“Approaching each other with a clear and direct agenda, mostly revolving around the mutual benefits of boosting trade, investment, and business in a win-win situation, was determinant. The power fatigue resulting from following highly contrasting geopolitical and ideological agendas and the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic in the post-2011 era encouraged the conflicting regional players to follow pragmatic behaviour and prioritise the economy, business, trade, and interest-based agendas rather than ideological ones. The regional and international dynamics that have led to this rare moment of de-escalation and reconciliation among the different regional players, in particular, are not constant and subject to sudden changes. Besides Egypt, several Arab countries are severely exposed. If the war is set to prolong, then one should not rule out that a looming food crisis coupled with skyrocketing food prices would trigger uprisings. Despite the very positive regional atmosphere resulting
“The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion (to which few members of other civilizations were converted) but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact; non-Westerners never do.” —Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilisation and the Remaking of the World Order, 1996, p. 51