The Soviet Flight from Egypt

"It is now time to reconsider the policy of extravagant dependence on the Soviet Union. That policy, five years after defeat, has not deterred the aggression nor has it restored our rights. The policy of alliance with the devil is not objectionable until it becomes favorable to the devil."

ANWAR SADAT has survived for two years by giving the devil his due--or at least the Soviet Union. But he was saddled with Soviet forces in Egypt far larger and more arrogant than he had ever contemplated, and he was stymied by an intransigent Soviet position on just what Egypt's role against Israel ought to be. So last week Sadat decided it was time to about-face. Addressing the central committee of the Arab Socialist Union, Egypt's only political party, Sadat announced to gasps and grins that he had decided to boot Soviet "advisers" out of Egypt. What was more, to the astonishment of possibly even Anwar Sadat, the Russians went. They commenced to depart aboard huge Soviet jet transports that began arriving at Cairo West airbase in numbers large enough to unsettle normal air traffic over the Mediterranean.

Smaller Soviet military-assistance groups have been kicked out of Indonesia, Ghana, Albania, the Congo and the Sudan. Seldom since the Cuban missile crisis, however, have the Russians been handed such a stunning diplomatic slap over so important a suzerainty. Since the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, there have been few events in the Middle East that so upset the sullen status quo and opened the way for either resumption of a brutal war or renewed peace negotiations.

Sadat's announcement last week was all the more dramatic because it culminated a series of events that amounted to a gain for U.S. Middle East policy. "Russian dominoes are falling all over the Middle East, and Egypt is the biggest one yet," suggested an Israeli diplomat. In March, Jordan's King Hussein suddenly put forward a forthright and unexpected plan posited on a peaceful relationship with Israel. In early July, during a visit to San'a by U.S. Secretary of State William Rogers, Yemen renewed relations with Washington; they had been broken off at the outbreak of the 1967 war. Last week the Sudan did the same thing for the same reasons: the opportunity for more helpful technical assistance from the U.S. and more political elbow room. Algeria, till now another Arab state hostile to Washington, may soon join them.

No Showdown. Sadat's decision, although it appeared to take even the Soviets by surprise, had been building for a year. In that time the Egyptian President made three trips to Moscow. On each, he vainly sought such withheld offensive weapons as surface-to-surface missiles, fighter-bombers equal to the U.S.-made Phantoms flown by Israeli pilots, and longer-range artillery. Sadat argued that an offensive capacity for Egypt would either allow it to recover territory lost to Israel if diplomatic efforts failed or force the Israelis to negotiate seriously in order to forestall another war. The Russians demurred. Their policy has become one of "no peace, no war" in the Middle East, a state of controlled hostility helpful to their broader world goals. The best they were willing to offer was a joint statement that Egypt was entitled to try "other means" if peace talks with Israel failed. The Soviets have deliberately held back Sadat and the Egyptians because they want to avoid a showdown with the U.S. At the Moscow summit, the Russians easily agreed to a statement urging "peaceful settlement."

Two weeks ago Syrian President Hafez Assad stopped off in Cairo on his way home from the Soviet Union. His relations with Moscow have become more genial as the Russians have stepped up their cultivation of Mideast allies other than Egypt. The gist of Assad's message from the Russians was: no offensive weapons for Egypt. That was grim news for Sadat, who had been facing growing pressures at home.

There had been student demonstrations protesting Sadat's inaction and the unreliability of his Soviet allies. Old army colleagues who, with Sadat, had helped Gamal Abdel Nasser seize revolutionary power 20 years ago this week sent Sadat a secret memo about extravagant dependence on the Soviet devil. The contents were so sensitive that Sadat refused to make them public (a copy was eventually shaken free in Paris).

Even more alarming was a meeting that Sadat had earlier this month with high-ranking officers of the Egyptian army. They were led by Egypt's War Minister, Lieut. General Mohammed Ahmed Sadek, a "political" general who has openly quarreled with his Soviet counterparts because they hindered his officers from entering Soviet-controlled bases and spoke of Egyptian soldiers in what Sadek considered a derogatory manner. Lieut. General Saadeddin Shazli, the chief of staff, was also there, and so, reportedly, were divisional commanders and the commander of Egypt's special-force commandos and paratroops. They demanded more freedom from overbearing Russian advisers; the implication was that they would not guarantee Sadat's continued presidency unless they received it. Whatever the bill of complaints, Sadat decided that he had to act. He dispatched Premier Aziz Sidky to Moscow for what some Cairo officials called "a final friendly ultimatum." By one account, Soviet Party Boss Leonid Brezhnev, returning from a vacation to meet Sidky, once more refused offensive weapons. Brezhnev reportedly dared the Egyptians to go ahead and toss out his advisers.

