This is interesting:
Secretary-General of the Arab League Ahmed Aboul Gheit transmitted a warning from the league to Ethiopia during the opening session of the fourth Arab Water Forum Nov. 26, saying, “Water security for Egypt — the biggest Arab country in terms of population — is part and parcel of the Arab national security.”
After announcing, on Nov. 12, the failure of negotiations to resolve the Renaissance Dam crisis with Ethiopia and Sudan, Egypt is now taking several measures to internationalize the Nile River quota crisis.
I suspect that the Arab League took this action with the support of Saudi Arabia, rather than purely in Arab solidarity.
The Saudis have made efforts to make sure Egypt is on call to help Saudi Arabia militarily.
So Egyptian military power in the Red Sea would be potentially useful to defeat Iran in Yemen.
And Egyptian support would be useful against Iran if a Saudi-Iranian effort to defeat Iran's proxy Hezbollah in Lebanon is conducted.
I can't imagine Egypt would try air power to destroy the massive dam project. But I may not appreciate the importance of the issue to Egypt if diplomacy doesn't ease Egypt's (and Sudan's) worries.
Although buying French planes would free Egypt from the problem of using American-made planes to do the job.
Anyway. It is interesting for the potential deals behind that simple transmittal of a warning to Ethiopia.
UPDATE: A late addition from Stratfor which believes that Egypt is at the end of diplomatic options but won't use force. I'm not sure why they assume that.
In the long run, the countries that control the Nile have the advantage and so force by Egypt and Sudan is unlikely to work. But you never can tell when countries who think they are desperate and at the end of diplomatic options will resort to force.
Sudan would need to allow Egypt to base warplanes at Sudanese bases for Egypt to have a bombing option. So it helps that two countries would have to choose force. The odds truly should be low. But you never know for sure.
