In the closing weeks of the year, Egypt staged a parliamentary election that was less a democratic exercise and more a choreographed formality. With parties friendly to President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi’s regime dominating the ballot, and irregularities ranging from vote-buying to the exclusion of opponents, the outcome—a rubber-stamp legislature set to rubber-stamp the extension of el-Sisi’s rule past 2030—was never in doubt.

So why is the West giving a free pass to an authoritarian regime determined to secure indefinite one-man rule?

The answer is brutally simple: El-Sisi is perceived as strategically indispensable. He is the gatekeeper of the Suez Canal, the primary manager of the Rafah crossing, the crucial mediator between Israel and Hamas, and the last line of defense against regional chaos. For the West and for Israel, the fear of Egyptian instability—the collapse of a nation of 110 million people struggling with high poverty—outweighs any commitment to human rights or democratic principles. In the stark calculus of regional security, continuity currently trumps concerns over democracy.

Since January 2024, Egypt has........

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