Martin Indyk 2:34
All right. Well welcome, everyone. So it is our pleasure to have as our guest today, Martin Indyk, so Martin is currently at the Council on Foreign Relations. But the book that he's going to talk about draws upon a lot of history, some of which he himself was involved in, in his prior roles as both Special Envoy as Assistant Secretary of State, and as ambassador to Israel, and that he kind of weaves together those features will tell you more about the book in a second, with a lot of, I think, novel detail that has not really been uncovered previously about Henry Kissinger's efforts in the Middle East. So it's great pleasure to have Martin here, he's gonna present but the book briefly, I'll ask him a few questions, open it up to all of you, and we will be done in an hour. So Martin, welcome to UCLA.
I'm not going to stand behind the podium. I know it's law school rules after were advanced, but it's very difficult for me to speak and protect. So does anybody have an objection? If
Kal Raustiala 3:46
I'm not hearing that.
Martin Indyk 3:50
I'll stand over here cognitively, socially distance. First of all, thank you, Kal. And thank you to the Nazarian Israel Center for hosting me today, and for the wonderful reception that we had last night. Thank you, Alexandra, and the others who helped out. I'm delighted to be back at UCLA. I was thinking as I was driving up here, that the last time I was speaking at UCLA, was the day that US forces entered Baghdad and toppled the statue of Saddam Hussein. I don't know whether any of you were born in those days. It was a critical moment in history. And here we are, again.
By coincidence, I'm at UCLA and Russian forces are moving their war machine in the direction of Kiev and other major Ukrainian cities, there's a difference. And I don't want to get into it because it's not on the subject today between George W. Bush's invasion of, of Iraq and Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine legal issues to be interested to discuss the compare the two, but the basic point about patents invasion of Ukraine and unprovoked premeditated act of aggression is up ends a basic principle of international order, which is to say the sovereignty, independence, territorial integrity of states in the state system. And international order is something that Henry Kissinger prizes has studied and written a huge amount about. And he, of course, based his approach to international order, our system of states and the hierarchy of states were super powers and the great powers and the regional powers were the arbiters of the fate of nations. Kissinger did not believe in ending conflicts, that it was ever possible to end conference and achieve world peace. What he believed was necessary to strive for in the system of states was the amelioration of conflict was to create a balance of power. Turn that, you know about realist theories of international relations, real stories looking to create a balance of power and Kissinger is a realist, extraordinary impact balance of power, such that the balance is tilted in favor of those powers in the state system. We want to maintain the status quo and maintain stability and its stability. That is in Kissinger's mind, the the key to maintaining order and ameliorating conflict, and, therefore, achieving the greatest good for the greatest number. It's a very conservative attitude. And on the face of it, there's not much place for that other idea of peace or of justice for that matter. And we can see how Kissinger's application of these kinds of ideas had some very positive effects in the international system. They talked with the Soviet Union, the opening to China, but had some devastating consequences as well, in his effort to use force to achieve the end of the Vietnam War and the impact that had on Laos, Cambodia, for example, and there are many others.
I chose to write a book about his application of his theories of international relations to the Middle East, and in particular to the Middle East peace process, which he, the American led American, the American led, Middle East peace process was what Kissinger initiated after the 1973 Yom Kippur war. And the interesting thing about that peace process was that at first as Nixon's national security advisor when he finally wrested control of Middle East policy from the hands of the State Department. At first he thought that he could maintain stability and order by supporting the show RV Iran in the Gulf, and making sure that the Shah had the strength in American weapons, a cornucopia of American weapons to deter those that would disrupt the status quo in the Gulf.
In the Arab Israeli arena, the Middle East heartland, he backed Israel, against the Soviet pact, clients of Egypt, and, and Syria, and Iraq. And this was the height of the Cold War. And he thought, maintaining the balance of power in that way, plus detente with the Soviet Union, which specifically provided was an agreement made between Nixon and Brezhnev that neither superpower would seek to exploit the situation in the Middle East, and the conflicts there for unilateral advantage. In other words, both superpowers would act to maintain the status quo. And he thought that was enough to maintain order in the Middle East.
