As Israeli troops began their negotiated pullback from the west bank of the Suez Canal last week, Egypt could look forward for the first time in 6½ years to regaining full controlby March 5of its canal. Blockaded and unused except as a bitter point of confrontation since the June 1967 war, the channel had previously served for 98 years as a crucial waterway between continents, a ribbon of commerce along which East met West. Indeed, its completion in 1869 was deemed such a historic occasion for Western Europe's mercantile ambitions that elaborate dedication ceremonies were attended by 6,000 foreign...
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