ABSTRACT
The relentless attack against the state in the Egyptian liberalizers' arsenal was due, in part, to an unwillingness to pay the public costs ofthe political order. At stake was the health of the international monetary system, the stability of the Middle Eastern order, and Egypt's unique place in the Arab system. The promises extended to Egypt by President Richard Nixon, by his Treasury Secretary, William Simon, by David Rockefeller, by the Shah of Iran, and by Saudi Arabia, all of whom had inputs into the new policy, were part of a larger game. The abundance of capital in the Gulf states, the hungry competition for those markets by Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development exporters, the kinds of technologies that Saudi Arabia and Kuwait were importing, reduced the Egyptian scheme to another of the aborted dreams entertained after 1973 by those who were convinced that a new world was in the making.