To his great surprise, in October on October 6 1973, Egypt, Syria, and while Hafez Al Assad of Syria launched a surprise, war on Israel, on two fronts, Egyptian and Syrian front. In other words, his system for maintaining order broke down. Much to his surprise. He moved very quickly in that war, to negotiate a ceasefire, after I think it was 16 days, that ceasefire eventually went into effect. But it taught him an important lesson. That balance of power was clearly insufficient to maintain order. What was also needed was a legitimizing mechanism that would give states in the system a stake in maintaining that order. In the Arab Israeli codes, Israel had occupied Egyptian Syrian territory, also Westbank but Golan Heights in the Sinai in the 1967, Six Day War, and that been in between 67 and 73. Now effective process for addressing their grievances their demand that they get their land back. And, and Kissinger as a result of the breakdown of the order that he had been tending decided that they had to find a way to give them a stake, at least the major powers a stake in maintaining the order and stability in the system. And the only way to do that was through a peace process, which addressed their grievances, such that they would have a sense of of justice when he caught a modicum of justice.
So that they would have an incentive to split with the Soviet Union that backed them to make war and instead turned to the United States, because the United States was prepared to use its diplomatic leverage on Israel, to help them achieve their purposes in terms of returning land. Now, the basic principle of the peace process, some of you may be familiar with this was territory for peace, enshrined in UN Security Council resolution 2422. Plus after the 67 War, in which Israel would would return so more or less to the 67 lines that it had before the 1967 War. And in return, the Arabs would make peace with security arrangements to bolster the peace. That was the basic equation to this day. It still exists in international law, and in diplomacy, that the way to resolve the Arab Israeli conflict is an exchange of territory for peace. The poster child for this principle is the Egyptian Israeli peace treaty, in which Egypt in which he made peace with Israel in return for Israel, evacuating all of the Sinai, back to the international border between Egypt and Israel. So that was the basic idea. And Kissinger's peace process, except, as I explained in the book, and as was revealed in the documents, because he himself, in his 3000 pages of his memoirs, brought his time in government doesn't actually explain this, for reasons we can get into, and he obfuscates.
But Kissinger didn't believe in peace. He believed, as I said before, in order, he thought that peace would come eventually, in the terms of Immanuel Kant's idea of perpetual peace, but it would only come after the powers had exhausted themselves. In other words, after they tried everything else, they would eventually come to accept peace, and end their conflicts. But in the meantime, conflicts would continue, unless you could maintain an order that ameliorated them, and therefore both time for them to exhaust themselves and finally come to terms in the Arab Israeli case. His theory of the case was that that there needed to be an exchange of not of territory for peace, but of territory for time, Israel would give up pieces of territory, in exchange for time, time to exhaust the Arabs until they came to terms with Israel, time for Israel to strengthen itself with American support, and its isolation. And by the time the house ready to make peace and in the conflict, Israel will be strong enough to give up more or less all of the territory that it had occupied as a result of the 67 War. So that was his approach.
He called it step by step diplomacy, in which Israel would take a territorial step. And the Arabs would respond with security arrangements, non belligerency, things short of peace. And that's what he did very successfully negotiated two steps between Israel and Egypt, the sign of disengagement agreement, and then the Sinai interim agreement, in which Israel first of all, withdrew from the west bank of the canal, which had moved across into as a result of the wall and then withdrew from about 1/3 of Sinai from the strategic passes in the oil fields. Two years later, Jimmy Carter took advantage of the agreements that Kissinger negotiated to make the peace deal between Israel and Egypt in which Israel withdrew from the rest of the territory.
On the Golan Heights, a similar arrangement for disengagement between Israel and Syria, which he negotiated. Over 30 days he was out in shuttling between Damascus and Jerusalem. For 30 days, he made 19, trips back and forth, inconceivable that a Secretary of State would be able to do them today. And he negotiated this disengagement agreement between Israel and Syria, which remains in force today. And has kept the peace on the Golan Heights more or less completely quieter than any other border that Israel has, including the the one between Israel and Egypt, where there have been a number of incidents.
