The Nile River and Egyptian Foreign Policy Interests

For decades, Egypt has become the dominant water power in the Nile Basin region, where it has veto power vis-à-vis other riparian states, which has kept the situation as it is in the Nile Basin region. No other Nile state has dared, as John Waterbury would say, to engage in a confrontation with Egypt, especially with respect to Egypt's national security. The Egyptian political and media discourse, which has prevailed in all its intellectual and ideological diversity since the beginning of the new millennium, has the same historic imperatives that bind Egypt and its sacred right to the waters of the Nile. This article aims to define the place of this dimension in Egyptian foreign policy vis-a-vis the states of the Nile Basin, with a special focus the Nile River water. The authors argue that Egyptian foreign policy behaviour as well as her desire to ensure a smooth and uninterrupted flow of the Nile River waters have historically been and will continue to be intertwined