Abstract
This chapter looks at how the Arab–Israeli conflict might trigger a great power war. It seeks to answer the questions: What interest did the Soviet Union have in going to war for the sake of its Arab clients, Egypt and Syria? As for the Americans, they had a fundamental interest in Israel's security, but what interest did they have in supporting that country's enlargement beyond the prewar boundaries, when pursuing that sort of policy was bound to poison US relations with the Arab world? The chapter recounts that the United States and the Soviet Union found it hard to work together for Middle East peace in the aftermath of the June 1967 war. It then analyzes why US policymakers think that an Arab–Israeli settlement was strongly in Washington's interest and why the peace terms that the Americans had in mind make cooperation with the Soviets impossible. Even if they wanted a deal, the chapter investigates why Johnson-administration officials believed that the domestic political constraints they faced were such that they would not be able to put real pressure on Israel to accept a reasonable agreement. Ultimately, the chapter asks why USSR policy so disproportionately favor the Arabs that US–Soviet cooperation was simply out of the question.
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