Report to the Congress on United States
Foreign Policy
(February 9, 1972)
MIDDLE EAST
"What I am saying to you today is not that I predict
a Mideastern settlement. I do say that it is in the interests of both
major powers, the Soviet Union and the United States, not to allow that
very explosive part of the world to drive them into a confrontation
that neither of them wants, although our interests are very diametrically
opposed in that part of the world--except our common interest in not
becoming involved in a war."
Media Briefing
Rochester, New York
June 18, 1971
Soon after taking office, I pledged that we would
"pursue every possible avenue to peace in the Mideast that we can."
An end to the perpetual state of crisis in the Middle
East would be a major contribution to the stability of global peace.
It would free energies and resources for the building of a better life
for the people of the area. It would reduce the danger of a new clash
and spreading war. It would remove a major obstacle to the fuller development
of productive ties between the countries of the region and the outside
world.
I also pledged that the United States would now assume
the initiative. Inaction was unlikely to promote peace; it was more
likely to allow the situation to deteriorate once again into war as
it did in 1967. It was our responsibility to engage actively in the
search for a settlement, in full awareness of the difficulties we would
face.
In 1971, the danger of war was contained, although
the risk remained high. New approaches to a settlement were explored,
although up to now without result.
--The cease-fire between Israel and its neighbors,
brought about by our initiative the previous year, endured through 1971.
It has now lasted 18 months. It was in the interest of each side to
maintain it, and to make it possible for the other side to do so.
--Efforts to achieve an overall Arab-Israeli settlement lost momentum.
Egypt and Israel, with our help, then explored the possibility of an
interim agreement--a set of concrete steps toward peace which did not
require addressing all the issues of a comprehensive settlement at the
outset.
--Despite our restraint in our military supply policy,
substantial new Soviet pledges and shipments of arms to Egypt continued
the arms race. At the end of the year I felt obliged to reiterate that
the United States would not allow the military balance to be upset.
--The USSR continued to build up its own military facilities in Egypt
and to station increasingly sophisticated weaponry there.
In the Middle East, as elsewhere in Asia and Africa,
the essential problem of peace in the 20th century has been to shape
new patterns of order. The postwar period--the first generation of independence
in most of the Middle East--has seen continual turmoil. If this is to
give way to a new era of stability, new relationships must be shaped--accommodating
national aspirations, fulfilling hopes for social progress and providing
a structure of security.
The obstacles today are many.
Local tensions in the Middle East periodically threaten
to break into open conflict. The Arab-Israeli conflict is foremost among
these. But there are others. In the Persian Gulf, the special treaty
relationships between Britain and some of the sheikhdoms ended in 1971;
the stability of new political entities and structures remains to be
consolidated. On Cyprus, the Greek and Turkish Cypriot communities have
still not found a durable formula of reconciliation. Rivalries--personal,
religious, ethnic, economic, ideological, and otherwise--divide the
Islamic world. The Palestinian people, dispersed throughout the Arab
world, continue to press their struggle for a homeland on the conscience
and policies of Arab governments, exacerbating tensions within and among
Arab countries and with Israel. Stable and moderate governments are
threatened by subversive movements, some aided and supported from outside.
The competitive interests of the great powers are a
further source of tension, adding to local instabilities and posing
the risk of wider and more dangerous conflict. As I wrote in February
1970: "One of the lessons of 1967 was that local events and forces
have a momentum of their own, and that conscious and serious effort
is required for the major powers to resist being caught up in them."
There must be understandings on the part of the great powers, tacit
or explicit, on the limits of acceptable behavior.
In the Middle East, new relationships with the world
outside are developing. There are temptations for some great powers
to exploit these relationships, to increase their military involvement
or to obstruct peacemaking efforts in the quest for unilateral political
advantage in the region. This only fuels local tensions, with consequences
transcending the issues in the local dispute. But there are also opportunities
for the great powers to contribute cooperatively to the search for Middle
East peace, and thereby to further the constructive trends in their
own global relations.
