Dynamics Without Drama: New Options and Old Compromises in Egypt’s Foreign Policy

Abstract Western policymakers have come to take Egypt’s foreign policy orientation for granted in recent decades. After President Anwar Sadat’s dramatic split from the Soviet bloc and embrace of peace with Israel in the 1970s, Egypt became a reliable but rarely exciting diplomatic partner. Little appreciated has been the centrality of foreign policy to Egypt’s internal interests as well as its external ones, and the extent to which changes in either the domestic or international environment could trigger the Egyptians to reassess their stance. The present article examines the interests that Egyptian foreign policy serves, and it analyses factors that could prompt a future Egyptian government to adopt different policies in order to serve those interests more effectively. Egyptian foreign policy sometimes seems like an aging movie star. In the mid-1970s, reporters flocked to Cairo. They chronicled Egypt’s shift away from Soviet bloc, Arab socialism and warfare, and toward the United States, economic opening, and peace. As part of his foreign policy strategy, President Anwar Sadat met with numerous journalists and world leaders. After his November 1977 trip to Jerusalem, he reache