Cairo's caretaker government has done its best to combat the problem. With Israel's quiet acquiescence, it inserted more than 1,000 troops into the area this fall in an attempt to reestablish a semblance of security. But the region has nonetheless remained unstable, punctuated by repeated attacks on energy infrastructure and widespread disorder. As a result, Israel has been forced to take matters into its own hands and erect a new fence along its southern border to minimize the fallout.
The situation, moreover, is poised to get much worse. Since Mubarak's ouster, Egypt has headed in an increasingly dangerous geopolitical direction. The country's economic fortunes have plummeted, ethnic and sectarian tensions have risen, and Islamist factions—long relegated to the margins of national politics—have emerged ascendant. Indeed, the radical Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafist Nour Party dominate the electoral process now underway in Egypt, guaranteeing them a deciding voice in the next parliament—and control over the drafting of the country's new constitution. As a result, Egypt's traditional status quo, from amicable (if cool) relations with neighboring Israel to strategic cooperation with the United States, is increasingly uncertain. So is whether the Egyptian government will be both willing and able to fully shoulder the burden of securing the Sinai.
All of which is a boon to the radical elements now flourishing on Israel's southern border. And while it is still too early to tell whether the Sinai will emerge as a real front in al-Qaeda's war against the West, the way North Africa and the Persian Gulf now are, it is already clear that the Bin Laden network is working to exploit the Sinai's strategic vacuum—and Egypt's Islamist ferment. If it succeeds, it would mark a giant step backward for Middle Eastern stability, and for our progress in the war on terror.
