LOOKS increasingly that solving the Egyptian puzzle is going to take us all to Syria. How far the army's coup in Egypt resets the geopolitics of the Middle East, or, conversely, whether the coup itself forms the commencement of a region-wide tectonic shift that is going to play out over time €" this is the big question.
The cascading events this [last] week indicate that the latter could well be the case. To be sure, even by the standards of the Middle East, the past week has been an extraordinary one.
There has been a strong expression of support from the United States and its Persian Gulf allies to the Egyptian military, which in turn is providing the political underpinning for a brutal crackdown by the junta on the Muslim Brotherhood, which has implications for the €Arab Spring' as a whole.
Russia's overture to the junta at such a point may come as quite a surprise but it is integral to the Russian strategy in Syria and the Russian scepticism of the €Arab Spring'.
The isolation of Qatar, Turkey and Iran on the regional chessboard has accentuated through the past week with the junta in Cairo ticking off these countries for their pretensions of being arbiters or opinion-makers in Egypt's internal affairs. It so happens that these three countries have been deeply involved in the Syrian situation as well.
Meanwhile, Israel's openness to accept Russian peacekeepers on the Golan Heights could not have surged to the surface this week without US acquiescence €" or even approval €" and the timing of the leadership changes both in Syria's ruling Ba'ath Party and the Syrian National Coalition could be more than a coincidence.
There is a background to all this, lest it be forgotten amidst the cacophony of the coup in Egypt €" Hassan Rowhani's thumping victory in the Iranian presidential election and the promise of an impending thaw in the Saudi-Iranian relationship.

A seminal event
IF A seminal event is to be identified in this torrential flow of events in regional politics, it must be the visit by the US secretary of state John Kerry to Saudi Arabia on June 25, which was embedded within a regional tour of the Middle East and was a diplomatic initiative on Syria.
In hindsight it becomes apparent now that the slow-motion coup in Egypt was well under way by that time in end-June and the US was already in deep consultation with the military leadership in Cairo regarding a political transition in Egypt. Without doubt, Kerry's talks with the Saudi leaders couldn't have ignored the gathering storms in Egypt.
In the event, of course, Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah became the first world leader to felicitate the overthrow of the Muslim Brotherhood government on July 2 €" within hours of the coup unfolding €" as if Riyadh had it all worked out in anticipation.
Again, the alacrity with which Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates simultaneously announced on Wednesday [July 10] a $8 billion aid package for Egypt suggests that a blueprint was already prepared in consultation with the US.
Washington leaked to the press immediately thereafter that it too was going ahead with a planned supply of F-16 fighter aircraft to the Egyptian military, which means that despite the Obama administration's posturing of prevarication, suspending military aid to Egypt is the last thing on its mind.
Curiously, another regional leader who promptly welcomed €" alongside King Abdullah €" the ouster of the Brotherhood from power in Egypt has been Syrian president Bashar al-Assad.
This wasn't an isolated act, either. On Monday [July 8], Assad announced the replacement of the entire Ba'ath leadership, with all 16 members who have been in the high command since 2005, making way for new blood. A younger generation of leaders, including former diplomats, has been brought in as replacements. Parliament speaker Ji