Egypt’s involvement in GCC dispute with Qatar is about “economic statecraft”

Egypt is at the “ideological center” of the ongoing dispute between Qatar and its neighbouring GCC countries, Karen E Young writes for the Washington Post. Young says the dispute, in many ways, is about the “exercise of economic statecraft.” She mentions the economic aid from the GCC to Egypt as well as its importing of Qatari LNG, but also that Egypt is “a test case of some of the austerity measures the GCC states need to implement at home… a test case of how society responds to mechanisms of economic governance at the behest of a strong security state.” She says “for now, investment in Egypt’s political stability and economic growth remains a foreign policy priority of the UAE and Saudi Arabia.”