Little in Anwar Sadat's earlier career might have suggested the historical role that he would come to play in Egypt, the Middle East, and the Islamic tradition of peacemaking. As Nasser's vice-president he was a mere functionary, "dwarfed" by the charismatic Nasser, expected to be only a transitional figure in the Egyptian leadership (Mackey, 1992, p. 247). Instead he established himself as a strong national and regional leader. In the 1973 Arab-Israeli war, he demonstrated both his own strategic understanding and the capabilities of the Egyptian Army. He showed the Arab peoples, the world at large, and the Israelis themselves that the Israelis were not after all ten feet tall.
From that position of strength he began to rethink his analysis of the overall Middle East picture. His initial objectives were tactical. Specifically, his initial concern was not so much making peace with Israel as rebuilding Egypt's relationship with the United States, fractured in the Nasser years of the 1950s and 1960s. In order to approach the United States, however, he realized that he had to offer the Americans something with respect to Israel (Beattie, 2000, p. 174).
Having made that essentially tactical decision, however, Sadat began to look further. He looked into himself, and there he found Islam.
Why should I go around in circles to reach my target? My obvious and only target was peace, and peace cannot be achieved under just any circumstances. It can only be achieved through direct meetings between the parties to the conflict (al-Sadat, 1984, p. 104).
Armed with this insight, Sadat was prepared to go farther than any regional leader before him in seeking to normalize relations with Israel. He met face to face with Israeli leaders. Ultimately he signed a peace treaty, regained the Sinai for Egypt, and went to speak about peace before the Israeli Knesset.
In the end, tragically, he did not achieve all that he
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