Source: Arab Center Washington DC
Author(s): Curtis R. Ryan
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On August 25, 2020, the leaders of Egypt, Iraq, and Jordan met in Amman for the third in a succession of meetings marking ever-closer relations between the three Arab states. Earlier meetings had taken place in March 2019 in Cairo and in September 2019 in New York City, on the sidelines of the annual session of the United Nations General Assembly. This latest convening was the first to include new Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi in discussions with Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi and Jordanian King Abdullah II. Each meeting was designed to deepen cooperation between the three states in an effort to coordinate as a new bloc within inter-Arab relations and Middle East politics.
The question, of course, was whether this recent convergence in a long line of inter-Arab alignments would prove to have any lasting significance. Would it, for example, prove as fluid and fleeting as many previous and similar efforts? Or would it produce substantive cooperation and, accordingly, affect regional politics and even the regional balance of power? Just as importantly, what does a Jordanian-Egyptian-Iraqi bloc mean for relations with the Gulf states, especially in the aftermath of the recent normalization of relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, as well as between Israel and Bahrain?
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