Word: mideast
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...discussion in Congress of the Pakistan deal and the imminent proposal for Jordan provide just the occasion for reassessment and reversal. Exactly why the Jordanians need more weapons is one more Administration fantasy that could use clarification; they have one of the best equipped and trained armies in the Mideast and have just signed a pact for $360 million in anti-aircraft batteries with--you guessed it--Moscow...
...example of the 1981 tendency toward pointlessness. The United States, friend of democratic Israel, strikes a deal with authoritarian (or was it totalitarian) Saudi Arabia, avowed enemy of Israel, for the largest arms sale ever. The United States then makes hostility to authoritarian Libya the cornerstone of a vague Mideast policy. Democratic Israel grows distrustful of the democratic United States and takes provocative and uncalled-for action against authoritarian Syria. The United States then violates a treaty with Israel. With the two democratic friends at loggerheads, authoritarian Saudi Arabia undertakes rapprochement with authoritarian Libya...
After AWACS vote, the Administration is adrift in the Mideast...
When he died, the peace process was a commonplace; Egypt's friendship with America was a cornerstone of Mideast stability. By his journey to Jerusalem he had demonstrated to our country, obsessed with the tangible, the transcendence of nobility. In the process he had accomplished more for the Arab cause than those of his brethren whose specialty was belligerent rhetoric. He had recovered more territory, obtained more help from the West, and done more to make the Arab case reputable internationally than any of the leaders who regularly abused him at meetings of the so-called rejectionist front...
Moreover, all these roles rested not on written agreements but on personal understandings between Sadat and the American Presidents and diplomats with whom he dealt. Says one senior American military officer: "Geography guaranteed Egypt a central role in any Mideast military equation, but it was Sadat who made Egypt the linchpin of our strategy." Adds former Under Secretary of State Joseph Sisco: "Personality is more important to diplomacy in the Middle East than in any other part of the world. The question of personal trust often looms larger than economic, political and strategic conditions...