Finally, in the long run, U.S. policy toward Egypt should also include support for governance and development initiatives in the Sinai. Such steps will reap fruit only in the long term, but they will make various bilateral arrangements more likely to hold over time.

Daniel Byman is a professor at Georgetown University and the research director of the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution. Khaled Elgindy is a fellow at the Saban Center and previously served as an adviser to the Palestinian leadership in Ramallah. Follow them on Twitter at @dbyman and @elgindy.

Image: Flickr/Gigi Ibrahim. CC BY-SA 2.0.

Image: Pullquote: Increasing violence and instability in Sinai could complicate Egypt's already-troubled transition and raise the prospect of renewed large-scale conflict between Israel and Hamas.Essay Types: Essay