Nasser's Gamble

Jesse Ferris is vice president for strategy at the Israel Democracy Institute and a historian of the modern Middle East.

Acknowledgments ix INTRODUCTION - 1 The Golden Age of Nasserism 3 Idealism and Pragmatism in Nasser's Foreign Policy 11 The Nature of Middle Eastern Politics 14 The Place of the Intervention in Egyptian Memory 16 Structure of the Book 21 CHAPTER ONE - The Road to War 24 The Coup in Yemen 29 The Struggle for Power in Egypt 37 The Accidental Intervention? 49 The Denouement of the Crisis in Cairo 61 Chapter TWO - The Soviet-Egyptian Intervention in Yemen 70 The Nature of Soviet Relations with Egypt and Yemen 71 The Egyptian Appeal and the Soviet Response 75 Explaining Soviet Behavior 88 Forms of Early Soviet Involvement 94 Chapter THREE - Food for "Peace": The Breakdown of US-Egyptian Relations, 1962-65 102 Recognition 106 Disengagement 113 The Suspension of US Aid 127 The Balance of Payments Crisis 139 Chapter FOUR - Guns for Cotton: The Unraveling of Soviet-Egyptian Relations, 1964-66 142 Guns for Cotton 144 The Soviet Quest for Base Rights in Egypt 146 From Jiddah to Moscow 151 In the Cracks of Cold War Geology 159 The Final Unraveling 162 Chapter FIVE - On the Battlefield in Yemen--and in Egypt 174 Counterinsurgency 176 Casualties 190 Cost 195 Corruption 199 The Spread of Popular Discontent 206 Chapter SIX - The Fruitless Quest for Peace: Saudi-Egyptian Negotiations, 1964-66 215 The First Arab Summit 217 The Second Arab Summit 222 The Jiddah Agreement 232 From the Islamic Pact to the Long Breath Strategy 249 The Kuwaiti Mediation and the Return of Sallal 258 Chapter SEVEN - The Six-Day War and the End of the Intervention in Yemen 262 The Sinai Option 266 The Syrian Connection 272 The Soviet Spark 275 The Egyptian Initiative 284 The Impact of the Yemen War on Egyptian Military Performance in the Six-Day War 289 The Khartoum Conference and the Withdrawal of the Egyptians from Yemen 290 AFTERWORD - The Twilight of Egyptian Power 295 Bibliographical Note 313 Bibliography 319 Index 335