Titans of History

By August 1948, Nasser was the deputy commander of Egyptian units surrounded by the Israelis in the so-called Falluja Pocket. It was a formative experience: Nasser was humiliated by the disastrous war effort and on his return he formed with his friend Amer and others the Association of Free Officers. Nasser consulted with the Muslim Brotherhood, but concluded early on that their Islamic program clashed with his own Arab nationalism. The Free Officers selected General Muhammad Neguib to be their front man.

When Nasser heard in May 1952 that Farouk was planning to arrest the Free Officers, he launched an almost bloodless coup d’état, allowing the king to depart from Alexandria in his yacht with full honors. The revolutionaries were unsure whether to create a democracy or a military regime. Since Nasser was only a lieutenant colonel, Neguib became president of the new Egyptian Republic, but real power was in the hands of the Revolutionary Command Council, which was effectively controlled by Nasser in his role as deputy chairman.

In 1954, as Nasser pushed land reforms and demanded that the alarmed British should leave the Suez Canal, he clashed with the more moderate Neguib. But he asserted his confidence by taking real power as prime minister. Nasser’s passionate and elegant oratory was already captivating Egyptian audiences. In October, as Nasser addressed a huge crowd in Alexandria, a young Muslim Brother tried to assassinate him but Nasser defiantly and courageously continued his speech:

My countrymen, my blood spills for you and for Egypt. I will live for your sake and die for the sake of your freedom and honor. Let them kill me; it does not concern me so long as I have instilled pride, honor and freedom in you. If Gamal Abdel Nasser should die, each of you shall be Gamal Abdel Nasser … Gamal Abdel Nasser is of you and from you and he is willing to sacrifice his life for the nation.

On his return to Cairo, Neguib was deposed; Nasser became the unrivaled president, a position he retained for the next fifteen turbulent years. He appointed his crony Amer commander-in-chief of the army before launching a massive crackdown on communists and, above all, the Muslim Brotherhood. He arrested 20,000 of their members and had their leader and ideologue Sayyid Qutb executed.

Henceforth Nasser, with his tall good looks and superb oratory, was immensely popular, but it was his embrace of pan-Arabist nationalism that excited not just Egyptians but the entire Arab world, which was emerging from a century of foreign domination. Nonetheless he ruled an effective one-party state with the aid of a growing and brutal secret police, backed by an ever more corrupt and oligarchical military junta who swiftly became rich (though he himself had no interest in material matters).

Nasser committed himself to the nonaligned movement, emerging as its leader alongside Marshal Tito of Yugoslavia and Nehru of India. In 1956 Nasser announced the nationalization of the Suez Canal, outraging British Prime Minister Anthony Eden who, facing the decline of British imperial power, now saw Nasser as a new Hitler. The British responded by putting together a secret deal with the French and the Israelis to attack and destroy Nasser. The Israelis would invade Sinai; the Anglo-French would then “intervene.” The Israelis succeeded in a dazzling campaign to take Sinai but the British intervention was a disaster and US President Eisenhower condemned it. The Israelis were forced to withdraw and it marked the end of British imperial influence in the Middle East.

Nasser’s prestige was at its height: his speeches and radio stations beamed out anti-imperialist, anti-Zionist propaganda promising the Arabs pride and grandeur at last. His pan-Arabist ideas excited the Arab people across the region and inspired nationalist officers in most Arab countries. In Jordan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen and even in Saudi Arabia, the regimes were shaken by Nasserist infiltration. In 1958, sympathetic officers in Iraq massacred King Faisal II and his family and created an Iraqi republic on the Nasserist model. In Jordan, King Hussein scarcely clung on to power as Nasserist officers dominated the army. King Saud of Arabia ordered Nasser’s assassination, but the plot was exposed and he was deposed, replaced by his brother Faisal.