welcoming and supporting the initiative. Cairo settled for a position calling for an end to the war and the protection of civilians.

The former ambassador justifies this stance on the grounds that Cairo prefers to keep channels open with all parties in order to preserve its mediating role. He notes that Egypt did announce its intention to join South Africa’s case, but never followed through. “It would obviously have been better for Egypt to join. But let us be objective. Would things have been significantly different if it had?”

Ahmadein does not see the issue as one of “stances,” insisting that Egypt’s positions are clear and sound from a diplomatic standpoint. He points to what he considers genuine Arab diplomatic successes at the Security Council, including on Gaza ceasefires. “When a vote is held in the General Assembly, you get around 150 countries supporting Arab positions and 10 at most, often fewer, supporting Israel and the United States. In the Security Council, despite the American veto, the United States is sometimes forced to abstain or accept certain resolutions. So on the diplomatic and political front, there is a success that cannot be denied.”

But does Egypt hold real leverage on Gaza? Or does the combination of its economic crisis, its economic entanglement with Israel, and its reliance on Gulf investment prevent it from wielding the keys to stop an existential threat on its own border?

“The American president talks in terms of ‘cash’. Anything involving money, he’s in. So it is possible for him to change his position”

The ambassador insists Cairo does hold cards. He then turns to a pivotal point: the Camp David Accords, which he sees as a significant strategic asset. “Without Camp David, Israel would still be sitting on the Suez Canal’s doorstep. We have to acknowledge that, like it or not. At university I used to think it was a bad agreement. But in reality, Israel would have been sitting with us the way it is now sitting in the Golan. We have to think objectively and step back to see the full picture. Does the agreement put pressure on Egypt, or on Israel? I believe it is a legal obligation that can be used to pressure Israel more than Egypt, because Egypt is the larger state, its armed forces are not stretched across multiple fronts, and it can therefore move on the border provisions enshrined in Camp David.”

He also sees gas as another card that could be played to pressure Tel Aviv. “We were initially exporting gas to Israel. I think it is a mistake, frankly, to import gas from Israel and allow it to profit from us given what it has done in Gaza. But all of this can be used and deployed if the political will is there and if there is coordination with other countries to ensure alternatives. Before the most recent war on Iran, there were other gas sources: Qatar, Algeria. I am not a decision-maker and I do not have the full picture, but I do believe there were economic instruments capable of hurting Israel and of influencing the United States, because the American president talks in terms of ‘cash.’ Anything involving money, he’s in. And he can change his position.”

The logic of ‘use it or lose it’

The two-week truce has put a lid on the Iranian front, and with it, Iran’s retaliatory strikes toward targets in Gulf states. But did Tehran have other options for ending the war? Here, Ahmadein departs from the view that the war was entirely imposed on Iran, arguing that Tehran had a more logical alternative to striking targets in Gulf states: directing all of its capabilities toward Israel.

“The 12-day war in June 2025 stopped when Iran managed to hurt Israel,” he says. “So perhaps the American intervention came after the Israeli prime minister secretly contacted Trump and asked for it, even as Israel was publicly declaring it wanted the war to continue.”

Iran, he explains, had three reasons for targeting Gulf states. “First, it has a category of weapons that cannot reach Israel. Under the logic of ‘use it or lose it,’ if those weapons are not fired, they will be destroyed. Second, from Iran’s perspective, the Gulf states are undoubtedly helping the United States, or at least the United States is using Gulf states to attack Iran, whether through their airspace, bases, or equipment. We saw this, for example, with Al-Udeid base in Qatar when Doha was struck. Third, the threat that Gulf states themselves pose to Iran is negligible. The damage they can inflict will never exceed what American and Israeli strikes are already causing. So from Tehran’s perspective, there is nothing to lose; and there is an obligation to direct strikes at the United States wherever possible.”

The myth of the “safe Gulf” unravels

The ambassador argues that the real objective of the war against Iran was never the nuclear program, nor the missile program, nor Iran’s alliances with Hezbollah in Lebanon or the Houthis in Yemen. All of that, in his view, is pretext, cover for a single goal: regime change.

On that basis, he maps out the trajectory ahead for Iran, whether in the negotiating phase or in terms of the broader fallout, flagging the particular danger around the Strait of Hormuz, which some European analysts have taken to calling “an economic nuclear bomb in Iran’s hands.”

He also counts Iranian steadfastness among Tehran’s pressure cards, arguing that the country, as both a state and a people, has “no option but to hold firm and refuse to capitulate. Even if they agreed to suspend their nuclear program, which they have done before, and did again in the Egyptian-mediated talks last year, for them, holding out is the measure of victory or defeat. Refusing to surrender, refusing regime change, refusing to abandon their missile program. Iran has said it does not want a nuclear weapon. Khomeini’s own fatwa halted the Iranian nuclear program, the very program the United States had once encouraged the Shah to launch, as a tool to control Gulf state behavior.”

Both sides of the Gulf stand to lose from a continuation of the war or its escalation into open-ended confrontation, with or without the involvement of major powers. Ahmadein warns that Iran’s greatest challenge going forward is that its retaliatory actions have succeeded in alienating virtually all of its neighbors. This means that, should the Security Council authorize it, the scenario of gradually encircling Iran with international forces, with an eye to eventual invasion along the lines of what happened in Iraq, can no longer be ruled out.

In such a scenario, Gulf states would likely join the invasion force. This brings us to what has recently become undeniable: some Gulf states no longer object to openly allying with Israel against Iran.

What concerns the ambassador even more, when it comes to Gulf states themselves, is the collapse of the “safe Gulf” model—the idea that had made the region a magnet for global wealth. “The Emirati model inherited Switzerland’s mantle as a safe haven for money. Europeans and the Swiss themselves say so, because Switzerland has adopted stricter banking secrecy regulations. This Gulf model is not just about banks. It is built on attracting expertise, providing security, offering safe residences; a haven that draws everyone in and can purchase security, knowledge, everything. Unless security and stability are secured in its surrounding environment, that model is exposed.”

With that assessment, Ambassador Moataz Ahmadein closes his reading of the Middle Eastern landscape: a region in which no model is safe, and no party can buy its way to stability without confronting the realities on the ground.

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(*) A version of this article first appeared in Arabic on April 9, 2026.