A secure peace in the Middle East requires stable
relations on both levels-accommodation within the region and a balance
among the powers outside.
ARAB-ISRAELI SETTLEMENT
The greatest threat to peace and stability in the Middle
East remains the Arab-Israeli conflict. Last year saw a new approach
to beginning negotiations. This negotiating process has not yet produced
results. But the United States undertook its major diplomatic effort
of the past three years with no illusions about the obstacles in the
way of a settlement.
It is one of the ironies of history that the 20th century
has thrown together into bitter conflict these two peoples who had lived
and worked peacefully side by side in the Middle East for centuries.
In the last fifty years, and particularly since independence, they have
been locked in incessant struggle. The Arabs saw the new State of Israel
as an unwanted intruder in an Arab world and the plight of the Palestinian
refugees as an historic injustice; to the Israelis, refugees of a holocaust,
survival was more than a cliche of political rhetoric. To negotiate
a peace between these two peoples requires overcoming an extraordinary
legacy of mutual fear and mistrust.
The Israelis seek concrete security. To them this means
more than an Arab offer of formal peace; it means Arab willingness to
let Israel exist on terms which do not leave it vulnerable to future
reversals of Arab policy. To Israel, security will require changes in
its pre-1967 borders, as well as such additional protection as demilitarization
and international guarantees might provide. Israel points out--and cites
the recent war in South Asia as an example--that a formal state of peace
does not by itself assure security, and that international guarantees
are no substitute for the physical conditions and means for security.
In the absence of a settlement negotiated by the parties without preconditions,
Israel continues to hold the territories captured in the 1967 war.
The Arabs, on the other hand, want advance assurance
that all the captured territories will be returned. They also seek a
just settlement of the grievances of the Palestinians. Some Arab governments
have said that they are prepared to accept Israel as it was between
1949 and 1967, but that any enlargement of Israel beyond that is intolerable
and implies Israeli expansionist designs. Thus they resist any changes
in the pre-war borders. In the meantime, the Arabs feel they cannot
allow the situation to become frozen; they stress their determination
to struggle as long as Israel holds Arab lands.
This seemingly vicious circle is the objective difficulty
which has stood in the way of a settlement. Two approaches to break
this impasse have been tried.
--One way has been to attempt to gain all the major
mutual assurances required-peace for Israel, the territories for the
Arabs--as the first stage in a negotiation. This approach has characterized
most of the peace efforts since 1967. Some outside party or group-Ambassador
Jarring, the special representative of the UN Secretary General; the
Four Powers; or the U.S. and USSR--has tried to develop formulae containing
sufficient commitments by each side to give the other hope of achieving
what it wants in a negotiation.
--A second route, tried for the first time in 1971, is to begin a process
of negotiation without pre-arranged commitments on the fundamental issues.
The hope would be that an interim agreement, or the momentum of the
bargaining process itself, would create conditions facilitating the
more basic settlement.
The Search for a Comprehensive Solution. From 1969
to early 1971, the quest for peace in the Middle East was a search for
a formula for a comprehensive political solution. The agreed and accepted
framework was, and remains, UN Security Council Resolution 242 of November
22, 1967. The effort went through two distinct phases.
In 1969 the United States first undertook to engage
other powers in the negotiating effort. We did not feel that the U.S.
alone should assume exclusive responsibility for making and keeping
peace in the Middle East. First responsibility, of course, lay with
the parties to the conflict. But it was also true that the Soviet Union
and other powers with interests in the region would have to accept some
responsibility, or else no structure of peace would last. We therefore
conducted talks bilaterally with the USSR, and at the UN together with
the USSR, Britain, and France, searching for a formula which all sides
could accept as a starting point for negotiation. The Soviets turned
that effort aside at the end of 1969. Tensions in the area increased
sharply in the spring of 1970, with frequent and serious military clashes
between Israel and Egypt and stepped-up activity by Palestinian guerrillas.
