By 2025, a dozen years from now, Egypt will be trying to feed 96 million people, which would be very hard even with its existing giant’s share of the Nile’s water and all its current food imports. The countries that signed the Cooperative Framework Agreement will have 300 million people, so by then they will also be extracting very large amounts of water from the Nile Basin for irrigation.
Without that water, Egypt’s only options are beggaring itself with massive food imports (until the foreign exchange runs out), or famine. Unless, of course, it decides on war — but its options are not very good on that front either.
Not only are the upstream countries a very long way from Egypt (the Nile is the world’s longest river), but they will have strong support from China, which is financing most of the dams they are now building or planning.
Egypt, by contrast, has repudiated its former American ally, and may find that the United States is reluctant to re-engage even if the government in Cairo can overcome its own distaste for Washington. Why would the U.S. want a confrontation with China over Egypt?
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