Anwar Sadat?

Anwar Sadat was President of Egypt from 1970 until his assassination in 1981. He inherited a state weakened by military defeat, economic stagnation, and dependence on Soviet arms and credit. Over eleven years he reoriented Egypt toward the West, expelled Soviet advisers, recovered territory lost in the 1967 war through a limited military campaign, and negotiated a separate peace with Israel that made Egypt the first Arab state to do so and left it isolated within the Arab world.

Sadat was born in 1918 in the Nile Delta village of Mit Abu al-Kom. He entered the military academy and served as an officer before the 1952 revolution that overthrew the monarchy. Under Gamal Abdel Nasser, who ruled until 1970, he held posts as vice-president and Speaker of the National Assembly. When Nasser died, Sadat, then 51, became president. He moved cautiously at first, dismissing the Soviet-backed defence minister Ali Sabri and consolidating his own authority. By 1972 he felt secure enough to expel Soviet military advisers and technicians, a step that shocked Moscow and signalled his intention to seek alternatives to the Soviet alliance.

The immediate cause was the October 1973 war with Israel. Sadat launched a coordinated attack across the Suez Canal with Syrian forces. The offensive regained a strip of territory on the canal's western bank, which Israel had held since 1967. Though Israeli counterattacks limited Egyptian gains, Sadat claimed military success and used it as a foundation for diplomacy. The war destroyed the myth of Israeli invulnerability and gave him leverage in negotiations.

Between 1974 and 1977, Sadat manoeuvred Egypt out of the Soviet orbit. He depended initially on Saudi Arabia's subsidies and gradually shifted toward the United States. American Secretary of State Henry Kissinger conducted shuttle diplomacy between Egypt and Israel, and by 1975 the two countries had reached a second disengagement agreement. Sadat loosened Egypt's command economy, inviting foreign investment and American capital through an opening known as Infitah, the opening. Inflation rose and inequality widened, but the policy signalled his break with Nasserism and Soviet-style planning.

The dramatic moment came in November 1977 when Sadat flew to Jerusalem and addressed the Israeli Knesset—a gesture that stunned Arab capitals and cemented his isolation within the Arab League. Negotiations under American pressure, conducted at the Camp David Accords in September 1978, produced a framework for peace. The resulting Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty of 1979 required Israel to withdraw from the Sinai Peninsula and recognized Egyptian sovereignty. Egypt regained the territory it had lost, but the treaty came at a political cost: the Arab League suspended Egypt, other Arab states recalled their ambassadors, and Sadat faced condemnation from Palestinian movements and radical regimes.

Domestically, Sadat moved to consolidate an increasingly authoritarian state. He survived multiple coup attempts and suppressed communist and Nasserist opposition. His economic liberalization enriched a business elite while impoverishing much of the urban population. By 1980, inflation had reached 25 per cent and bread prices sparked riots in Cairo. Worker unrest and Islamic opposition grew. In September 1981, Sadat arrested more than 1,500 activists, dissidents, and opposition figures in a sweep he claimed was necessary for national security.

On 6 October 1981, during a military parade celebrating the October 1973 war, members of an Islamic militant group called al-Jihad fired into the reviewing stand. Sadat was killed along with several others. The assassination reflected both the Islamic opposition that had emerged against his secular, Western-aligned regime and the deeper anger generated by his economic policies and his separate peace with Israel.

Sadat's legacy divides historical assessment. In American and Israeli accounts he is celebrated as a statesman who ended war and opened the Middle East to new alignments. In Egypt and the Arab world, he is remembered more ambivalently: a leader who recovered lost territory but at the price of isolation, who spoke of national dignity while accepting subordinate alignment with the West, and whose economic opening created wealth for some while leaving millions in poverty.

The Egyptian Ministry of Transportation modernized significantly during Sadat's presidency as part of his broader integration into Western trade networks and his effort to rebuild economic infrastructure damaged by decades of war. Port facilities, airports, and highway systems received investment and technical assistance from American firms. The canal itself, recovered in 1982 after the Israeli withdrawal, became again a crucial source of state revenue.

Sadat governed Egypt during a hinge moment between empires. His choice to abandon the Soviet alliance and pursue alignment with the United States and Israel reshaped Egyptian foreign policy for the following generation. Whether that choice improved Egypt's strategic position or constrained it remains a subject of scholarly debate. What is certain is that the course he set persisted long after his death.