MIDDLE EAST JOURNAL M VOLUME 69, NO. 3, SUMMER 2015 HTTP://DX.DOI.ORG/10.3751/69.3.11 © Middle East Institute. This article is for personal research only and may not be copied or distributed in any form without the permission of The Middle East Journal. Egypt, Iran, and the Hizbullah Cell: Using Sectarianism to “De-Arabize” and Regionalize Threats to National Interests Elizabeth Monier This article argues that anti-Shi‘ism is simply one component in a strategy to justify and enforce Egypt’s security policies and regional leadership goals. An examina- tion of Egyptian press coverage of the 2009 discovery of a Hizbullah cell in Egypt illustrates a process through which Shi‘ism is initially identified as a sectarian threat, but then “de-Arabized” through linkage with Iran. Despite being an Arab organization, Egyptian media portray Hizbullah as a non-Arab challenge to the Arab world’s stability, more than a Shi‘i challenge to Sunnism or a security threat. This indicates that Egypt’s traditional foreign policy of defending Arab interests is more important than sectarianism in conceptualizing threats to its security. Since the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran, media and governments in Egypt and other Arab states have regularly represented Iran as a source of regional instability. 1 This representation has been a factor in a number of recent conflicts, including the sectar- ian violence that followed the American invasion of Iraq in 2003, 2 the demonstrations in Bahrain in early 2011, 3 and the ongoing Saudi-led military intervention in Yemen. 4 However, such a straightforward sectarianism-driven narrative overlooks that prior to the Arab Spring there had been shifts in the regional power configurations that suggest- ed the rise of non-Arab Middle Eastern powers, notably Turkey as well as Iran. 5 The 2005 election of hardliner Iranian president Mahmud Ahmadinejad, who championed more assertive policies in the region, and his disputed reelection in 2009, compounded Dr Elizabeth Monier is a research fellow at Warwick University’s Centre for the Study of Globalisation and Regionalisation and an associate fellow at the Middle East Centre at the German Institute of Global and Area Studies, Hamburg. 1. Anoushiravan Ehteshami and Mahjoob Zweiri, eds., Iran’s Foreign Policy: From Khatami to Ahmadinejad (Reading, UK: Ithaca Press, 2008); Talal Atrissi, Jiyu-Istiratijiya al-Hadba al-Iraniyya: Ishkaliyyat wa-Bada’il [The Geostrategy of the Iranian Resurgence: Problematics and Alternatives] (Beirut: Center of Civilization for Islamic Thought and Development, 2009), p. 21; Shahram Chubin, Tumuhat Iran al-Nawawiyya [Iran’s Nuclear Ambitions], trans. Bassam Shiha, (Beirut: Arab Scien- tific Publishers, 2007) pp. 180, 186; originally published as Iran’s Nuclear Ambitions (Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2006). 2. Fanar Haddad, Sectarianism in Iraq: Antagonistic Visions of Unity (London: Hurst, 2011). 3. Anne Hagood, “The Narrative of Resistance — Bahrain and Iraq,” Arab Media & Society, No. 14 (Summer 2011), www.arabmediasociety.com/?article=774. 4. Augustus Richard Norton, “The Geopolitics of the Sunni-Shi’i Rift,” in Regional Insecurity af- ter the Arab Uprisings: Narratives of Security and Threat, ed. Elizabeth Monier (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), pp. 129–48. 5. Ali Rahigh-Aghsan and Peter Viggo Jakobsen, “The Rise of Iran: How Durable, How Danger- ous?,” The Middle East Journal, Vol. 64, No. 4 (Autumn 2010), pp. 559–73; Detlef Nolte, “How to Compare Regional Powers: Analytical Concepts and Research Topics,” Review of International Stud- ies, Vol. 36, No. 4 (Oct. 2010), pp. 881–901.