The Middle East in US-Soviet Relations
Author(s): Graham E. Fuller
Source: Middle East Journal , Summer, 1990, Vol. 44, No. 3 (Summer, 1990), pp. 417-430
Published by: Middle East Institute
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/4328141
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THE MIDDLE EAST IN US-SOVIET
RELATIONS
Graham E. Fuller
?I7HE Middle East, more than any other part of the world, has become a mod
symbol of irreconcilable nationalist passions, intractable religious exclusivism
and high political volatility. The roots of the conflict and instability lie deep
buried in the history, geography, economics, culture, and religious character o
the region. Yet, these endemic roots of conflict have been exacerbated by the
tensions of the long Cold War that imposed the ideological matrix of Soviet-US
competition upon an already fragmented region. The Cold War now seems to
nearing a historic conclusion, but one of the keys to anticipating the future of
US-Soviet relationship in the Middle East lies in grasping the origins of the
East-West relationship: a confrontation created almost exclusively by seven
decades of Soviet insistence upon its ideological role as executor of the forces of
history. The ideologues not only philosophically condemned the West to ultimate
defeat and collapse, but also developed the tools to help history along.
It is not surprising that the current East-West reconciliation comes almost
exclusively as a result of changes in the Soviet Union itself. As we now see with
such dramatic clarity, Moscow has been compelled to revise its reading of history,
leading it to all but abandon its ideological vision. Because of the Soviet walls
encircling Eastern Europe, only Moscow-through President Mikhail Gorbachev's
stunning transformation of the very character of Soviet politics and
ideology-could terminate the Cold War. The West's obligation now is to remain
Graham E. Fuller is the former vice-chairman of the National Intelligence Council and is currently a
senior political scientist at the RAND Corporation. This article was written with the support of the
United States Institute of Peace and is a shorter version of a paper, preparedfor a seminar there, that
will be included in a forthcoming book, tentatively titled Opportunities and Obstacles to SovietAmerican
Conflict Resolution, edited by Mark Katz. The views expressed in this article do not
necessarily reflect those of the United States Institute of Peace or the Rand Corporation.
MIDDLE EAST JOURNAL * VOLUME 44, NO. 3, SUMMER 1990
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418 * MIDDLE EAST JOURNAL
open and responsive to these changes and adjust its thinking to the new realities
as they emerge.
Significantly relieved of the crosscurrents of global politics, Middle East
regional conflict may, at this juncture, now revert to its native regional roots. At
the same time, however, Washington has been deprived of the trusty analytical
tool that served policymakers so well for decades: cherchez les Russes. For many
decades, an awareness of where the Russians were and what they were doing
provided almost instant policy guidelines as to what parts of the world the United
States should focus on. Moscow precisely mirrored those policies-indeed, Lenin
invented the zero-sum game-in seeking allies whose primary utility lay in their
capabilities to blunt US plans and ambitions in the region.
The primary intellectual challenge to be confronted today is to assess afresh
the character of US and Soviet interests globally. Now that the zero-sum game
seems to have faded with the collapse of ideology, US and Soviet interests
inevitably take on a different character. In some cases those interests will be
parallel, in other cases the interests will be independent, separate, and of minor
interest to the other party, while in a number of cases interests will conflict.
Indeed, this description would apply in defining US interests vis-a-vis any other
major power in the world.
DETERMINING INTERESTS
US interests in the Middle East are probably easier to determine than those
of the Soviet Union if only because US interests have remained relatively
constant over the past decades. In light of dramatic changes in the Soviet Union,
however, one standard US policy goal-the need automatically to deny Soviet
influence in the region-needs to be revised. The question is, however, how
much. Assuming that Soviet policies and behavior in the region may now appear
to Washington to be fundamentally "benign" -an assumption to be examined
later-is it a question of dropping only this particular long-standing US goal in the
region? Yes and no. In one sense the United States may no longer need to focus
on neutralizing Soviet policies in the area, but in another sense-globally-the
United States will need to redefine not only the nature of its own interests, but also
the extent of its interests internationally. Countries once regarded with great concer
by Washington because of a Soviet presence, activity, or investment thereAfghanistan,
Angola, Cambodia, and Nicaragua, for example-may now feature
less prominently on the American policy horizon. In short, as Soviet intentions
change, the range of US interests are likely to shrink correspondingly in scope.
