ABSTRACT
In his manifesto The Philosophy of the Revolution Gamal ‘Abd al-Nasser portrayed an Egypt at the geopolitical and cultural heart of the Arab, African and Islamic worlds. For Nasser, this centrality gave Egypt a natural platform to exert leadership not only over the Arab states but the newly emerging independent states of Africa and Asia as well. Nasser’s support for the non-alignment movement and his friendship with its luminaries like Jawaharlal Nehru and Josip Broz Tito were intended to demonstrate Egypt’s new confidence on the world stage. We have seen in previous chapters how Nasser’s attempts to exert influence in the Arab world were stymied by regional and external powers that allied against him. But as The Philosophy of the Revolution made clear, Nasser’s ambitions were not restricted to the Arabs. In the case of Iran, the Egyptian leader saw an opportunity to check a powerful rival by promoting separatists and antiShah dissidents. As more African states aspired to and eventually achieved independence, Egypt regarded itself as their natural leader and mentor. It did so not only with prestige and non-alignment goals in mind, but from a national security perspective as well, for some states such as Ethiopia were upstream consumers of the Nile – Egypt’s only water source. Thus, for a period in the 1960s, Egypt fought covert wars in several African states albeit with no tangible results. On the home front, Nasser used the mukhabarat to reinforce his authority, intimidate his opponents and shield his regime from conspiracies. In addition to Israeli espionage, Egyptian intelligence was busy in the 1960s fighting the ra’is’s adversaries within the regime itself and a resurgent Muslim Brotherhood. Egypt’s relations with the United States further unraveled and each stepped up clandestine warfare against the other. This Egyptian-American clash opened the doors further for Soviet influence and, on the eve of the 1967 war with Israel, Moscow had become a powerful player in the Egyptian military and security communities.
