Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s humiliating episode at Egypt’s Al-Azhar University – which came during a recent Cairo visit and saw the Iranian leader publicly upbraided by Sunni figures – may have been symptomatic of structural barriers blocking a restoration of Egyptian-Iranian ties. The two countries have been at odds since Cairo inked a 1979 peace treaty with Israel, and tensions originally grounded in differing policies regarding the eradication of Israel have since then become inflected through Sunni-Shiite rivalries.

Ahmadinejad had been warmly greeted by Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi but the optics and substance of his trip quickly devolved as he was assaulted with shoes at a press conference, and subsequently instructed by Al-Azhar’s grand imam Sheikh Ahmed el-Tayeb to cease all Shiite missionary activity in Egypt and to stop interfering in the internal politics of Bahrain and other Arab states.

Arab media outlets have conveyed skepticism that Ahmadinejad and Morsi and overcome the issues driving their countries’ now decades-old rivalry. Both leaders are facing domestic political pressures, and Egyptian media outlets have taken to editorializing that Iran’s overtures are designed to promote Shiite Islam at the expense of Sunnis:

Ahmadinejad’s visit and the message sent by the Iranian Supreme Guide have angered the different religious parties, starting with Al-Azhar, that affirms that the Shi’ite ruling regime of Velayat el-Faqih is not suitable for Egypt, whose Muslims are Sunni and do not require a religious guardian. Egyptians are also worried about the Iranian attempt to create strong ties with the Muslim Brotherhood regime, especially as its media keep on saying that the Arab spring was, in fact, an ‘Islamic awakening’, inspired by Khomeini’s teachings and Khamenei’s leadership.

[Photo: Buyoof / Wiki Commons]