Gamal Abdel Nasser founded the Arab Socialist Unionin 1962.He combined Arab nationalism within the Nationalist of Egypt and put more private investments to public enterprises. Anwar Sadat after Nasser’s demise changed the position by bringing in the entrepreneurial spirit in the economy.
That was in 1970 when Sadat assumed power. The National Democratic Party that is Centre right within the Arab Socialist Union was the dom8ant party of Egypt until the 2011 revolution. The Arab Socialist Ba’ath Party Syria fou ded in 1947 bu Salah-al’Din-al-Bitar had ruled Syria unchanged since 1963. The coup led by General Hafez Al Assad in 1966 left the old Ba’athist Michel Aflaq ousted from power. Assad represented the radical left and advanced Arab nationalism by increased socialist economic policy. Another coup led by Gen Assad removed Salah Jadid from the power caucus. Parallel to the collapse of a central Muslim power from Middle East in 1928 a small event in Egypt went unnoticed.
The founder of Muslim Brotherhood Hassan Al-Banna could not see what the radical Wahabism did to counter the National Democratic Party the was ruling Egypt. In 1981 President Sadat did the un-thinkable to become the first Arab leader to shake
hands with an Israeli PM. Camp David Accord of 17th September 1978 at tge behest of US led Sadat to shake hands with Israel PM Menachem Begin. A step that took Sadat’s life at the hands of Muslim Brotherhood in 1981. The MB took pro-Arab posture in 1936-39 that led to the Asb revolt. MB formed battalions in 1937 to expel the British and Jews from Egypt and Palestine. With it’s professed aim of forming a Caliphate the government of Egypt began crackdown on it from 1948.But its influence began to spread in the Arab world. Hamas the dreaded terror group in Gaza Strip is an offshoot of MB. The takfirism or apostate or infidels that the global jihadis have hold so dear, was a principal tenet of MB.
The Arab Spring of 2011 in Egypt brought MB closer to public imagination in Egypt, and I’m 2012 presidential elections MB candidate Mohammad Morsi who was elected had to step down following a massive law and order demonstration against his rule With Qatar and Turkey that still holds lot of support for the Brotherhood, its role in sharing Arab nationalism with radical political Islam was the geo-political change from the Arab Socialism days of early 1960s.MB had brought Sunni Arabs to be staunch Islamist that broke away from the Socialist character of putative Arab regimes .On the flip side it gave ideological mooring to terror groups like Hamas, that went on to embroi the Middle East in a regional war never witnessed before.
The 1979 Iranian Revolution changed the Middle East. Prior to the Revolution the Shite nation Iran was the most rich country in Middle East, with a sound economy. On 23rd October 1983 suicide bombing in US Marines barrack killed 257 in an attack claimed by Islamic Jihad Organization and Islamic Amal.
If there was the Soviet influence over Yasser Arafat the PLO Chief and PLFP another leftist group for Palestinian Liberation in the 70s the Sunni radical groups were as much active. Violence by both Communists and Sunni groups like MB were discernible till the 1973 Yom Kippur War. But when the defeat to Israel did not happen, the rise of political Islam was inevitable as the ideological force behind Arab nationalism.
Zbignew Brizezeski said very aptly “History is more a product of chaos than of conspiracy”. In Middle East with the rise of Shi power Iran that demonstrative diplomacy to be the champion of Arab nationalism had passed from the Sunni world to the Shite Iran. So also the support it extended to the Palestenian cause. The volatile situation in Middle East had seen many colours and spanned from the 1922 British mandate over Palestine. The conflict us as much for the Middle East oil reserves as for the fierce competition within the Islamic world in the schism s of Shia and Sunni.
Arab Spring:
It began with the self immolation of Mohmmed Bouazizi a 26 year old street vendor I’m Tunisia in December 2010.It galvanized the nation yo overthrow he regime. The revolution spread to Egypt I’m 2011,Yemen and Lubya in 2011.The most devastating was the Syrian civil war. The Arab regime in Syria was the dominace of Alawites a Shia minority in a predominant Sunni country. General Assad was a Alawites. His som Bashir Al Assad succeeded him. In Syria the Sunni groups Al Nusra Front and later Islamic State began to battle Syrian troops, when the regime began to crackdown on protestors. In Libya Mummanar Gaddafi had to relinquish power as also in Yemen.
Trouble was brewing in Iraq after the US invasion I’m 2004.First aQ militants battled the was a Shia in a Sunni majority country. Theee arose in the Northern belt of Iraq an ultra-orthodox Salafi outfit called the Islamic State by 2010 under Al Baghdadi. Thousands of Muslims from Europe and South Asian countries joined IS. The Syrian regime where IS found its Caliphate in … Prior to that the first terror attack happened on November 4 1979 when 53 US diplomats were held hostage for 444 days. The geo-politics is unfolding at an un-bekievable pace. But one thing looks imminent, that Middle East will never be the same again. In 2020 Abraham Accord was signed between the UAE and Israel, that was a historic step in. Middle East when diplomatic relations were restored by the Gulf States after 1993. The Middle East leadership of the Sunni world Saudi Arabia which are locked in a Cold War with Shia Iran, could see two threats emanating Iran and Sunni terrorists that could rattle it’s hold on power. From 2013 Hamas was banned as a terrorist group by all Gulf States except Qatar.
Israel had similar threats like Saudi Arabia, a nuclear Iran and Sunni terrorists groups like Hamas pose. The Abraham Accord had set the tone for a tectonic shift in Middle East landscape. The Abraham Accord and the coming together of Israel and Saudi Arabia for a “deal of the century’ caused October 7th attack on Israel.