This formulation may, in itself, be controversial. Many in the United States,
and especially in the defense and security fields, consider US interests and the
American security role as permanently "global" under any circumstances; even
if the Soviet's international agenda has markedly receded, the United States will
still need the capability to go anywhere and meet any potential challenge to friend
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US-SOVIET RELATIONS * 419
or ally. Profound political and philosophical issues are involved in debating this
question-one that relates directly to another question: Historically, how "messianic"
is US foreign policy-even long before Lenin got off the train at Finland
Station? What bounds are there to US involvement in international security affairs
or the unilateral use of force? Indeed, since the rise of communism in the Soviet
Union and its growing global challenge to the United States and the West during
the 20th century, it is now hard to redesign a foreign policy vision in which the
struggle against Moscow's international ambitions are absent. Such a complex
topic lies outside the scope of this article, but it needs to be noted as a central
theoretical problem in discussing the roots of US foreign policy interests anywhere,
including the Middle East. What nearly everyone would agree upon is this:
resource constrictions and competing priorities have long imposed real and finite
limitations upon US involvement abroad and are destined to do so even more in
the decade ahead.
The United States in the Middle East
In the absence of opposing Soviet intentions, where do US interests in the
Middle East lie? Historically they have focused on four major issues, in no special
order:
* protection of Middle East energy resources and their unrestricted commercial
flow to consumers;
* preservation of the security and welfare of Israel;
* assistance to friendly regimes in the region in order to enhance overall
regional stability;
* maintenance of US political influence and commercial access in the region.
Although these policy goals are relatively unexceptional in themselves, the
consistent differences between US policy and that of most of the rest of the world
emerge primarily from disagreement over the degree of priority and manner of the
US commitment to the security of Israel. Indeed, all American administrations
have recognized that exclusive and uncritical acceptance of all aspects of Israel's
own security policies at some point begins to create incompatibilities with other
US regional goals, including good relations with Arab states and the exclusion of
Soviet influence from the region. In short, while there need be no zero-sum game
between Israeli security needs and those of other states and interests in the region,
there are always trade-offs that call for careful balance. This has long been a
central dilemma of US policy formulation in the Middle East.
The four interests stated above, furthermore, represent US declaratory
policy. In fact, Washington has also long pursued another unspoken preference:
that when it comes to the Arab-Israeli problem, the United States preferably
should enjoy a monopoly and domination of the peace process. Administrations
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420 * MIDDLE EAST JOURNAL
have fairly consistently maintained an attitude of "Thanks, but no thanks,"
whenever alternative peace plans or procedures have emerged from broad
European or Arab ranks. The US rationale has been that those states may not be
sufficiently committed to Israel's basic security interests, while Soviet involvement
in the process had been viewed as acting in a spoiling capacity. The United
States has jealously guarded its custodianship of the peace process and, indeed,
can be proud of having crafted the Camp David agreements while doing so.
Exclusive US domination of the peace process, however, may prove to be
increasingly difficult in light of two factors: the apparent impasse between Israeli
and Palestinian visions of the disposition of the occupied territories and the new
international environment that seeks political resolution of all such regional
conflicts. The continued nonresolution of this problem seems increasingly incongruent
in the new international atmosphere; pressures will rise from all quarters to
make progress here as well. The presumed centrality of the US role in most
international issues is likely to be increasingly open to challenge, especially with
the emergence of other power centers such as a united Europe and a nascent East
Asia. Indeed, this issue has direct and profound implications for the future of
US-Soviet dealings in the Middle East itself.
The Soviet Union in the Middle East
Defining the nature of Soviet interests is a more complex exercise because
Soviet public expression of interests can be taken only as a partial guide. If US
global policies are now in transition it is because Soviet global interests are
currently in a state of flux. With the geopolitical significance and very future of
Afghanistan, East Germany, Poland, the Baltics, and even Azerbaijan highly
uncertain at the moment, Soviet interests in the Middle East begin to look
peripheral. Given the collapse of Marxist globalism and the current intellectual
fluidity and political free-for-all in all facets of Soviet thinking and society, it is fair
to say that Moscow's real global interests may not even be sorted out and
stabilized before the end of the century.