In the second phase, in response to that renewed tension
and to the Soviet Union's apparent loss of interest in further cooperative
effort, the U.S. decided by June 1970 that it had no responsible choice
but to try on its own to break the spiral of violence. We could not
stand by and watch the situation deteriorate into war. We therefore
took a major initiative. We invited Israel and the Arabs to "stop
shooting and start talking." We proposed a cease-fire and military
standstill, to pave the way for a renewed effort at negotiation. The
parties accepted our proposal in August. The autumn of 1970, however,
was absorbed in dealing with new conflicts--the Soviet-Egyptian violations
of the standstill agreement, and the breakdown of domestic order in
Jordan and the invasion of Jordan by Syrian forces in September.
In January 1971, Ambassador Jarring finally began discussions
with both Israel and Egypt on launching negotiations. He sought assurance
from Egypt and Israel that negotiations could proceed on the basis of
(a) an Israeli "commitment to withdraw its forces from occupied
United Arab Republic territory to the former international boundary
between Egypt and the British mandate of Palestine," and (b) an
Egyptian "commitment to enter into a peace agreement with Israel."
Egypt gave a qualified commitment to this effect. Israel was willing
to enter talks looking toward agreement on secure and recognized borders
but not to agree in advance to withdraw to the former international
border. Ambassador Jarring's effort lost momentum at the end of February.
The Search for an Interim Agreement. Attention then
turned to another approach-an interim step toward peace in the form
of an agreement for reopening the Suez Canal and a partial withdrawal
of Israeli troops. This idea, which had been suggested publicly by both
Israeli and Egyptian officials, was explored by the Secretary of State
in May 1971 during his trip to the area and through subsequent diplomatic
contacts. By autumn we had identified six principal issues in this negotiation:
--The relationship between an interim agreement and
an overall settlement;
--Duration of the cease-fire to preserve a tolerable climate for ongoing
talks;
--The extent of withdrawal of military forces from the Canal;
--The nature of supervisory, arrangements;
--The nature of the Egyptian presence east of the Canal; and
--The use of the Canal by Israel during the period of an interim agreement.
These were not technical questions. To the parties, they went to the
heart of the basic issues of security and peace. An interim agreement,
for example, is acceptable to Egypt only to the extent that it implies
or is linked to final recovery of all the occupied territories. But
to Israel an interim agreement is acceptable only if it does not confirm
that territories will be restored without negotiation on secure borders.
The interim approach, however, offers hope only if it can make progress
on concrete steps. But it can make such progress only if it can somehow
put aside temporarily the two sides' fundamental differences regarding
the final settlement. The more ambitious the proposed formula for an
interim agreement, the more it risks foundering over those very differences.
Throughout all these negotiations, each side has sought
to influence the other's negotiating position by increasing its own
military strength. I have stated on several occasions in the past year
that an arms balance is essential to stability but that military equilibrium
alone cannot produce peace. The U.S. has demonstrated its commitment
to maintaining a military, balance that can serve as a foundation for
negotiation, but we have also made intensive efforts to start peace
negotiations. We have no other choice. A settlement is in the basic
interest of both sides, of the United States, and of world peace.
THE NEED FOR GREAT POWER RESTRAINT
The Arab-Israeli conflict is not in the first instance
a U.S.-Soviet dispute, nor can it be settled by the global powers. But
it is clear that the posture of the major powers can facilitate or inhibit
agreement. Their arms can fuel the conflict; their diplomatic positions
can make it more intractable; their exploitation of tension for unilateral
gain can foment new crises. Hopes for peace will be undermined if either
the U.S. or the USSR feels that the other is either using a negotiation
or delaying a settlement to improve its political position at the expense
of the other.