Aircraft Carrier. Sadat did just that. From Aswan to Alexandria, he sent an order to Egyptian commanders that "all military establishments and equipment which were set up on Egyptian soil will become the exclusive property of the Arab Republic of Egypt." Meanwhile Soviet advisers were told not to appear at their posts and to await further instructions from their own commanders. What was not completely clear, however--and would not be for some time--was how many of the Russians stationed in Egypt were affected by Sadat's order.

The Soviet force in Egypt, which was recently estimated at about 15,000 men, was twofold. One group acted as advisers to the Egyptian troops. The other, utilizing Egypt as a kind of landmass "aircraft carrier," developed a Soviet strategic presence northward into the Mediterranean and as far south as the Indian Ocean. The advisers, working at battalion level, trained Egyptian infantry, armor and antiaircraft units and provided a sophisticated defense system to protect the interior of Egypt from Israeli planes. The strategic force flew TU-16 "Badger" bombers out to monitor the U.S. Sixth Fleet in the Mediterranean; more recently, high-flying MIG-23s also made sweeps over Israel to test Israeli electronic defenses.

Despite Sadat's ebullient announcement, it appeared that the Egyptians were expelling only the advisers and not the Soviet strategic force. Al Ahram, the Cairo newspaper that usually reflects official policy, followed the Sadat speech with a statement: "President Sadat's decision to terminate the services of Soviet military advisers does not apply to Soviet instructors." "Instructors," presumably, was the Egyptian term for the Soviet strategic force. To the unhappiness of State Department officials, who were trying to keep a low U.S. profile in what was potentially an advantageous situation, U.S. Defense Secretary Melvin Laird went on NBC's Today show last week to estimate that 5,000 Russians were leaving Egypt and 10,000 would remain.

Whatever the ultimate numbers, it was exhilarating for the Egyptians, who have long chafed under what they considered a new colonialism. "Now we have a national policy," a government official told TIME Correspondent Gavin Scott in Cairo, "and it's called self-reliance. We are saying to the Arabs that we can depend only on ourselves --to find a peace if it can be found, to fight a war if it is to be." In the Cairo suburb of Zamalek, where aloof Russian families have steadfastly ignored their Egyptian neighbors, Egyptian housewives watched with undisguised delight as Russian mothers struggled to get babies and baggage into minibuses for the trip to Cairo West airbase and a flight home. "They have irritated the politicians, the generals, the students and the shopkeepers while they were in Egypt," observed one Western diplomat. "That just about covers all bases."

Whatever the emotional lift Egyptians felt on seeing Russians humbled, however, Sadat's decision by itself solved no problem for them. Egypt still needs the Russians; with $2 billion worth of Soviet armaments received since 1967, it can scarcely go elsewhere for new weapons.

Sadat's decision makes sense mostly if it creates a shift in the Middle East stalemate. Last week the move appeared to have come so suddenly that no one else involved was prepared. The Israelis, normally alert, were caught by surprise; Premier Golda Meir delayed any assessment pending further word from Sadat. In Moscow, Tass waited a full 24 hours to comment, a sure sign that the Kremlin had not worked out answers ahead of time. The eventual explanation for the swift departure of Soviet personnel from Egypt was lame: "Now [they] have completed their functions, and the sides deemed it expedient to bring back military personnel sent to Egypt for a limited period." To Americans that had an oddly familiar sound--like a declaration that Egyptianization had been a complete success.

So long as their strategic forces remain in Egypt, the Soviets can contend with a situation that is ultimately limited to diplomatic damage. Moscow has been reduced to two seemingly reliable Arab allies, Syria and Iraq. But neither is as centrally important in the Arab world as Egypt. Some Middle East observers suspected that the Kremlin might undertake heavy-handed revenge by increasing the quota of Soviet Jews emigrating to Israel or by renewing diplomatic relations with the Israelis, which were broken off in 1967. There is not much else the Russians could do to punish Sadat. There is no sense in attempting to topple him, since Sadat has already imprisoned and displaced former Vice President Ali Sabry and other pro-Soviet Egyptians who might have replaced him. Nor are the Russians likely to strip away Egypt's military strength to the point that Israel would be tempted to try a pre-emptive strike.

Actually, depending on which way all the Middle East dominoes eventually fall, the ultimate result of Sadat's decision might be peace. United Nations Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim was in Moscow last week to confer with Swedish Ambassador Gunnar Jarring about reactivating Jarring's long-stalled U.N. peace negotiations next month. Now that Sadat has regained popular support at home and is finally convinced that the Soviets will not lead or follow him into war, he may very well decide to try again for a settlement. The possibilities for accommodation will be clearer this week after Egypt's President elaborates on his decisions in speeches to his people--and Israeli Premier Golda Meir, after due consideration, offers her appraisal to the Knesset.

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