Nonetheless, Soviet policy interests in the Gorbachev era can be defined as
follows:
* Avoiding international conflict. This would allow the government to focus
on pressing domestic needs and develop desperately needed economic ties to the
West.
* Settling regional disputes through peaceful means. This policy goal is not
based on mere idealism, but on the conviction that Moscow can no longer support
military solutions to most regional conflicts, as it once did. Military solutions
become even less attractive as those governments it supports lie foundering
everywhere from Phnom Penh to Havana, Kabul to Luanda. Perhaps more
important, as Moscow abandons so much of the imperial trappings of Soviet
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US-SOVIET RELATIONS * 421
power and influence, this process of divestment at least requires a fig leaf, a new
operating principle to justify it in terms of grander principle rather than mere
weakness. Thus Gorbachev's domestic position can ill afford simple crass public
abandonment of old clients, allowing them to go down in military defeat at the
hands of US-supported rebels; it would be far better to make virtue of necessity
and embrace the political solution, letting such regimes take their chances under
the rubric of peaceful negotiations. Moscow's new-found embrace of national
reconciliation and peaceful settlement is not entirely cynical; in one sense the
Soviet Union may be grasping the newly emerging character of superpower
limitations faster than Washington.
* Countering US efforts to dominate. There is a strong psychological
need-as Moscow withdraws more into itself-to discourage the US tendency to
dominate major international geopolitical issues, especially when it comes to the
projection of US power into regions close to Soviet borders. Moscow will very
likely oppose-mainly verbally-most unilateral US power projections around the
world, hence the Soviets' new-found interest in the instrumentality of the United
Nations as a peacekeeping body. Although it is unlikely that Moscow will contest
militarily any unilateral US moves, directly or indirectly, the Soviet Union as a
major military power and geopolitical presence has a continuing interest in seeing
a broader distribution of power and interventionary capabilities among a variety
of nations that would reduce the relative salience of US power and the scope of
its international military involvement as a whole. As noted above, the United
States is almost surely headed toward a reassessment of its own power and how
it is used.
* Focusing more on Soviet interests closer at hand. The countries on the
enormous Soviet periphery, Europe, China, Japan, Korea, India, the northern tier
states of Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Turkey, and much of the Middle East
will undoubtedly remain especially important in this regard.,
EXPECTATIONS FOR A PEACEFUL ARAB-ISRAELI SETTLEMENT:
ACTORS, MOTIVATIONS, AND GOALS
Keeping in mind this outline of Soviet and US global interests, how does each
side relate to a peaceful settlement of the Arab-Israeli conflict? Five years ago it
was reasonable to argue that the Soviet Union did not want a settlement of the
1. As Moscow gradually permits greater economic and foreign policy latitude to its own ethnic
republics, the 50 million Muslims of the Caucausus and Central Asia are already beginning to loom on
the political horizon of the Muslim world. Muslim Central Asia will unquestionably change the political
balance of the Middle East, with Turkey, Iran, and Afghanistan the primary beneficiaries in influence
because of the unique character of their ties with an emergent Central Asia. How this will affect the
Arab world is so far unclear. The Republic of Azerbaijan is already in the process of developing its own
foreign policy. The new international role of autonomous-or independent-Soviet Muslims will
probably affect Soviet policies toward the Middle East in ways still not remotely discernible. See
Graham E. Fuller, "The Emergence of Central Asia," Foreign Policy, Spring 1990.
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422 * MIDDLE EAST JOURNAL
Arab-Israeli dispute: the prolongation of the conflict weakened the United States
in the Arab world, strengthened the "radical" states and their revolutionary
visions, provided fertile soil for Moscow's arms sales diplomacy, and kept the
region in a turmoil that only served to weaken the allies of the United States.
Based on Moscow's reconsideration of national interests, however, the Soviet
Union and the United States are now likely to agree on several principles relating
to an Arab-Israeli settlement:
* the unacceptability of a military solution;
* the need for Israel to surrender land for peace;
* Israel's right to secure borders;
* the need to satisfy Palestinian aspirations and rights to self-determination;
* the need to secure the goals of Palestinians and Israelis within the
framework of an overall Arab-Israeli settlement.
