Muhammad Anwar al-Sadat (25 December 1918 - 4 October 1986) was an Egyptian politician best known for succeeding Gamal Abdel Nasser as Prime Minister of Egypt in 1970. Unlike his predecessor, Sadat preferred strong relations with both the United States and Turkey, playing off of public anger over the forced severance of ties with Turkey following the Black Sea War. However, Sadat's move back into the NATO camp was marked by his insistence on Egypt being a power player within the geopolitical alliance as opposed to a vassal state, and he oversaw a vast modernization of the country. Sadat was praised both by NATO and by France for helping work towards a peace agreement between the Coalition of Israel and Syria, but he died of a heart attack in 1986 before his work was completed. He was succe