ABSTRACT
In analyses of the modern Middle East it has become a commonplace to view regional affairs as an offshot of global power politics. Stemming from the premise that 'international rather than regional powers wielded most of the power and did most of the manipulation most of the time', this system-dominant approach reduces the indigenous actors to meaningless entities which at best exercise a limited control over their own fate, and at worst are malleable objects in the hands of omnipotent great powers. The origins of the Egyptian imbroglio can be traced back to the rule of Ismail Pasha, Muhammad Ali's grandson, whose tireless efforts to transform Egypt into a regional empire drove the country to financial ruin and internal turmoil, implicating it in the tangled web of great-power interests, fears and greed. The military was at cutting edge of this public discontent. Even during Ismail's reign Egyptian officers had grumbled over the privileged status of the Turco-Circassian military lite.