Moscow and Washington are also likely to agree on policies to limit nuclear
and chemical-biological weapons and, perhaps, missile-delivery systems. The
Soviet Union has greater intrinsic interest in these issues than the United States
because of the proximity of the Middle East to its territory. Both sides are
increasingly likely to agree on counterterrorist policies and to cooperate to some
extent in this field as well.2
The United States and Soviet Union probably will not quickly agree on
several issues, in particular the role of the Palestine Liberation Organization
(PLO) and the question of a Palestinian state on the West Bank. The United States
is gradually moving toward acceptance of the PLO as the primary spokesman for
the Palestinians and possibly toward acceptance of the ultimate establishment of
an independent Palestinian state on the West Bank and Gaza. Whereas these ideas
were once unthinkable, they are now regularly discussed in public in Israel and
the United States. It is important to remember that the role of the PLO as the
Palestinian's representative and any future Palestinian state not only reflects the
general Soviet vision of an eventual settlement, but also the views of most states
of the world as well, including those in Western Europe.
From the point of view of Washington, however, as welcome as any major
Soviet shift in policy toward the Middle East might be, there is an irony: any
increase in Soviet "reasonableness" allows it a greater role at the negotiating
table, which will increase overall pressure to move toward eventual direct
PLO-Israeli negotiations and an eventual Palestinian state-both of which are
politically awkward for the United States in 1990. The US dilemma is that the
more accommodating the Soviet Union and the PLO become, the greater the
dilemma and pressure upon Washington will be when it deals with an Israeli Likud
2. Indeed, American and Soviet nongovernmental delegations met twice, in Moscow in 1988
and in the United States in 1990, to discuss just such long-range cooperation. Retired KGB and CIA
officers were included in the delegations.
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US-SOVIET RELATIONS * 423
Party that knows very well what it does not want; it is for this reason PLO
moderation can never be good news for the Likud. US-Soviet friction may
temporarily increase as Soviet policies bring it close enough to the negotiating
table to crowd the United States with alternative (but still reasonable) negotiating
positions that slightly exceed US-preferred positions-much as the Europeans
have historically done, to Washington's ire.
The Soviet Union is thus getting closer to being able to facilitate a genuine
comprehensive Arab-Israeli settlement. It has pressured factions in the PLO not
to block Chairman Yasir Arafat's approach to a peace settlement and has made
clear to Syria that it will not support a military solution to the conflict.3 Gradually
normalizing Soviet ties with all states in the Middle East is helping to fill in and
cover the historic fault line between the so-called moderate and more radical
states in the region.4
Given the nature of the Arab-Israeli problem, the end of the Cold War was a
necessary but insufficient condition for resolving the Middle East conflict. Local
states and forces still sharply complicate its resolution, but, for the first time, perhaps
sufficient external conditions now exist that could bring about a settlement.
The First Steps
Aspirations among Middle Eastern protagonists and other local players afford
enough raw material to keep diplomats engaged for many years to come. How
ultimately incompatible are the goals of the regional players? In the case of the
Likud government in Israel and the PLO, the impasse at this point is near total.
The intifada, now in its third year, has destroyed the status quo whereby Israel
could afford to occupy the West Bank and Gaza indefinitely until a Palestinian
interlocutor of Israel's choice would come forward to accept something less than
self-determination. The political dynamic of the uprising galvanized Palestinians
in the occupied territories into taking responsibility for their own fate instead of
waiting for an external savior. It was the intifada that caused Jordan's King
Hussein formally to renounce responsibility for representing the Palestinians on
the West Bank, despite Israeli and US urgings that he continue to do so. It was
also the intifada that forced the PLO leadership into a new realism that recognizes
as folly the hope of defeating Israel through armed struggle and of recovering all
of Palestine.
Although recent steps taken by the PLO have represented welcome progress
to the Israeli Left, to the Israeli Right they are most unwelcome. The analysis by
3. For details on this Soviet shift, see Melvin A. Goodman and Carolyn McGiffert Ekedahl,
"Gorbachev's 'New Directions' in the Middle East," Middle East Journal, vol. 42, no. 4 (Autumn
1988), p. 576.
