This article seeks to contrast Egypt’s leadership role in the Middle East after the Second World War with the one Turkey is currently aiming for, while emphasizing the fundamental changes that occurred in Middle East countries during the second half of the 20^th century.   

After the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire in 1918, the Middle East was a fragmented entity. Most countries were under western rule or protection, while others were in a state of self-governance (as was Egypt from 1922). After the Second World War, Arab states gradually reached independence and soon the Middle East began to look for an emerging country that would take the lead.

Egypt was one of the first autonomous countries to reach independence under the British Empire. By the beginning of the 1950s, it had come to a point where Egypt was able to overthrow all western influence and was on the path of becoming a self-sufficient country. Although the Suez crisis in October 1956 ended in military defeat against Israel, it was nonetheless a diplomatic victory for Egypt’s President Gamal Abdel Nasser[i], who soon became the leading figure for the Arab states in the region. From that moment on, Egypt became the one Middle Eastern country who would challenge, not bow down to, western wishes and instructions and who had the support – but was not under the control of the USSR[ii]. Furthermore, in 1961, Egypt – along with India and Yugoslavia – was one of the founding and leading countries of the Non-Alignment Movement. Its purpose was to provide a middle ground for countries who did not wish to adhere to the USA-led camp or to the USSR-led one. Egypt’s strength and status was unparalleled at the time and positioned it to be the ideal leader of an Arab world that consisted, at the time, of several newly created countries (such as Syria and Jordan) unable to come together and create a unified front. Gamal Abdel Nasser and Anwar Sadat – who succeeded the former after his death in 1970 – maintained Egypt as the de facto leader of the Arab World and of the fight against Israel until 1973, when peace negotiations with Israel began and concluded with the Camp David Peace Treaty in 1979[iii]. Egypt maintained its ties with Arab countries, mainly due to economic necessities on their part, but was considered from that instant a traitor to the cause of liberating Palestine, one who would not be forgiven for its sins.

(Stavros I. Drakoularakos, International Security Observer, Nov. 15, 2013) Read Original