Morning Brief: In effort to improve ties, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad arrives in Cairo

 Iran/Egypt: The first Iranian leader to visit Egypt in more than 30 years, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad arrived Tuesday in Cairo for a three-day visit aimed at improving ties between the two countries, which have long been hampered by regional rivalries and sectarian feuding.

Iran broke off diplomatic relations with Egypt in 1980 after Anwar Sadat granted diplomatic recognition to Israel, and suspicions between the two countries only deepened as Hosni Mubarak cultivated ties to the West and Iran positioned itself as one of the United States' main antagonists in the region. But that calculus has been upended by the Arab Spring, which has left Iran looking for new allies in the region as its partnership with Syria flounders amid that country's ongoing civil war.

Still, the manifest difficulties of Iran positioning itself as a revitalized regional player were on clear display Tuesday in Cairo, where a Sunni religious leader leveled harsh criticism at Ahmadinejad for what he said was Shiite interference in Arab countries like Egypt and Bahrain and for discrimination against Sunnis in Iran. In a separate incident, a Syrian protester pelted the Iranian leader with a shoe, an act of protest for Iran's ongoing support of Bashar al-Assad.

Analysts expect that ties between the two countries are unlikely to warm significantly as Egypt remains heavily reliant on subsidies from Saudi Arabia and the United States, two countries loathe to see Egypt cultivate a closer partnership with Iran. 

War on terror: For the past two years, the United States has been operating a secret base in Saudi Arabia from which it has launched drone strikes in Yemen. Major U.S. media organizations have known about the base for over a year but declined to reveal its existence, citing requests from the Obama administration that public knowledge of the base would damage counterterrorism operations in neighboring Yemen and undermine the U.S. relationship with Saudi Arabia. The base's existence was revealed ahead of White House counterterror adviser John Brennan's planned testimony before the Senate Thursday, part of his confirmation process to become the next CIA director.