Under Pressure

EGYPT Under Pressure Though his enemies abroad are apt to bemoan that the Suez debacle has made Egypt's Gamal Abdel Nasser "stronger than ever," it did not look that way last week in Cairo. The exhilaration of Egypt's political victory, after military defeat by the British, French and Israelis, has ended. The country is settling back into a chilling swamp of unsolved problems. Nasser finds himself in need of pulling something out of his hat--something as spectacular as his Communist arms deal or his seizure of the canal company. But the rabbits left in his hat, if any, are skimpier. What can he do now to stir the popular imagination that does not risk disastrous consequences?

Police controls, strident propaganda and a rash of rumors--of plots, arrests, command quarrels--betrayed the spreading uncertainty in Cairo. But all of Nasser's overpowering propaganda could not camouflage some of the facts: the Israelis were still occupying part of Sinai and all of Gaza, and refusing to pull out of their positions at the mouth of the Gulf of Aqaba until the Egyptians guaranteed them free access to the Red Sea. The new U.S. Middle East policy, with its implied threat to isolate Nasser if he refuses to play the game with the Western side, was a blow to Egyptian hopes that President Eisenhower had turned irrevocably against the British, French and Israelis.

But the regime's worst trouble was its gradually deteriorating economic situation. Though Egypt has found markets for most of its basic cotton crop, these were mainly in Communist and neutral countries to which Egypt was already in debt. With tourist traffic cut to a trickle and all canal revenues blocked, the foreign-exchange shortage was approaching the crisis point. Business in Cairo was at a standstill, disrupted by the expulsion and departure under pressure of thousands of Jews and other foreigners. The middle class, hardest hit by the economic crush, began turning against the regime.

Outwardly, Egypt's foreign policy continued cocky as ever. Reporting on a visit to Cairo, Lebanon's Foreign Minister Charles Malik said in Paris that Nasser insists "that no Suez settlement is possible as long as Israel does not withdraw its troops behind the 1949 armistice lines." Egypt's Foreign Minister Mahmoud Fawzi demanded a special U.N. Assembly session on Israel's delay in evacuating Sinai and Gaza, on threat of "extremely serious consequences." These might include a threat to halt work on the canal, which would bring down on Nasser's head the wrath of the U.N. and the U.S. A British visitor who called on the strongman last week reported: "Colonel Nasser told me the only thing he wants now is a bit of quiet." He might find it hard to get.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.