Scott MacLeod: Anwar Sadat's Vision for Egypt

Scott MacLeod is a professor at American University in Cairo and managing editor of the Cairo Review of Global Affairs. He was Time magazine's Middle East correspondent from 1995 to 2010.

Egyptians have hardly noticed as the 30th anniversary of Anwar Sadat's death approached this week. It isn't only because they're too busy with ongoing political protests and labor strikes as the country zigzags toward democratic elections.

They just don't care.

To the young people who made the January 25 "revolution" in Tahrir Square, Sadat is a figure from a distant past. If they think of him at all, many are quick to curse him for making peace with Israel. There is little regret or grief over his assassination by Islamic extremists at a military parade in a Cairo suburb on Oct. 6, 1981.

And yet, Sadat was a remarkable warrior-statesman…