And essentially, he better arrangement despite the fact that Syria dissenters Civil War, and he is today you know, some 45 years, whatever it is later, it's to enforce. And and that was his approach, a peace process, a lot of end of conflict, peace deal. And the order that he created in the Middle East as a result of that took Egypt out of the conflict with Israel took Syria out of the conflict with Israel, made it impossible for any other Arab state to contemplate. I'm going to war with Israel. And so it, it worked quite well in his terms, because the only thing it didn't do was solve the Israeli Palestinian problem. So when we, and I say we advisedly because I was a member of President Clinton's peace team, when the Oslo Accords were agreed on then we negotiated the Israel Jordan peace treaty. But we, in the Clinton administration, and every administration since has tried to resolve the Israeli Palestinian conflict. And all of us have failed, notwithstanding the efforts of four presidents and, and that's why essentially, I wrote this book, because I was in charge of the negotiations, I was a special envoy for the last round of Israeli Palestinian negotiations, which ended in failure in 2014. And I decided there's something fundamentally wrong with the way that we the United States pursuing the peace process, that we keep on failing in this way. And so I decided to go back and try to understand how it all began, how Kissinger did it, and had his practice of Middle East diplomacy.
And so what I learned from that is what I've just explained to you. But it was something that we did not understand those who came after Kissinger, partly because he never explained it. And, and, as, as a consequence, we all did what Kissinger fundamentally opposed, which was tried to go aim for end of conflict, and have claimed peace agreements, where the parties were not ready. And, and so now, and we can go into more details, if you like. But now, we come back to a point where Kissinger's incremental step by step approach is, I believe, the only way that we can put the Israeli Palestinian conflict back on the path to a final endless end of claims and of conflict, peace of mind. But it's going to take time, and it's going to take an incremental approach, rather than an attempt yet again, to jump to the end game, have a final status agreement, which the parties are not ready or capable of achieving.
Should we? I don't think we need microphones. So I'm going to leave these here. Can everyone hear me okay. All right. So I thought we'd start again, I'll have a conversation with Martin and then we'll open it up to questions from everyone. I feel duty bound to note that since we're here at UCLA, in some ways, the peace process as we know, it, maybe began with Ralph Bunche. And the work that Ralph Bunche did in 1948 49, leading to some of the status quo issues that are still continuing today. And it's actually striking how much has not changed from the 1940s. But in any event, that's not your book. That's my book, but that that's not your focus,
But he did negotiate a ceasefire agreement.
Kal Raustiala 23:45
Yes.
Martin Indyk 23:46
Which were consistent with Kissinger's approach.
Yeah. And for what it's worth Bunche did not imagine they would last long is, in fact, in the 60s after the Suez Crisis, when they're still being invoked in the UN Security Council in places like that. He muses that he's amazed that they're still law, he thought they were temporary couple of years expedience. Of course they lasted much longer. But let me ask you. So the core of your argument is this point about order and peace and kind of this paradoxical desire, or seemingly paradoxical desire to not aim for peace while appearing to aim for peace? And there's many dimensions to that. But one thing that I'd like to hear you expound a little more on you. You noted the Soviets a couple of times, but of course, Kissinger had a bigger canvas and Middle East was important to him, but he had a global Canvas he was working on, and he was obsessed, really with with the Cold War and achieving order at the global level. So how does that fit in to the story that you tell in the book, and how does the Middle East in particular some people, for example, suggest that Kissinger's main motive was maybe less order in the Middle East and more just Keeping the Soviets out. Now, those are not inconsistent. But I'm curious to hear how you see those connecting for now.
So Kissinger operated at the height of a Cold War, in which the competition between the United States and the Soviet Union was intense. But he managed to kind of tamp it down through detente, and through a series of quite far reaching arms control agreements between the United States and the Soviet Union. In those days of the Cold War, both sides recognized moral or less, the sphere of influence of the same more or less because the Cuban Missile Crisis was a great example of the way in which the Soviet Union did not respect Americans sphere of influence. And, and it almost led to a nuclear confrontation for the United States to make the point that Soviet nuclear missiles so close to the United States was not acceptable to the United States, interesting parallel with with Putin's warnings today, but there were areas of the world which were, you know, on the margins of the superpowers, Israel and the Middle East was, I think, probably the most important, most important, because if you look at your map of the world, the Middle East, what's called the Middle East, it's slepping, in the middle, and across major lines of communication, all that oil there.
