The Middle East Since Camp David

Robert O Freedman

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• eBook ISBN:
  9781000303483
• Subtopic: Asian Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Since the Camp David agreements of September 1978, the Middle East has experienced a series of major military and political developments that have affected not just the nations of the region and the two superpowers, but the rest of the world as well. The fall of the Shah of Iran, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the Iraqi invasion of Iran, the assassination of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, and the Israeli invasion of Lebanon—to name only a few events—have had a major impact. In this volume, a group of internationally recognized scholars, many of whom are present and former U.S. government officials, analyze these Middle Eastern developments from the perspectives of the superpowers, the region in general, and the five major actors during this period (Egypt, Israel, the PLO, Syria, and Iran). Although the individual authors speak from differing perspectives and viewpoints in their analyses, the book as a whole presents a balanced examination of the key developments in the volatile Middle East since Camp David.

Part 1
Superpower Perspectives

1
Soviet Policy Toward the Middle East Since Camp David

Robert O. Freedman

In the four-year period between the Camp David agreements and the death of Soviet Party Secretary Leonid Brezhnev, a number of major political and military developments took place in the Middle East that were to significantly affect Soviet policy in the region. The Camp David agreements themselves, the fall of the Shah of Iran, the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty, the Iranian hostage crisis, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the Iraqi invasion of Iran, and, finally, the Israeli invasion of Lebanon all had a substantial impact on Soviet policy. In order to fully understand how Soviet policy was affected, however, it is first necessary to deal with the problem of defining Soviet goals in the Middle East and to analyze the strategy and tactics Moscow uses in quest of its goals. Observers of Soviet policy in the Middle East are generally divided into two schools of thought on the question of Soviet goals in the region.¹ Both groups agree that Moscow wants to be considered a major factor in Middle Eastern affairs, if only because of the USSR’s propinquity to the region, but they differ on what they see as the ultimate Soviet goal in the Middle East. One school of thought views Soviet Middle Eastern policy as primarily defensive in nature; that is, as directed toward preventing the region from being used as a base for military attack or political subversion against the USSR. The other school of thought views Soviet policy as primarily offensive in nature, aimed at the limitation and ultimate exclusion of Western influence from the oil-rich, strategically located region in favor of Soviet influence. It is my opinion that Soviet goals in the Middle East, at least since the mid-1960s, have been primarily offensive in nature, and in the Arab areas of the Middle East, the Soviet Union appears to have been engaged in a zero-sum competition for influence with the United States. A brief discussion of the tactics and overall strategy employed by Moscow in its quest for Middle Eastern influence will serve as a background for the subsequent analysis of Soviet policy during 1978–1982.

In its efforts to weaken and ultimately eliminate Western influence from the Middle East, and particularly from the Arab world, while promoting its own influence, the Soviet leadership has employed a number of tactics. First and foremost has been the supply of military aid to its regional clients.² Next has been economic aid; the Aswan Dam in Egypt and the Euphrates Dam in Syria are prominent examples of Soviet economic assistance, although each project has had serious problems. In recent years Moscow has also sought to solidify its influence through the conclusion of long-term Friendship and Cooperation treaties such as the ones concluded with Egypt (1971), Iraq (1972), Somalia (1974), Ethiopia (1978), Afghanistan (1978), the Peoples Democratic Republic of Yemen (PDRY, 1979), and Syria (1980); the later repudiation of the treaties by Egypt (1976) and Somalia (1977) indicate that this has not been an altogether successful tactic. In addition, Moscow has attempted to exploit the lingering memories of Western colonialism and Western threats against Arab oil producers. The Soviets have also offered the Arabs diplomatic support at such international forums as the United Nations (UN) and the Geneva Conference on an Arab-Israeli peace settlement. Finally, Moscow has offered the Arabs both military and diplomatic aid against Israel, although that aid has been limited in scope because Moscow continues to support Israel’s right to exist, for fear of unduly alienating the United States (with whom the Russians desire additional Strategic Arms Limitation Talks [SALT] agreements and improved trade relations) and because Israel serves as a convenient rallying point for potentially anti-Western forces in the Arab world.

