Soon after Islamist rebels overthrew the authoritarian president of Syria, Bashar al-Assad, a hashtag gathered steam on Egyptian social media: “It’s your turn, dictator.”
The message for President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi of Egypt was unmistakable. But he hardly needed the warning.
Since the ouster of Syria’s longtime dictator on Dec. 8, Egyptian leaders have watched events in the Syrian capital, Damascus, with grim-faced vigilance, knowing well that revolutionary fire has a tendency to spread.
Both countries have had a turbulent history since the Arab Spring uprisings that started in late 2010 and spread across the Middle East.
The Syrian revolt culminated almost 14 years later with Mr. al-Assad’s fall. The Egyptian revolution deposed the country’s longtime authoritarian president, Hosni Mubarak, and saw an Islamist political party come to power in the country’s first free elections. Mr. el-Sisi seized power two years later in a military takeover, and he and like-minded leaders in the Persian Gulf and beyond remain wary of Islamist groups gaining any power in the region, as they just did in Syria.
Days after Mr. al-Assad fled Syria for Russia, Egyptian security forces arrested at least 30 Syrian refugees living in Cairo who were spontaneously celebrating his fall, according to the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, a rights group.
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