And therefore, it is the focus of what has become referred to as the game of nations, the great game, and the great game was between in those days was between the United States and the Soviet Union, the superpowers, China was still a rising power and really had no interest or ability to play in this sphere. The Soviet Union had been very successful in lining up the major Arab powers on its side with treaties and friendship, and military agreements with Egypt, Syria and Iraq, are major regional powers on the Arab side, the United States, as I said before, was backing Israel, Iran, from Turkey, but it really didn't have a position of influence in the Arab world, with an adult boy exception of little, small, weak draw, that really didn't count for much of the balance of power. And, sir, you're right cow, and Kissinger believed that this was an area in which he could steal Arab states out of the pocket of Saudi Arabia. And he made it very clear early on in the Nixon administration, that that was his objective, that sooner or later, he said in a, in a press conference, our leaders would tire of the dependence on the Soviet Union. And then they would remove and Soviet Union and turn to the United States.
And so his argument was, and part of the reason why he did not support the effort to resolve the conflict was that he was trying to demonstrate to the Arabs, that if they depended on the Soviet Union and Soviet arms supplies, they would get nowhere, United States would back Israel, they made war, they'd be defeated. So it was a dead end proposition for them, that the only way in which they could get their grievances addressed is by coming to the United States. And Sadat took Kissinger at his word, and kicked out Soviet military advisors some 12,000 of them in 1972. Damn it, I mean, signaling Kissinger that he was ready.
But Kissinger didn't take any pay any attention to him. He regarded him as a buffer, somewhat like Solecki has been regarded before his his mom and on the world stage after the after poopies invasion. So he didn't take him seriously. That's essentially why it's a document of war. But, but once that went to war, as I explained, because you came in with this peace process, the basic purpose of it was to create an order stabilize it by taking Egypt out of the Soviet camp and bringing it into the American camp by showing that when it went to war, United States would not allow Israel to lose. But if it wanted to get his territory back, United States would work with it to achieve that purpose, and it was an amazingly successful effort in which he essentially sidelined the Soviet Union. Not only did Egypt turn on, on the Soviet Union, but half of Zola set up Syria was prepared to distance himself from the Soviet Union, as well. And by the end of Kissinger's time as Secretary of State, Soviet Union was left with kind of Yemen and Iraq. And the United States that heralded in the era of American dominance in the Middle East, an era which is ending now. And as a result of American retrenchment and the mechanism for maintaining America's dominance in the region. It's important remember, this was the peace process. And, and that worked very well, until it did. And the decline of America's dominance in the Middle East, started at the end of the Clinton administration, with the failure of our efforts to resolve the Israeli Palestinian conflict. That setback, then combined with the next thing, which was George HW Bush's, George W. Bush's invasion of Iraq, and the opening of the gates of Babylon to the Iranians led to further decline in our position of dominance to the point now, where, where it's hotly contested. And in fact, you know, we've had three presidents who don't really care to dominate the Middle East anymore.
Let's just elaborate that a little bit. So it does seem like Kissinger, as I recall, you spoke a little bit more last night about Kissinger's dissertation as a student, PhD student, which was about the 19th century and how that kind of laid the template that he would use in all of these settings, including the Middle East. And in that vision of balance of power politics that he's so believed in and even revered people like Matternet, that they wasn't stability is a bit of a misnomer, required active adjustments, there was a lot of adjusting happening all the time between the powers. So can we read from that, that one of the things that motivated Kissinger, in, in his strategy of order rather than achieving of perpetual peace settlement or aiming for it was that you kind of alluded to this that the United States remains dominant because we constantly have to be actively meddling, maybe, or intervening in a more depends on how you want to word it. And that was both good for Kissinger personally, because he wanted to be the maestro of everything, but also was good for the United States because it made us is that a reasonable thesis?
Yeah, no, I think that's exactly right. And the doctoral dissertation was published as, as a book, his first book was called A World restored. Meta Nick Castle ray and the problems of peace. Just as a, as an aside here, the problems of peace. I mean, it was there in the subtitle is skepticism of please. But what he showed in that book, and it is it is a masterpiece is the way in which caster Ray and meta Nick and Bismack often did exactly what she said, interfered with constantly tending to the balance of power, to tamp down conflicts wherever they arose. It's not that there were no wars, but it just not major. And that that game worked for 100 years until the breakdown that led to the First World War, because the leaders eventually took over, didn't understand or didn't adhere to the principles of maintaining the order that customer and Medic and Bismarck pursued and so on. That's the his basic lesson is that the balance of power needs constant tending. But there's not much in that book about the need also, to legitimize the order. That idea came later. And it's a critical component that many realists do not appreciate, particularly don't appreciate about Kissinger, that he understood that the order could only be stable. If, as I said before, the powers that could affect the order had a stake in maintaining the order. They had to feel that the order was just in their terms, as well as balanced.