Although the USSR has used all these tactics with varying degrees of success over the last two decades, it has also run into serious problems in its quest for influence in the Middle East. For one thing, the numerous inter-Arab and regional conflicts (Syria-Iraq; North Yemen-South Yemen; Ethiopia-Somalia; Algeria-Morocco; Iran-Iraq; and so on) have usually meant that favoring one party alienates the other, often driving it over to the West. Second, the existence of Arab Communist parties has proven to be a handicap for the Russians, as Communist activities have, on occasion, caused a sharp deterioration in relations between the USSR and the country in which the Arab Communist party has operated. The Communist-supported coup d’etat in the Sudan in 1971 and Communist efforts to organize cells in the Iraqi Army in the mid- and late 1970s are recent examples of this problem.³ Third, the wealth that has flowed into the Arab world (or at least into its major oil producers) since the quadrupling of oil prices in late 1973 has enabled the Arabs to buy quality technology from the West, weakening the economic bond between the USSR and a number of Arab states such as Iraq and Syria. Fourth, since 1967 and particularly since the 1973 Arab-Israeli war, Islam has been resurgent throughout the Arab world, and the USSR, identified in the Arab world with atheism, has been hampered as a result. Finally, the United States, and to a lesser extent France and China, have actively opposed Soviet efforts to achieve predominant influence in the region, frequently enabling Middle Eastern states to play the extraregional powers off against each other, thereby preventing any one nation from securing predominant influence.

Because of the problems that the USSR has faced, Moscow has adopted one overall strategy in an attempt to maximize its influence while weakening that of the West. The strategy has been to try to unite the Arab states (irrespective of their mutual conflicts) and Arab political organizations, such as the Arab Communist parties and the PLO, into a large “anti-imperialist” Arab front directed against what the USSR has termed the linchpin of Western imperialism—Israel—and its Western supporters. Given the heterogeneous composition of the “anti-imperialist” front that it has sought to create, however, the USSR has had only mixed results in pursuing this strategy. On the one hand, it appeared to bear fruit during the 1973 Arab-Israeli war when virtually the entire Arab world united against Israel and placed an oil embargo against the United States, at the same time reducing oil shipments to the Western European allies of the United States, an action that caused considerable disarray in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). On the other hand, in the aftermath of the war the astute diplomacy of Henry Kissinger and policy changes by Egyptian President Anwar Sadat led to a splintering of this “anti-imperialist” Arab unity. By the time of the Lebanese civil war of 1975–1976, Moscow was in a very weak position in the Middle East; the pro-Western Saudi-Egyptian axis, increasingly tied to pro-Western Iran, was the dominant force in the Arab world, and even such erstwhile Soviet allies as the PDRY (South Yemen) and Syria were increasingly attracted to the pro-Western Arab alignment. In addition, Iraq, once Moscow’s closest ally in the Arab world, was exploiting its new oil wealth, as well as the end of its confrontation with Iran through their 1975 treaty, as a means of moving away from Moscow both economically and politically. In sum, by the end of 1976 Moscow’s influence in the Middle East seemed at a low ebb.

The Impact of Camp David

The Soviet Union’s Middle Eastern position was, however, to revive in the 1977–1979 period. One factor in the Soviet resurgence was the diplomatic efforts of the newly-elected Carter administration, which abandoned Kissinger’s step-by-step approach to an Arab-Israeli settlement in favor of a comprehensive peace agreement. In pursuing this policy in 1977, the Carter administration felt that it needed the USSR to “deliver” the PLO and Syria to the bargaining table, since Washington lacked sufficient diplomatic influence to do so. The end result was the Soviet-American joint statement of October 1, 1977, that restored Moscow to the center of Middle East diplomacy, albeit only temporarily.⁴ A second factor strengthening the Soviet position during this period was the marked improvement of Syrian-Soviet ties that had deteriorated following the serious clash between the two countries during the Lebanese civil war when Syria invaded Lebanon. The improvement was partly due to a weakening of Syrian President Assad’s internal position because of his actions in Lebanon that initially favored the Christian forces against the Moslems and PLO, a development that helped precipitate increasingly severe Muslim Brotherhood attacks against his regime. Syria’s sense of growing isolation caused by Sadat’s efforts to secure a peace treaty with Israel also contributed to the improved relations.⁵ A third factor of importance strengthening the Soviet position was Moscow’s successful intervention in Ethiopia on the side of the Mengistu regime against the invading Somalis. Even though Moscow’s choice of Ethiopia over Somalia cost the USSR some important bases in Somalia, nonetheless the strategic position of Ethiopia in Africa, its position along the Red Sea across from Saudi Arabia, and its control over the sources of the Nile made Ethiopia the greater prize.⁶ In addition, Moscow’s successful airlift of military supplies to its Ethiopian client enhanced the reputation of Soviet military power in the region. Reinforcing the Soviet Union’s position near the Strait of Bab el Mandab was the change of government in the PDRY in June 1978 that ended that nation’s flirtation with Saudi Arabia while strengthening its ties to Moscow, a development that was to lead to the signing of a Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation between the two countries in 1979.

