The Maghreb Review, Vol. 36, 1, 2011 © The Maghreb Review 2011 This publication is printed on longlife paper EGYPTIAN–IRANIAN RELATIONS AND THE POLITICS OF THE MIDDLE EAST DURING THE COLD WAR BY MICHAEL B. BISHKU1 INTRODUCTION Today, Egypt, one of the most important countries in the Muslim world, is the only Arab state – aside from Morocco – that does not have full diplomatic relations with Iran. Ties were broken by Iran’s Islamic regime during the 1979 revolution and never subsequently restored, unlike Morocco, which did so in the late 1990s. Over the last two decades, relations between Egypt and Iran have been conducted through interest sections in each other’s capitals. Since the overthrow of the Egyptian monarchy of King Farouk in July 1952 by the military government of Muhammad Naguib and the subsequent establishment of the Arab nationalist regime of Gamal Abdel Nasser in February 1954, Egypt’s relationship with Iran – aside from the friendly ties developed between Anwar Sadat, Nasser’s successor, and Shah Muhammad Reza Pahlavi during the 1970s – has been largely adversarial in nature and greatly influenced by the two countries’ respective relations with other states in the Middle East, especially Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Israel, as well as their respective ties with the major powers. Once the British were forced to leave the Suez Canal in the mid1950s , Nasser regarded Israel and the conservative Middle Eastern monarchies as the greatest threats to his promotion of Arab nationalism; conversely, the shah of Iran feared communism and felt challenged by Nasser’s alliance with the Soviet Union. Sadat aligned with the United States and supported Iran’s increasing role in the Persian Gulf following the British withdrawal from the region; his peace treaty with Israel and his granting the shah political asylum earned him the scorn of the new Islamic Republic. Hosni Mubarak, Sadat’s successor and current Egyptian president, supported Iraq in its war with Iran during the 1980s and has blamed Iran at times for its support of Islamic groups in Egypt. Egyptian–Iranian relations have received far less attention than the two countries’ respective ties with other states in the region; this article will examine and analyse the relationship, with special emphasis during the period of the Cold War in the context of Middle Eastern politics and other concerns peripheral to that region. While Egyptian-Iranian relations prior to the early 1950s have been described as ‘rather uneventful’,2 the failed marriage of Muhammad Reza Pahlavi and Fawzia, the sister of King Farouk, from 1939 to 1948 can be considered an 1 Augusta State University. 2 These are the words used by Shahram Chubin and Sepehr Zabih, The Foreign Relations of Iran: A Developing State in a Zone of Great-Power Conflict (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1974), p. 140. 4 MICHAEL B. BISHKU interesting episode, as the very attractive Fawzia, who had been offered and turned down a contract by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer before her wedding, made the cover of Life Magazine in 1942. Both of the royal couple had studied in Europe, but Fawzia, who produced only a daughter, Shahnaz, disliked the backwater nature of Tehran, her in-laws and the infidelity of Muhammad Reza, who became shah in 1941 with the forced abdication and exile – first to Mauritius and later South Africa – of his father accused of pro-German sympathies by the British; Fawzia sought and received divorces in both Egypt and Iran.3 EGYPT AND IRAN AND THE MAJOR POWERS IN THE MIDDLE EAST On a more serious note, events during the aftermath of the second world war and the onset of the Cold War preoccupied Shah Muhammad Reza. Great Britain and the Soviet Union had occupied Iran during the second world war to use that country as a supply route and to protect its oil fields; while the Americans and British withdrew their military forces in December 1945 and March 1946, respectively, the Soviets did not until May 1946, after demanding a joint share in an Iranian oil company and giving support to secessionist regimes in Iran’s northwestern region of Azerbaijan. The Iranians were able to defeat the rebels in December 1946 and to eventually reject the...
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Feb 25, 2023
S V Lebedev 
Open Access
