Ethiopia’s Red Sea ambitions and its Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam have become the twin pillars of a Cairo narrative that serves one purpose above all others: keeping Abdel Fattah el-Sisi’s regime relevant in a region that is rapidly reorganizing around new power centers. The latest round of Egyptian-Ethiopian diplomatic friction, triggered by Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty’s coordinated visit to Asmara and his public declaration that Red Sea governance belongs exclusively to littoral states, is less a coherent strategic doctrine than a performance designed for domestic consumption. Washington should think carefully before it allows itself to be recruited into underwriting that performance under the banner of GERD mediation.

Start with the optics. Abdelatty traveled to Asmara on May 17 to reaffirm with Eritrea, one of the region’s most isolated and repressive governments, that Ethiopia has no business near the Red Sea. The choice of partner is instructive. Isaias Afwerki runs a hermit state with a mandatory indefinite military conscription system that has driven hundreds of thousands of Eritreans into refugee camps across the region. That Egypt has chosen Asmara as its primary regional ally in hemming in Ethiopia says something about the quality of Cairo’s........

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