Word: suez
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...Watergate and the collapse of Richard Nixon's authority. When Gerald Ford became President, Sadat tried again for a peace agreement. But a poisonous war atmosphere started spreading once more. Sadat next risked what he called a "diplomatic pre-emptive strike" by announcing unilaterally that he was reopening the Suez Canal, which had been closed since the 1967 war. That same week he met with Ford in Salzburg; in September 1975 came the second Egyptian-Israeli Interim Agreement, which restored the western edge of the Sinai, including the Abu Rudeis oilfields, to Cairo's control...
...overall commander of the armed forces, told Sadat that if war broke out, his army would be devastated. Because of Sadat's frosty relations with Moscow, there was no longer a Soviet supply link; Egyptian forces had slipped badly in relation to the Israelis since the strike across the Suez in 1973. Now Cairo began to hear rumors that Menachem Begin was ready to use his hardware for a pre-emptive "war of annihilation" against Arab armies if the U.S. began putting too much pressure on Israel. Sadat's "American connection" carried with it an ominous danger...
...Persians broke the pharaonic line, and for more than 2,000 years Egypt was little more than a province of foreign conquerors: Greeks, Romans, Arabs, Mamelukes, Turks, French and British, who renounced their final claims only 21 years ago, after the failure of the Suez invasion. Through the centuries, however, the Nile flowed on, and the Egyptian, that unique river creature, determined his life by the rise and fall of its waters rather than by the temporary whims of a foreign master...
Brave words. In fact, Egypt's poverty makes it a ward of the rich Arabs. The Six-Day War of 1967 devastated the econ omy; among other blows, the closing of the Suez Canal cost Egypt an estimated $2 billion in vital revenue. Capital investment was diverted to acquire military hardware; arms spending currently absorbs 28% of the Egyptian national budget. After becoming President in 1970, Anwar Sadat began to dismantle Gamal Abdel Nasser's cumbersome socialist state and once again invited foreign investment. But the response has not even been as loud as a whisper. Last year, in order...
Despite these potential ecological hazards, Egypt, given a few decades of peace and stability, still has a chance to become a prosperous, viable nation. Two years ago, in a gesture signifying his interest in peace, Sadat reopened the Suez Canal, which had been blocked since 1967. It is once again one of the country's biggest money earners, bringing in $500 million a year. Sadat also decreed a massive development scheme, largely financed by Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates, to rebuild the cities along the canal, which were almost totally empty for eight years. The ambitious plan...