From Nasser to Mubarak

[Catherina]

Really good article.

ANALYSIS: ERIC RUDER

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Owing to its strategic location in the heart of the Middle East and the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869, the British Empire considered a compliant Egypt central to the control and maintenance of its far-flung possessions, especially India. The British occupied the Suez area in 1882 to quell a rebellion, and in the words of former New York Times Middle East correspondent Kennett Love, "Egyptian nationalists spent the next 72 years trying to get the British to act on their expressed desire to withdraw."<5>

The end of the Second World War thrust the United States into the front ranks of the world's imperial powers, and the U.S. set about displacing British and French influence in the Middle East--always with an eye to keeping the Soviet Union from establishing influence in the region...


The growing importance of Middle Eastern oil to the world economy (and the Suez Canal for the transport of this oil to the West) focused Washington's attention on cementing "friendly relations" with the Arab regimes of the region. However, U.S. support for the fledgling Israeli state, established in 1948, complicated matters. U.S. support for Israel's colonial takeover of Palestine was difficult to reconcile with this era of decolonization.

In 1952, a military coup installed a group of junior army officers in power--known as the Free Officers and among them Gamal Abdel Nasser--and drove into exile the pro-British monarch King Farouk. Nasser's ascendance rode the wave of popular nationalism surging across the region in order to project a vision of pan-Arab unity and resistance to Western powers. This project inspired millions and made Egypt the leader of the section of the Arab world looking for independence from either the United States or the Soviet Union.

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http://socialistworker.org/2011/01/31/from-nasser-to-mubarak