As Egypt quarrels with Saudi Arabia, it is finding new friends

IT SEEMS that $25bn does not buy you much in the way of loyalty these days. That, give or take a few billion, is how much Saudi Arabia has pumped into Egypt since 2013, when Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi, then a general, toppled the country’s first democratically elected—and Islamist—president. The cash helped Egypt avoid an economic collapse. But lately it has shown little devotion to its benefactor. And the kingdom, in turn, has cut off its needy neighbour.

The principal cause of the rift is the war in Syria, which has upset a regional order that tends to divide along sectarian lines. Sunni powers, led by Saudi Arabia, have backed rebels trying to oust Bashar al-Assad, Syria’s blood-soaked dictator. Shia powers, such as Iran and Lebanon’s Hizbullah militia, back Mr Assad, who is Alawite (an offshoot of Shiism). So far, so predictable. But Egypt, which is mostly Sunni, has also quietly sided with the dictator.