4. "The resuscitation of Tehran-Washington ties seems to be a completely logical step an
would benefit both sides. The improvement of Iran-US ties would assist in improving the internatio
atmosphere." Moscow in Persian to Iran, February 3, 1989, as translated in Foreign Broadcast
Information Service, Soviet Union, February 10, 1989, p. 30.
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424 * MIDDLE EAST JOURNAL
the Israeli right wing is correct: any move toward negotiating with the PLO will
lead inexorably to recognition of the legitimacy of the organization and its
aspirations and ultimately to the creation of a Palestinian state. Even more, the
PLO's recognition of Israel's right to exist within secure borders, the subsequent
US-PLO discussions, and other developments in the region have already made a
Palestinian state on the West Bank and Gaza an inevitability. No other long-range
option exists other than Israel's forcible expulsion of 1.7 million Palestinians from
the occupied territories. Any interim arrangements wrung out of the parties by
diplomats will be just that-interim and still begging for a final settlement.
Based on this logic, Likud will not enter into any "process." From Washington's
perspective, it is not a question of finessing the problem or of putting the
best face on a diplomatic process to spare Likud sensitivities. The Likud knows
what it wants-the territories-and knows what it does not want-giving up the
territories. There is nothing that the PLO can do to change this. No third party is
capable of intervening or breaking the impasse between the PLO and Likud. Only
a sharp change in the costs of the occupation-either domestically or internationally-will
bring about a change in the Israeli body politic, forcing drastic policy
reconsiderations by the Likud or bringing other forces to power in Israel.
Such a sea-change in political opinion is likely to come only with a worsening
of the current situation: sharply escalated international pressure and greatly
increased ugliness in the occupied territories and the risk of major damage to
Israel's international relationships including those with the United States and
Egypt. Another prime factor is the inexorable demographic reality. All this could
lead the Israeli Right to realize the ultimate costs of denying Palestinians
self-determination. Israel may eventually recognize the advantage in taking the
lead in helping form a Palestinian state, in conjunction with the PLO, rather than
being eventually dragged kicking and screaming into the arrangement, a situation
that would be seen as a major Israeli defeat and that would poison IsraeliPalestinian
relations for a long time to come.
Most of the international community will probably attempt to push Israel in
the direction of this logic, but for several reasons the United States is likely to be
the most hesitant to confront Israel in this regard even though Washington has
already taken the critical step of indicating that land for peace is the only viable
solution. US-Soviet differences on this point reflect only a difference of degree,
while the Soviet Union already shares similar views with the Western Europeans
and most other countries. The harsher reality is that the problem cannot be solved
simply by Israeli acquiescence to the principle of land for peace. Some of the most
contentious disagreements will arise once Israel accepts land for peace because
the issue then becomes what land for what peace.
The PLO
The PLO will not compromise its basic goal of establishing a Palestinian state
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US-SOVIET RELATIONS * 425
in the occupied territories; its raison d'etre depends on the establishment of a
state. West Bank Palestinians have few reasons to abandon that goal, even if the
intifada were to be temporarily subdued. Most of the international community as
well accepts the legitimacy of that goal. The PLO's most urgent task is to insure
that there be no backsliding on its commitment to forswear the use of terrorism,
to maintain and expand the substance of its own diplomatic ties with major
nations, especially with the United States, and to hold those factions in check that
are opposed to Chairman Arafat's actions. Indeed, a key part of Likud's strategy
was to play for time in the hope that frustration with the intifada and the lack of
political progress would lead to renewed challenges to Arafat and ultimately to the
delegitimization of the PLO in the eyes of Palestinians and the United States.
The reasons for moderate versus radical tactics are complex ones from the
PLO's perspective. It is easy for an American to speak of the virtues of
moderation, but the harsh reality is that the PLO's hijackings and attacks of two
decades ago put them on the political map and onto the diplomatic agenda of most
of the world. Indeed, the intifada has garnered more gains for the Palestinian
cause than has any other factor in a decade. If the level of hostility rises and more
Palestinians and Israelis continue to die in the intifada, will the Palestinian cause
be advanced or set back? If extremism and anger result from a lack of political
progress, if the younger generation in the occupied territories is offered no
alternative other than violence as a way of life, who will have gained-Israel or
the PLO? If the United States breaks ties with the PLO, will the West Bank be
closer to peace and Israel's security situation improved? Who can convince
Palestinians on the West Bank that they are better off without the PLO, and how?
