Sadat and His Legacy EGYPT AND THE WORLD, 1977-1997 On the Occasion of the Twentieth Anniversary of President Sadat's Journey to Jerusalem Contributors: Eliahu Ben Elissar Kenneth Pollack Wat Cluverius Peter Rodman Hermann Frederick Eilts Camelia Anwar Sadat Ahmed Fakhr Abdel Monem Said Saad Eddin Ibrahim Robert Satloff Martin Indyk Shimon Shamir Samuel Lewis Kenneth Stein Ahmed Maher el-Sayed Shibley Telhami Robert Pelletreau Ehud Ya' ari Edited with introduction by Jon B. Alterman THE WASHINGTON INSTITUTE FOR NEAR EAST POLICY A Washington Institute Monograph All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. © 1998 by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy Published in 1998 in the United States of America by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, 1828 L Street N.W. Suite 1050, Washington, DC 20036 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Alterman, Jon B., 1964- Sadat and his legacy / Egypt and the world, 1977-1997 : on the occasion of the twentieth anniversary of President Sadat's journey to Jerusalem / contributors, Eliahu Ben-Elissar ... [et al.] ; edited with introduction by Jon B. Alterman. p. cm. A collection of papers presented at an international conference, held November 13-14, 1997, and sponsored by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 0-944029-74-4 1. Sadat, Anwar, 1918 Contributions in diplomacy— Congresses. 2. Egypt—Politics and government—Congresses. 3. Egypt—Foreign relations—Israel—Congresses. 4. Israel— Foreign relations—Egypt—Congresses. 5. Arab-Israeli conflict—1993 Peace—Congresses. I. Ben Elissar, Eliahu. II. Alterman, Jon B., 1964- . III. Washington Institute for Near East Policy. DT1O7.85.S375 1998 98-14803 962.05'4'092—dc21 CIP Cover design by Nay lor Design Inc. Photos: UPI/Corbis-Bettmann Archives Contents Preface V Introduction vii I Anwar Sadat and His Vision 1 Camelia Sadat 3 Ahmed Maker el-Sayed 7 II Sadat's Journey 11 Hermann Frederick Eilts 13 Eliahu Ben Elissar 23 Kenneth Stein 29 Discussion 39 III Sadat and the Transformation of Egyptian National Security 43 Ahmed Fakhr 45 Wat Cluverius 53 Kenneth Pollack 59 Discussion 63 IV Sadat's Strategy and Legacy 71 Shimon Shamir 73 Saad Eddin Ibrahim 85 Shibley Telhami 95 Discussion 101 V Egypt, the Peace Process, and Egyptian-Israeli Relations, 1977-1997 107 Abdel Monem Said 109 Ehud Ya 'ari 115 Samuel Lewis 121 Discussion 129 III VI Egypt and America: Looking Backward, Looking Forward 137 Robert Pelletreau 139 Peter Rodman 145 Robert Satloff 151 Discussion 157 VIII Sadat and the Pursuit of Arab-Israeli Peace 167 Martin Indyk 169 Discussion 177 Appendices A President Anwar Sadat Address to the Israeli Knesset 183 B Prime Minister Menachem Begin Address to the Israeli Knesset 203 Conference Participants 215 IV Preface Few moments in the history of the Middle East were as dramatic as President Anwar Sadat's descending from his airplane and stepping, for the first time, on Israeli soil. In a breathtaking gesture of goodwill, he broke through the mistrust and animosity of three decades of war and made real the prospect of peace, Israel's long- sought goal. Although full peace between Arabs and Israelis has not come as quickly as Sadat and his partner, Menachem Begin, had hoped, the example of Sadat's courageous journey—and Israel's warm welcome to its wartime foe— remains the standard by which all future peacemaking efforts will be judged. In November 1997, The Washington Institute was proud to convene a special conference to commemorate the twentieth anniversary of President Sadat's journey to Jerusalem. Numerous scholars, diplomats, journalists, government officials, and even the late president's daughter, Camelia, gathered in Washington for two days of reminiscences, analysis, and discussion about Sadat the man, his strategy at home and abroad, and his legacy for Egypt and the wider Middle East. While a celebration of Sadat and his hopes for peace, the conference was, in retrospect, a bittersweet event; convened against the backdrop of Egypt's refusal to attend the Doha economic conference and the deepening impasse in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, it underscored how much of Sadat's vision—both for Egypt's bilateral peace with Israel and for the wider search for comprehensive peace—remains unfulfilled. Indeed, many attendees were wistful that the Middle East today has so few leaders of the stature of Sadat and Begin, farsighted statesmen able to see the future and build it one day at a time. This volume includes the oral presentations from that conference and the discussions that followed. Edited by Jon B. Alterman, a 1997-98 Soref research fellow at the Institute, who also wrote an original introduction for this book, these presentations provide both a guide to the past and, to a surprising degree, a way of thinking about the future. Mike Stein Barbi Weinberg President Chairman VI Introduction By Jon B. Alterman A nwar Sadat remains a controversial figure in the Middle East. Praised as a prophet and cursed as a traitor, neither his death in 1981 nor the passage of time have resolved the ongoing debate about the man and his legacy. There is not yet an authoritative biography of Sadat in either Arabic or English, although Sadat himself made several efforts during his career to define himself to the Egyptian public and the world community.1 Some of the controversy over Sadat arises from the fact that the future that Sadat predicted has not yet come to pass. Egypt's economy, while showing encouraging signs of life, has not yet produced prosperity for a large number of its citizens. Peace with Israel, although secure on the Egyptian border, has left the Palestinians with fewer fruits of peace than they and the Egyptians had hoped they would have. Many who have lived through the unfulfilled promises of Sadat's