In this regard, the Soviet Union's effort to use the
Arab-Israeli conflict to perpetuate and expand its own military position
in Egypt has been a matter of concern to the United States. The USSR
has taken advantage of Egypt's increasing dependence on Soviet military
supply to gain the use of naval and air facilities in Egypt. This has
serious implications for the stability of the balance of power locally,
regionally in the Eastern Mediterranean, and globally. The Atlantic
Alliance cannot ignore the possible implications of this move for the
stability of the East-West relationship.
This is but one example of the consequences of the
failure of the U.S. and USSR to reach some general understanding on
the basic conditions of stability in the Middle East. Fundamental interests
of the major powers are involved and some measure of disagreement is
inevitable. Neither great power would succeed in helping the parties
reach a settlement if its efforts ran counter to the interests of the
other, or if the other refused to cooperate.
This was the rationale of our dialogue with the USSR
on the Middle East in 1969. Those talks unfortunately foundered because
of two developments.
--The Soviet Union tried to draw a final political
and territorial blueprint, including final boundaries, instead of helping
launch a process of negotiation. We envisioned that boundaries could
be drawn in the course of such a process to make them more secure, though
it was our view that changes would not be substantial. In the fall of
1969, we reached an understanding with the USSR on a possible procedure
for indirect Arab-Israeli talks. In December 1969, the Soviet Union
changed its mind on this understanding.
--The Soviet Union applied its energies in early 1970
to a major military buildup in Egypt, which further delayed negotiation.
Egypt's "war of attrition" along the Suez Canal had grown
in intensity and Israel had responded with air raids deep into Egypt.
The Soviets thereupon deployed in Egypt some 80 surface-to-air missile
installations, several squadrons of combat aircraft with Soviet pilots,
5,000 missile crew members and technicians, and about 11,000 other advisers.
This buildup continued through the summer of 1970, and Soviet personnel
were directly involved in violations of the standstill agreement of
August 7. Israel refused to negotiate until the violations were rectified.
The U.S. provided Israel with means to cope with this situation. The
Soviets since that time have introduced into Egypt SA-6 mobile surface-to-air
missiles and the FOXBAT and other advanced MIG aircraft. Most recently
they have reintroduced TU-16 bombers equipped with long-range air-to-surface
missiles. Much of this equipment was operated and defended exclusively
by Soviets.
The Soviet Union has an interest in avoiding major
conflict in the Middle East. We hope the Soviet Union understands that
it can serve this interest best by restraint in arms supply, refraining
from the use of this dispute to enhance its own military position, and
encouraging the negotiation of a peace.
ISSUES FOR THE FUTURE
The urgent necessity, of course, is to find a way to
an Arab-Israeli settlement.
--At a minimum, the cease-fire must be maintained
if the climate for negotiations is to be preserved. Progress in negotiations,
in turn, would provide valuable additional incentive for choosing political
instead of military solutions.
--The military balance must not be allowed to tempt one side to seek
an easy victory or panic the other side into a move of desperation.
An end to the arms race, of course, would be the best hope for a stable
balance over the longer term.
--Maintaining the military balance, however, is not
by itself a policy which can bring peace. The search for an overall
Arab-Israeli settlement will continue under Ambassador Jarring's auspices.
Our efforts to help the parties achieve an interim agreement will also
continue, as long as the parties wish. The interim approach, if it is
to succeed, must find a way to make progress on practical and partial
aspects of the situation without raising all the contentious issues
that obstruct a comprehensive solution.
--The U.S. and the USSR can contribute to the process of settlement
by encouraging Arabs and Israelis to begin serious negotiation The great
powers also have a responsibility to enhance, not undermine, the basic
conditions of stability in the area. Injecting the global strategic
rivalry into the region is incompatible with Middle East peace and with
detente in U.S.-Soviet relations.
Peace would free the energies and resources of the
Middle East for the more fruitful enterprises of economic and social
development. The United States looks hopefully toward a new era of constructive
and mutually beneficial relations with all the nations and people of
the area. The realization of these hopes--theirs and ours--depends on
the achievement of peace.
Sources: Public Papers of the President |