In considering these questions, one may be disquieted by earnest Western
recommendations to the PLO about the benefits of moderation, when objective
analysis-not philosophical preference-renders such judgments uncertain.
On the one hand, only continued moderation by the PLO will insure the
gradual and necessary shift in Israeli public opinion toward willingness to live with
a Palestinian state, but PLO moderation may not last forever in the face of no
progress. On the other hand, violence, increasing costs to Israel, and long-term
fear of Palestinian demographics will also cause Israelis to see virtue in separating
the West Bank and Gaza from Israel. Yet, this same violence could also
strengthen those hard-liners who urge expulsion by force of 1.7 million Palestinians
from their homes-a solution euphemistically called "transfer."
The United States, however, in its continuing dialogue with the PLO, is in a
position to reinforce the PLO's moderation and to demonstrate that moderation
can pay dividends; the highly constrained US negotiating style with the PLO has
yet to show the PLO that there are in fact dividends. On the other side, it is
particularly the Soviet Union, as a long-time supporter of the PLO, that is in a
position to keep the extremist factions in the PLO from sabotaging Arafat's
approach; Washington shares that goal. If the virtues of PLO moderation,
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426 * MIDDLE EAST JOURNAL
however, continue to bring no dividends, will the Soviet Union and the United
States part company on the issue of where to turn next?
Jordan
Jordan is perhaps the most vulnerable element in the current IsraeliPalestinian
dynamic. By many estimates, more than half of Jordan's populatio
reported to be Palestinian, which has led to the famous dictum by former Israeli
defense minister Ariel Sharon that "Jordan is Palestine," thus suggesting that
Jordan will be the future Palestinian state for the Palestinians of the occupied
territories. Indeed, Sharon would go further, seeking to implement this concept
through "transfer" of the West Bank population into Jordan and to hasten the
collapse of the Hashemites and the accession to power of the Palestinians.
King Hussein's concern about the implications of this scenario led to the
attempt to strengthen the stability and legitimacy of the Jordanian state through
the parliamentary elections of November 1989. Potential disorder in Jordan
resulting from the political opening of the state and the strong political showing b
Islamist candidates could lead to major instability, which would have an important
effect on the intifada. Indeed, the intifada can also have a destabilizing effect upon
the Palestinian population in Jordan, especially if passions rise and the killing of
West Bank Palestinians should significantly increase. At this point, King Hussein
does not especially welcome a Palestinian state on the West Bank, but he knows
that the longer the intifada continues and the uglier the situation there becomes,
the more radical a Palestinian state could be.
A more democratic government in Amman will inevitably lead to the
strengthening of pro-Palestinian policies in Jordan and this will affect Israel's
calculations. Indeed, many Israelis would argue that they cannot afford to have a
Palestinian state on the West Bank as long as the ultimate political character of
Jordan itself has not yet been determined. Many Israelis would prefer to negotiate
a compromise on the West Bank with a Palestinian government in Jordan than
with a West Bank leadership. Here both the United States and the Soviet Union
will be solicitous for the welfare of Jordan and will be in close agreement on policy
toward Amman. Soviet relations with Jordan were cordial even before Gor-
bachev.
Syria
Syria continues to be one of the more intractable elements in the Arab-Israeli
equation. The Syrian state-at least under Alawi minority rule-has long had
regional ambitions of its own. This author's judgment is that Syria does not want
the creation of a truly independent Palestinian state because it would be a rival to
Syrian influence in the region; indeed, the Syrian leadership believes that,
fundamentally, Palestine should properly be part of a greater sphere of Syrian
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US-SOVIET RELATIONS * 427
influence, if not actually part of the Syrian state. Moreover, Syria opposes and
will move to block any Palestinian-Israeli peace settlement that excludes a Syrian
role. Damascus has thus far profited from its intransigent approach to a peaceful
settlement: it has received generous amounts of Soviet arms over the past
decades, massive payments from conservative Arab regimes, and has claimed
leadership of the radical Arab camp and the right to use all instruments-including
some breakaway factions of the PLO-in order to prosecute its armed struggle
against Israel. In short, Syria benefits more from its rejectionist policies than it
would were it to acquiesce to peace with Israel; a possible settlement would
automatically condemn Syria to a modest position within the peace camp rather
than as a leader of the armed struggle camp.
