The under reported fall of a small North African country called, Tunisia, sent ripples throughout the region and nowhere has the sound resonated more than in Egypt. With its 80 million inhabitants, economic girth and long cultural history, Egypt is perhaps one of the most significant leaders of both the Middle East and Africa. Its central position between the two regions also controls the doorway between the Mediterranean Sea and the Indian Ocean, the Suez Canal. The only other way to navigate between the two bodies of water would be to circumnavigate the continent of Africa.

The country was among the first in the Middle East to recognize and attempt relations with Israel. The move so enraged Egypt’s Arab allies that they expelled Egypt from the Arab League and the decision proved lethal for the leader who had the courage to make it.

President Anwar Sadat was assassinated two years after signing the 1979 Camp David Accords that made peace with Israel. An attack squad of Islamic extremists opposed to Egypt’s path of peace with the Jewish state leapt from a military vehicle during a parade celebrating the Suez Canal and in a firestorm of thrown grenades and machine gun fire, they murdered him in front of thousands of people.

Now cue the entrance of the recently deposed authoritarian ruler President Hosni Mubarak. He seized emergency security powers and preserved the peace with Israel in his succession. Both were maintained for the next three decades.