One of the things that our previous discussion you mentioned was that you talked about territory for peace as sort of the basic concept, but that in Kissinger's mind, I think I heard you say, this was yesterday that he really thought in terms of time and time specifically for Israel. And so but at the same time, you said that he was surprised or didn't anticipate the degree to which Israel would use settlement building as a way to essentially destroy the prospect for swapping territory by making it impossible as a practical political matter to get the territory up. But he didn't see that coming up. So putting those two things together, what did he think the time would buy for Israel? What was Israel going to do with the time
So the principal territory for time worked, as I said, in terms of the peace treaty with Egypt, in which Israel evacuated all of the Sinai. And it worked in terms of the Golan Heights and the way I explained but in addition, five Israeli Prime Ministers, during my time, of involvement, offered for withdrawal, from the Golan Heights, for principle, work there, where it didn't work, as you say, was in the West Bank. And what Kissinger didn't take into account was that there would be a right wing nationalist movement in Israel, of settlers, inspired by biblical justifications that the West Bank today had some barriers they called it was the land that God gave to Israel was a television. It was the West back. And after the 67 War, and even more strongly after the 73 War, when they understood what Kissinger was doing, they deliberately went out and settled the territory to make it impossible for the principle to be applied there. And Kissinger can't be blamed for them. When he left office. He, there were think 1600 centers in the West Bank. They demonstrated against him quite viciously, during the 1975, disengagement negotiations, interim negotiations that he had with Robin and and Perez, who was defense minister, she my parents, but that was about agent protesting about giving up land in in Egypt and giving up land on the Golan Heights. The West Bank wasn't in contention.
We could go into a discussion about whether he should have paid more attention to the Palestinian issue. And I document there in the chapter about how he missed the opportunity. But in those days PLO which claimed to represent the Palestinian people, Jordan is also making that claim the PLO was an out of that terrorist organization was using terrorism to put Palestinian cause on the map. It was killing American diplomats in Sudan. It was blowing up American aircraft taking Americans hostage and so he, you know, he he thought that they should be handled by Israel and Jordan. But he always believed that the territorial component of the peace process had to apply to the West Bank as much as as To the Golan Heights and to sign up Peninsula. And to this day, he he supports the idea of Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank, once Palestinians are ready to end the conflict, but the I cruel irony of his territory for time, is that now, it's almost inconceivable that an Israeli government could muster the political support to be able to evacuate those settlers. So it wasn't his intention, but it was territory for time was exploited in a way that that contradicted his own approach.
Okay, so we have time for questions. So just raise your hand, I'll call on you, if you could just say who you are want to start there.
Speaker 4 40:59
Thank you. For your time, it was interesting. I mentioned three home births, I was wondering, your view, the US has been an honest broker profits. And a number of observers have noted one of the reasons one of the contributing reasons to the failure of the peace process discussed today. And my other question and also, if it's not the case, in your view, that the US is broken the conflict should any state take on such a responsibility to try and foster peace between these two parties? Or should such responsibility be reserved to institutions such as the United?
Martin Indyk 41:54
Okay, I got two questions here, like this one. So the idea of honest broker suggests that the mediator has to, to between two conflicting parties has to take a kind of middle course or not take sides. And that's the kind of essential element of being an honest broker. But from the inception of the peace process, at the Kissinger his whole strategy was to convince the Arabs, that they could only get the territory back if they came to the United States to deliver Israel. And it was the US relationship with Israel. That was critical to the the Arab calculation of turning away from the Soviet Union, to the United States. Why? So that used to be fond of saying, in explaining why he turned to Washington, that the United States gives Israel everything from a loaf of bread to a phantom chin fan of jet in those days was the equivalent of an F 35. Today, it's United States also gives to Israel. He was already exaggerating about the loaf of bread. But he understood the basic equation here, he turned to Washington, to deliver Israel. And that is why every Arab state, and the Palestinians have turned to Washington because of Washington's influence with Israel.