vision have continued to speak and act violently against his legacy. For many, Sadat's legacy is a series of ongoing processes—the Arab-Israeli peace process, Egyptian economic development, and political liberalization, among others—and this surely has something to do with continuing debates over his legacy. Those with a stake in 1 Most notably, Revolt on the Nile (New York: John Day, 1957) and In Search of Identity (New York: Harper and Row, 1978). Part of the problem may lie in irreconcilable inconsistencies between the two accounts. See David Hirst and Irene Beeson, Sadat (London: Faber and Faber, 1981), p. 59. vu current issues speak about Sadat as a coded way to criticize current leaders and influence current developments. In Egypt in particular, debates purportedly over Sadat have served as cover for discussions about economic change, corruption, political repression, international politics, and negotiating strategy in the peace process. The foregoing, however, is insufficient to explain the relative unease that historians and other students of the region have in finding a place for Sadat. The fact is that there remains a tension about Sadat, an inability to explain a man who appeared equally comfortable with peasants and presidents, a man who seemed at home with a feisty international press corps yet who imprisoned thousands of his domestic political opponents. Much of this discomfort springs from Sadat's own interest in presenting himself as a statesman and world leader. Although he certainly was that, he derived his place on the world stage from his success in and knowledge of the Egyptian scene. It was in Egyptian domestic politics that Sadat learned his exquisite sense of timing, and in that same setting that he learned the importance of the dramatic gesture. It was on the Egyptian political stage that Sadat learned to create photo opportunities, and on that same stage that he learned how to build public support without the vindication of contested elections. Most important, it was on the Egyptian stage that Anwar Sadat learned how to gain trust. He did so not by demonstrations of overwhelming force, nor by blackmailing his interlocutors with damaging information. He did so through a blend of humility and hauteur, a willingness to be underestimated, and an vni understanding of the importance of building confidence, step by step, with one's adversaries. Sadat used all of these skills to implement his vision for Egypt. His vision was not borne out of bureaucratic planning or academic strategizing, nor was it laden with detail. It was a visceral vision that wedded Sadat's deeply held Egyptian nationalism and his political sense of the realistic possibilities for Egypt's future. It is only through understanding Sadat in his Egyptian context that his legacy can be assessed. Anwar Sadat's political ascendance began with his matriculation in the military academy. Previously reserved for the scions of elite and noble families, the academy opened its doors to the Egyptian middle class in May 1936.2 The effect was to bring together in the military the very groups that were most politically active in Egypt and most eager for a change in the status quo. These sons of clerks, low-ranking officers, and small businessmen brought into the officer corps the political ferment then present on the streets of Cairo. In the years after he entered the academy, Sadat was active in many political movements, including the Muslim Brotherhood, the fascist Young Egypt, the pro-palace Iron Guard, and a secret military group called the Free Officers, which sought to liberate Egypt from British influence. He spent much of World War II in jail for aiding Germany in its 2 The ruling Wafd party opened the academy's doors wider in a nationalist move against the British. Of the eleven founding members of the Free Officers movement, eight entered the academy in its first year of more open admissions, two in the second year, and one in the third. See the table in P. J. Vatikiotis, The Egyptian Army in Politics (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1961), pp. 48-49. IX efforts to force the British from Egypt. Upon his release, he resumed his political activities and emerged as part of the "inner circle" when the Free Officers overthrew the monarchy in a coup on July 23, 1952. As a group, the Free Officers were largely unknown to the Egyptian public for months after the coup. Sadat was in no way visible among them at first, but as time passed he took on a public role as a fiery and voluble propagandist of the revolution. He was named editor of al-Gumhuriya, the daily paper established as a regime mouthpiece in 1953, and in its pages he became an outspoken opponent of Western imperialism. Sadat also authored a number of books in the late 1950s explaining the revolution to the Egyptian public, and he took on leadership roles in government-sponsored mass political organizations. As factional politics swirled within the leadership of the Free Officers, from the purge of Gen. Muhammad Naguib and Col. Khalid Mohieddin in 1954 to the dismissal of the military leadership after the 1967 debacle, Sadat appeared detached from the action. Insulting caricatures of him appeared in the press, and jokes circulated about the lack of esteem he enjoyed among his colleagues. Although he was named speaker of the National Assembly in 1959 and vice president in 1969, few took him as a serious contender for power. When Gamal Abdel Nasser died and Sadat ascended to the presidency in October 1970, Department of State officers responsible for the Middle East knew almost nothing about this eighteen-year veteran of Egyptian cabinet politics, and it has been widely reported that the Central Intelligence Agency estimated he would last no longer than six months in office before a "stronger" leader emerged.