It is only in the context of the new international order that forces have been
assembled that have the potential of breaking Syria's intransigence; it is here that
the Soviet role has been paramount in persuading Syria that times have changed
and that Damascus can no longer count on Moscow to assist in efforts to pursue
military parity with Israel. Syrian recovery of the Golan Heights-annexed by
Israel-occupies only a small place on the spectrum of Syrian geopolitical
ambition. The necessary conditions for forcing President Hafiz al-Asad to the
negotiating table would have to include most of the following: a Palestinian-Israeli
agreement in the offing-with nearly all states in the Arab world in support of it,
Jordan ready to make formal peace with Israel, and an imminent international
conference designed to reach a comprehensive Arab-Israeli peace with the Soviet
Union fully backing the process.
Egypt and Other Arab States
In terms of the peace process, Egypt represents a positive force as long as the
conflict does not explode, bringing new waves of extremism in its wake. Egypt
wants the next phase of the peace process to begin so as to legitimize and
vindicate its signing of the Camp David accords. Cairo will play a highly
constructive role in any process and will also provide a "reality check" for
Washington by indicating the limits beyond which concessions to Israel in a
broader peace settlement in the region cannot go. Soviet ties with Egypt have
improved across the board; both states seem to share nearly identical views on a
regional settlement, and the United States will place a high value on good working
relations with such an important state as Egypt.
Egypt's desperate economic problems, however, cause concern that internal
instability could change the atmosphere of two decades of Egyptian moderation.
There may be some reasonable grounds for optimism in that Egypt is deeply
involved in the peace process, President Husni Mubarak has reestablished
Egypt's leadership in the region, and a measure of democratic procedures in
Egypt have served to weaken radical Islamists. Only a shattering deterioration of
Israeli-Egyptian ties would seem likely to undo the work of Camp David. Indeed,
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428 m MIDDLE EAST JOURNAL
it is up to the signatories to vindicate the work of Camp David. There need not be
any friction between the Soviet Union and the United States over Egypt's role.
Nearly all other Arab states seem likely to acquiesce to a general PalestinianIsraeli
settlement that satisfies the PLO and Jordan; some, such as Saudi Arabia,
may press for satisfaction of Syrian needs as well. Iraq is the key question mark.
Although Iraq has stated that it will abide by any settlement that is accepted by the
immediate parties to the conflict, Baghdad's longer-term regional policies may not
yet have sorted themselves out. As long as Saddam Hussein's Baath regime in
Baghdad remains so markedly insulated from public opinion, intolerant of human
rights, and hostile to public participation in policy formulation, Iraq's foreign
policy process will remain hostage to a tiny authoritarian coterie of leaders with
unpredictable aspirations. Although there are no concrete grounds for belief that
Iraq would actively oppose a comprehensive Arab-Israeli settlement, some doubt
remains as to whether Iraq may again be tempted to seek leadership of the
rejectionist camp should Syria abandon that role.
A SOVIET-AMERICAN CONDOMINIUM IN THE MIDDLE EAST?
Although neither the United States nor the Soviet Union seeks to establish a
condominium in the Middle East, the combined power of both states could exert
enough force on actors in the Arab-Israeli conflict to create a nearly irresistible
momentum toward regional settlement-one in which cautious leaders such as
Arafat, King Hussein, and Saudi Arabia's King Fahd might feel they were
sufficiently buffered from radical Arab reactions. There has probably never been
as propitious a time internationally for such movement as now.
A final settlement will inevitably produce hard choices for Israel in that an
independent Palestinian state on the West Bank and Gaza will be for Arabs the
only acceptable formulation of a settlement, though one that will require Palestinians
to relinquish any dreams of recovering all of Palestine and require the Arab
world to accept established, uncontested, and peaceful borders with Israel.
Indeed, only if the United States and the Soviet Union can agree upon this
eventual outcome is joint pressure for acceptance of broad principles by all parties
a possibility, although differences in approach are certain to abide.
