ABSTRACT
At first the Nasser regime pursued a strategy of regime survival in the face of army conspiracies, the communists and the Muslim Brotherhood. But the Free Officers kept an eye on external threats as well and the United Kingdom and Israel were at the top of their list. Cairo regarded the British as the ‘main enemy’ because of their colonial legacy in Egypt, their presence in the Canal Zone and their occupation of the Sudan.1 Moreover, Nasser understood that London’s dominant role in the Middle East presented a key obstacle to his regional leadership ambitions and his strident brand of Arab nationalism. Before he could enter the regional stage Nasser had to deal with the British in Egypt or more precisely, the continued British military presence in the Canal Zone. In a bid to pressure London into evacuating from the Canal, Nasser settled on an insurgency organized, trained, armed and led by the MID. Following British withdrawal from the Canal and a separate deal with London over Sudan, Nasser began to flex his muscle in regional affairs. Soon the Egyptian intelligence services were waging subversive operations against British allies in Jordan and Iraq, the French in Algeria and Israel. Egyptian subversion coupled with Cairo’s tilt toward non-alignment and Nasser’s growing suspicion of CIA activities triggered a significant downturn in Egypt’s relations with the West. By 1956 the stage was set for war between Egypt, France, the United Kingdom and Israel.