The improvement of Moscow’s ties to Syria, South Yemen, and Ethiopia seemed to strengthen the Soviet position in the Middle East during the 1977–1978 period, and the Camp David talks and the subsequent Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty appeared to recreate the “anti-imperialist” Arab unity that Moscow had been seeking since 1973. This development, coupled with the ouster of the Shah of Iran from power, appeared initially to significantly tip the Middle East balance of power against the United States and in favor of the Soviet Union. Unfortunately for Moscow, however, the Arab unity created by Camp David was to dissipate in less than a year, while the new government in Iran was to cause the Soviet Union as many problems for its Middle East policy as the shah’s regime had done.

The Sadat visit to Jerusalem in November 1977 and the subsequent Camp David agreements in September 1978 led to a major controversy in the Arab world. Virtually every Arab state (the exceptions were the Sudan and Oman), including Egypt’s erstwhile allies Saudi Arabia and North Yemen, lined up with the pro-Soviet Steadfastness Front (Syria, the PDRY, the PLO, Libya, and Algeria) to condemn Egypt’s actions. Meeting at Baghdad in November 1978 under the leadership of Iraq, which was thrusting itself forward as the successor to Egypt as the leader of the Arab world, the Arab states voted to withdraw their ambassadors from Cairo if Egypt went ahead with the peace treaty with Israel, to suspend Egypt from the Arab League, and to invoke economic sanctions against it. The Baghdad Conference was significant not only for the isolation and condemnation of Egypt but also for the reconciliation between such long-time enemies as Syria and Iraq, and Jordan and the PLO, along with a rapprochement between Iraq and the PLO—all of which were evident at the conference. These developments led a number of Soviet commentators to assert that the long-hoped-for “anti-imperialist” Arab unity (albeit without Egypt) had been reborn.⁷

Coming soon after the Baghdad Conference, and still further strengthening Moscow’s Middle Eastern position, was the fall of the Shah of Iran and his replacement by the Ayatollah Khomeini, who pulled Iran out of the Central Treaty Organization (CENTO), ended U.S. use of the facilities in northern Iran for the monitoring of Soviet missiles and military broadcasts, and proclaimed Iran’s neutrality.⁸ Thus, in the space of two months, the Egyptian-Saudi-Iranian alignment on which the United States had depended (along with Israel) to block the spread of Soviet influence in the Middle East seemed to have been ripped asunder. Simultaneously the vacillating and uncertain policies pursued by the United States during the fall of the shah (including the dispatch and recall three days later of an aircraft-carrier task force from the Pacific Ocean to the Indian Ocean and the subsequent dispatch of unarmed F-15s to Saudi Arabia) weakened the U.S. position still further as a number of Arab states, such as Saudi Arabia—already unhappy about the lack of American action to stem the Soviet tide in Ethiopia, began to openly question U.S. resolve and reliability.

While the U.S. decision to militarily aid North Yemen after it was invaded by South Yemen in March 1979 seemed aimed at reassuring the United States’ Arab allies that it would come to their defense, the subsequent lack of substantive U.S. action after the American hostages were seized in Iran (see below) seemed only to reinforce the Middle East image of the United States as a weak and irresolute power—a development from which Moscow could only gain.⁹

Meanwhile Moscow was strongly endorsing the actions of the Second Baghdad Conference, which met in April 1979 following the signing of the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty. At this meeting, the Arab states invoked the sanctions threatened in November: suspension of Egypt’s membership in the Arab League, withdrawal of all Arab ambassadors from Cairo, and the cutting off of all economic aid to Egypt. Indeed, at this point Moscow may well have entertained the hopes of a wider “Middle Eastern anti-imperialist bloc” being formed as the new government in Iran broke diplomatic relations with Egypt, proclaimed its support for the PLO, and condemned the Egyptian-Israeli treaty and the United States’ role in achieving it.

Unfortunately for Moscow, however, this rather halcyon Middle Eastern situation, with the United States unable to gain any additional support for the Camp David accords and the Arab world virtually unified in an anti-Egyptian front, was soon to change. The internecine strife that had so long characterized intra-Arab relations returned with a vengeance with Iran playing a significant role in the intra-Arab conflicts.

The first major problem for Moscow was to come with the renewal of the Iraq-Syria feud a...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Preface
• List of Abbreviations
• Introduction
• Part 1 Superpower Perspectives
• Part 2 Regional Perspectives
• Part 3 Domestic Perspectives Since Camp David
• EPILOGUE Focus Lebanon: The Middle East, January–October 1983
• Bibliography
• About the Contributors
• Index