Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi is built for crisis. He seized power through a military coup after a year of Muslim Brotherhood rule and has spent more than a decade navigating economic collapse, political unrest, and wars bleeding across nearly every border Egypt shares.
His singular promise to Egyptians is that whatever chaos surrounds them, order at home would hold. Operation Epic Fury, the joint U.S.-Israeli attack against Iran, is now testing that promise in ways that Sisi cannot easily manage.
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi is built for crisis. He seized power through a military coup after a year of Muslim Brotherhood rule and has spent more than a decade navigating economic collapse, political unrest, and wars bleeding across nearly every border Egypt shares.
His singular promise to Egyptians is that whatever chaos surrounds them, order at home would hold. Operation Epic Fury, the joint U.S.-Israeli attack against Iran, is now testing that promise in ways that Sisi cannot easily manage.
In a March 1 address to military leaders, Sisi spoke with unusual tentativeness. Clearing his throat and choosing words slowly, he declared that Iran had “made a mistake in its calculations” and should not have attacked Arab states “under any reason.” It was a revealing performance from a leader who prizes projecting strength. Egypt is being squeezed on multiple fronts simultaneously, and the exits are narrowing.
The war has disrupted its energy supply, renewed Red Sea insecurity, and handed domestic opponents a ready-made rallying cry.
Following the outbreak of the war, Israel halted natural gas exports to Egypt on security grounds. This was a repeat of what occurred during the 12-day war in June 2025, when Israeli gas fields were shuttered over fears that they might become an Iranian target. Israeli gas accounts for roughly 15 percent to 20 percent of Egypt’s total consumption and up to 60 percent of its imports. In August, Cairo signed a $35 billion agreement with Israel’s NewMed Energy to triple the flow from Leviathan field, a deal that represented a significant step toward long-term energy stability for Egypt.
The current disruption is not a consequence of that partnership failing, but a consequence of a regional war intruding upon it. Israel’s decision to suspend exports reflects security concerns about its own infrastructure, not a withdrawal from its commitments to Egypt. The deal remains intact and, over time, promises to substantially strengthen Egypt’s energy position.
For Cairo, however, the consequences of even a short-lived supply shortage quickly move from technical to political. Power cuts and price increases in Egypt do not stay in the realm of infrastructure management. Rather, they become fuel for public frustration and opposition messaging in a country already worn down by years of inflation.
Then there’s the Red Sea. The Houthis have pledged escalation in solidarity with Tehran. If they follow through, the consequences for Egypt would be severe and completely out of Cairo’s control. Lost Suez Canal revenue is a function of decisions made by insurers, logistics firms, and vessel operators responding to perceived risk.
Since Houthi forces began targeting international shipping in 2023, Egypt calculates that it has lost more than $9 billion in Suez Canal revenue. In the first year of the attacks alone, there was at least a 60 percent drop in revenue, with traffic falling from roughly 75 ships a day to just 32. The canal, Cairo’s single-most important source of dollars, is a lifeline for a government managing heavy external debt obligations and a chronic shortage of foreign exchange. Every missile launched near Bab el-Mandeb, the strait at the southern end of the Red Sea, is enough to raise ships’ insurance premiums, reroute vessels, and drain Cairo’s coffers.
Even if the Houthis exercise restraint and remain on the sidelines, the perception of elevated risk reshapes global shipping patterns in ways that take months or years to reverse. Traffic will not return quickly even if the security environment improved. Egypt is thus vulnerable not only to direct Houthi action but also to the aftereffects of the threat itself.
The convergence of these economic pressures creates space for Sisi’s domestic opponents, including Islamist networks and the Muslim Brotherhood. Online, an anti-Sisi campaign has seized on the gas cutoff and Egypt’s clear diplomatic proximity to Israel and the United States, framing both as evidence that Sisi has subordinated Egyptian interests to foreign powers.
The Muslim Brotherhood’s media operation, much of it run from outside Egypt through satellite channels and social media accounts, does not need to lay out a bullet-pointed policy agenda. It only needs to ask a question that ordinary Egyptians, facing higher prices and reduced services, are already primed to entertain: Has Sisi made Egypt weak and dependent? The gas cutoff, albeit temporary and driven by the war, hands that campaign a concrete grievance to amplify.
Sisi’s model of governance is based on an implicit contract with Egyptians in which they accept authoritarian rule in exchange for stability and basic civic services. That contract has always been under strain. But it holds as long as the state can present itself as the only thing standing between Egypt and the chaos visible across its borders with Sudan, Libya, and Gaza.
Operation Epic Fury has applied immense pressure on Cairo’s weak points. An energy shortage was always a latent risk. It is now an active one. The canal’s exposure to Houthi escalation had seemingly ended with the Gaza cease-fire. It now might generate additional billions in losses.
None of these pressures, taken alone, would threaten the Egyptian state. Its institutions remain intact. The security apparatus is firmly in command. But simultaneous shocks to the energy supply, revenues, and political confidence nonetheless narrow Sisi’s room to maneuver.
The stakes extend beyond Egypt’s internal politics. Cairo remains one of Washington’s most important regional partners, a pillar of the region’s security architecture, and a critical node in any robust Middle East order. An Egypt distracted by compound economic pressures and domestic opposition is an Egypt less able to play that role. If Sisi is forced to spend political capital managing internal discontent, then he will have less to spend on the security cooperation that Washington depends on.
Egypt has absorbed worse, certainly, but Operation Epic Fury poses a test for a strongman who has spent a decade promising a stability that he may no longer be able to deliver.
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