GEORGETOWN, Guyana – It is undoubtedly the case that the essential structures of authoritarian rule, using the army as a critical instrument of stabilization, were constructed by Gamal Abdel Nasser, in his long period of domination following the military’s abolition of the Egyptian monarchy in 1952, and his takeover of the presidency of the country from General Naguib in 1956. And it is the case too, that Nasser immediately sought to present a nationalist and populist face within and outside of the country, predominantly through an effort signified by his seizure of the British-French controlled Suez Canal, in July of that year. Nasser’s military successor, Anwar Sadat sought to enhance his political credentials in the Western world by seeking to normalize relations with Israel, an orientation pleasing to the United States. But his assassination, in 1981, was the result of an Islamist backlash against the Camp David Accords. Yet, Sadat’s successor General and then President Mubarak succeeded, in the tradition of military rule in partially stifling the new generation, even in the face of political stirrings elsewhere in the Middle East, and in particular the rise of a new nationalist regime in Iran, now appearing as a competitor to Egypt in terms of gathering the attraction of militants in the wider Middle East.
