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Egypt Foreign Policy Decision Making
The great risks and opportunities inherent in Egypt's foreign
relations made it inevitable that foreign policy dominated the
leader's political agenda. Performance on foreign policy could make
or break the leadership. Nasser's charisma was rooted above all in
his nationalist victories over "imperialism," and the decline of
Nasserism was a direct function of Egypt's 1967 defeat by Israel;
similarly, Sadat's achievements in the October 1973 War gave him
legitimacy, whereas his separate peace with Israel destroyed it.
It was not surprising, therefore, that foreign policy was
virtually a "reserved sphere" of the presidency. Nasser
concentrated and personalized foreign policy decision making in his
own hands, taking alone such crucial decisions as the
nationalization of the Suez Canal. Sadat asserted a similar
prerogative; a major issue in the power struggle with left-wing
Free Officers after Nasser's death was Sadat's insistence on his
right to make independent foreign policy decisions, such as his
offer to open the Suez Canal in return for a partial Israeli
withdrawal from its banks and his decision to join the Federation
of Arab Republics with Libya and Syria. Once he consolidated his
power, Sadat continued the tradition of presidential decision
making in foreign policy, making many decisions in defiance of
elite opinion and in disregard of professional military and
diplomatic advice. In crucial negotiations over Sinai I and Sinai
II, the disengagement agreements with Israel after the October 1973
War, he excluded his top advisers from key sessions with United
States secretary of state Henry Kissinger and overrode their
objections to many details of these agreements. He made his
momentous decision to go to Jerusalem without even bothering to
create an elite consensus behind him. As a result, both the
minister of foreign affairs and his deputy resigned. Sadat allowed
his top generals little say at Camp David. His unilateral
concessions so often undermined the hand of his diplomats in the
negotiations over the peace treaty with Israel that they sought to
keep the Israelis away from him. Mubarak inherited the tradition of
presidential dominance in foreign policy, but he seemed to make his
decisions in closer consultation with his advisers, such as Usamah
al Baz, Butrus Butrus Ghali, and Minister of Foreign Affairs Ismat
Abdul Majid.
Despite presidential dominance, the Egyptian foreign policy
bureaucracy was the most sophisticated and influential in the Arab
world. Under the minister of foreign affairs was a minister of
state for foreign affairs, a position long held by Butrus Ghali.
Under them were a first undersecretary and a series of other
undersecretaries in charge of geographical areas (America, Africa,
Asia, Europe) and functional departments (economic affairs,
cultural affairs, and the like). Al Ahram's Center for Political
and Strategic Studies acted as a think tank in support of decision
makers. Career diplomats were recruited chiefly through competitive
examinations and trained at the Egyptian Diplomatic Institute. In
1982 Egypt had diplomatic relations with 95 foreign countries and
had more than 1,000 diplomatic service officers.
Data as of December 1990
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