Arms sales to the Middle East may be one area of minor US-Soviet friction.
Both will try to retain a share of the arms market in the Middle East, a market in
which they are hardly the only two rivals. Because the main recipients of Soviet
arms in the past have been the so-called radicals, the Soviets will be reluctant to
cut off this market entirely; the United States will generally be unhappy with
Soviet arms sales to these clients on both economic and political grounds. The
Soviet Union will see major US arms sales to Israel in the same light and watch
Western states scramble for arms sales to the Gulf.
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US-SOVIET RELATIONS * 429
Wild Cards
The Arab world has been changing at a dramatic rate over the past several
decades. Politics have grown more subtle, interests more shaded, the old urgings
for unity more muted with the emergence of individual state interests demonstrating
increased differentiation. What new phenomena could emerge that
would upset the best current calculations of how Middle East society and
politics will develop?
For a variety of complex reasons, democracy has not traditionally fared well
in the Middle East. Among other factors, the delicate Lebanese experiment has
failed under the crushing pressures of the Arab-Israeli struggle, in which it was not
allowed to remain a passive bystander. Yet Egypt has managed to maintain a
semblance of democratic practice that may be one of the key sources of its
stability in the decade after Anwar al-Sadat. Of particular importance is its
considerable success in coopting the forces of the Islamist movement into the
workings of a more open society. Jordan has also taken its first tentative steps in
the same direction with as yet unforeseeable consequences.
The impetus for democracy may now grow through the demonstration effect
of the changes in Eastern Europe, where the stirrings of democracy are now
witnessed on the world's television screens. Democracy, if it can be broadly
extended into the Middle East, may to some extent limit a state's previous
capability to generate unfettered hostile ideological propaganda against its neighbors.
Just how willing will various Arab populations be to engage in war against
their neighbors, including Israel, if there is greater awareness of the relative costs
of war and peace imposed upon their own personal lives? And how will the vision
of Islamists fare when forced to go to the polls on a regular basis and generate
programs of political and social action over an extended period of time? It is
possible that the Islamist movement may flourish less when denied the martyrdo
of political repression. Any analysis of the potential for peace over the long run
will need to understand better the potential dynamic of democracy in the Middle
East. It is now not unreasonable to imagine both the Soviet Union and the United
States favoring the growth of democratic institutions there if it serves overall
political stability.
The success of the United States and the Soviet Union in devising a
settlement in the Arab-Israeli conflict would be an outstanding test of their ability
to bring the same influence to bear on attempts to solve other regional problem
It would be a mistake, however, to assume that the simple removal of superpowe
rivalry and its replacement by a desire for peace in the world would cause
international conflict to melt away in the Third World. Persuasion by external
forces to resolve these issues would be neither successful nor lasting unless there
were some effort to get at root sources of grievances. Yet identification and
treatment of root causes in itself can be highly contentious.
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430 * MIDDLE EAST JOURNAL
The outlook for US-Soviet cooperation on the Middle East is thus vastly
better than ever before with both sides now in pursuit of a genuine Arab-Israeli
settlement. Frictions between the two states over the modalities of ultimate
arrangements, details of arms sales, and questions of unilateral US intervention in
a security role may well remain; Soviet intervention-unusual even in the
Brezhnev era in the Middle East-is even less likely now. There would seem to be
no other inherent clashes of interest between the two states except as may arise
in countries nearer the Soviet periphery, such as in economic or commercial
competition. Moscow may well become interested in working alternatively with
the United States or with the Europeans in seeking relative advantage.
The Middle East is unlikely to present serious grounds for US-Soviet conflict
except perhaps over energy resources, in which Western Europe will be a greater
competitor than the Soviet Union. The major characteristics of Soviet-American
rivalry in the Middle East would seem, in sum, sharply on the wane. Both sides
now have powerful incentives to seek regional solutions that help limit international
friction at all levels, but the region will continue to be resourceful in
presenting new challenges to outsiders. Both the Soviet Union and the United
States will seek to diminish or defuse these challenges, but there may well remain
ample grounds for rivalry over the solutions that are proposed in which each side
finds the other's approach irritating, but no longer laden with global strategic
significance. That is progress.
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