Suchergebnisse

The army may not oppose a civilian president, but it wants to maintain four things: its privileges, stability, peace with Israel and its relationship with the US. (Survival / SWP)

The relationship between identity & foreign policy in Egypt is studied. An overview of the influence of Arabism on the Egyptian state illustrates the Nasser administration's Arabist commitments & the gradual decline of societal support for Arabism throughout the 1960s. It is contended that an Egyptian national identity emerged during Anwar Sadat's presidency, but this change in political identity is only partially responsible for the Egyptian state's foreign policy shift toward Israel during the 1970s. In addition, certain internal & external developments, eg, state-society relations, also contributed to this new foreign policy perspective toward Israel. A comparison of Egypt's & Lebanon's attempted foreign policy changes toward Israel demonstrates the significant influence that such internal & external developments have on the success of a nation's foreign policy. The implications of the current Egyptian state's support for a Palestinian homeland, maintenance of relations with Israel, & reestablishment of ties with certain Arab nations are also considered. J. W. Parker

With the resumption of the search for an Arab–Israeli settlement, analysts have been debating the factors that have frustrated it for so many years. The fact that one Arab country, namely Egypt, concluded a peace treaty with Israel almost a decade and a half ago led some to reexamine that case to see what made it possible. The available literature on Egypt's disengagement from the Arab–Israeli conflict has been voluminous, as many policy makers and analysts in Egypt, Israel, the rest of the Arab world, and the United States published their accounts of this development. Despite many ideological and political differences among these writers, they all concluded that this foreign-policy shift represented a radical alteration of Arab policies toward Israel and that with Egypt out of the war equation, the regional balance of power had changed dramatically. Many of them also emphasized the centrality of President Sadat's role in explaining Egypt's exit from the conflict with Israel. One or another of Sadat's personal characteristics has been singled out by his admirers and critics alike as being the main factor behind the Egyptian foreign-policy shift. It is not that they considered other factors such as socioeconomic variables and regional or global structures irrelevant. They simply assessed them as not decisive in terms of their relative explanatory power.

This article examines three regime types that assert that they represent "Islam in power." They are the conservative dynastic regime of Saudi Arabia, the populist clerical regime of Iran, and the authoritarian military regimes of the Sudan and Pakistan. These regimes articulate different interpretations of Islam that reflect the interests and ideology of those who control the state machinery, the influence of society's historical legacy, and specific characteristics of the immediate situational setting. The Islamic legitimization of all three types has been contested on religiopolitical grounds by domestic rivals for power and external rivals for leadership in the Muslim world. The most effective challenges to regime legitimacy have been manifested in the Islamized military regimes. The predicament of "the Islam of the marshals" is due to several factors: their lack of the political capital available in the Saudi type of "the Islam of wealth," or the legitimacy generated by revolutionary change under charismatic leadership known in the Iranian type of "the Islam of revolution," and their antipolitical character, manifested in their distrust of political movements that supported their Islamization programs and whose leaders aspired to play the roles of its theoreticians and organizers.

Examined are three types of Islamic regime claiming to represent "Islam in power": (1) the Saudi Arabian monarchy, (2) Iran's clerical regime, & (3) the military rule in Sudan & Pakistan. Popular & oppositional internal & external movements that challenge the Islamic authenticity of these regimes are discussed. It is argued that these three interpretations of Islam aticulate the ideologies of those in power, eg, conservative, reformist, & revolutionary, as well as each society's historical legacy, characteristics, & immediate setting. The most effective challenges of Islamic legitimacy were manifested in Pakistan & Sudan, due to the multiethnicity of these countries, the military regimes' lack of political capital, & lack of charismatic leadership.