And so, the the idea of honest broker is misleading. We should be honest, in the sense of conveying the positions of each side to the other in an honest way, something that Kissinger wasn't very good at, actually, as you'll see if you read the book, but in terms of being equidistant between the parties, that wasn't what the ABS what the Arabs wanted was us, to for us to use our influence with Israel. And what they feared most is, is the irony was a confrontation with Israel in which we failed to deliver Israel, because that would undermine the whole concept that would show that we didn't have the influence on Israel. I know it sounds like upside down, but we're dealing with the Middle East here. And so that is the case, even today, you see, with the Palestinians, who are deeply frustrated by the American failure to actually deliver Israel in terms of their objectives and aspirations. Nevertheless, they talk about going to the UN, and they talk about going to the EU. And this comes up, you know, time and time again. But in the end, they always focused on getting Washington to deliver Israel. And I don't know whether you noticed, during the Trump era, when when Trump was solid Israel's corner that far from delivering Israel, he he suggested Israel should a next six 40% of the West Bank. So he, like everything else he did, he violated that that basic diplomatic principle. Nevertheless, the Europeans would not dare to try to take an initiative with the United States, taking that position, as much as the Palestinians tried to get them to do it. So it wasn't just the Palestinians. That understood the basic equation, but everybody else did, too. during those four years in which the United States and the Trump dissed Palestinians, nobody else stepped into the into the fact that nobody else because everybody had come to understand that it was only the United States that that could do, even when we weren't doing it.
So I think that that that's just basically the structure of the negotiation. Such that, that it's Israel's, it's, it's America's use of influence on Israel, but it's critical to the lubrication of the process. And I detail in the book, how Kissinger confronted, you tap Robin, and wildly when he was Prime Minister of Israel, the first time, we've held out, pressured, took on the pro Israel lobbying community in the United States. For four months, there was like a knockdown, drag out fight in 1975. And he he forced, I mean, through pressure, he forced the Israelis to yield to his demands. And what resulted was the Israel Egypt peace treaty that Jimmy Carter negotiated two years later, that is, has lost ever since and has been a tremendous, tremendous boon to Israel security and Israel's wealthy. So, you know, we look back with the benefit of hindsight, we can see that it can be done. Harder to do it today. And it can serve not just the interests of peace, but the interests of Israel. In the process. I think it's a very interesting case study in Africa. Now, as far as the UN is concerned, the UN, obviously can't play the role that I described. In terms of the United States, influencing Israel, the UN has, though influence on Israel, in fact, it's the other way around. I mean, not the other way. It has negative anti anti
because there's such an automatic anti Israel majority United Nations that Israel is, doesn't take it seriously. Israel is so often singled out for censure, particularly in the UN General Assembly and the special Commission's and Human Rights Committee and all that stuff, that they're not gonna listen to the UN. Nevertheless, the UN plays a an important role, I would say a critical role in terms of helping to support and police peace agreements when they made or internal agreement agreements. So you have a UN force to this day, or the Golan Heights. The UN disengagement observer for some quite sure none of you have ever heard of it. It's called under oath. But it exists there on the Golan Heights. And it helps to keep the peace by kind of observing what each side is doing and reporting to the other. I have long believed and written about this, that the UN has, has a critical role to play in Gaza, and potentially in the West Bank as well. The red is active there. It has a special envoy and so on. But they, I believe that sooner or later, the United Nations will have to come in support the building of Palestinian institutions oversee the holding of elections and creating the circumstances in which it becomes possible to to actually do peace deals. The kind of I've argued in this before un trusteeship in Gaza, for example. So the UN can play important roles, but it can't be an independent actor that can actually influence the situation.
I agree with everything you said, I would only add that it's interesting when Israel declares independence. In the declaration, there's a number of references to the United Nations that are very, very positive way. So the early relationship is irreparably harmed at this point, for many reasons. But it started off in a very positive way, where the UN was a very active participant and viewed very positively within some sectors, of course, the original Human mediator is assassinated. So it's not in 1940. So it's not a great start. But there's a much more positive start, and then by the time we get to, certainly 67. That's a long over. Other questions? Yes, right here.
Unknown Speaker 52:06
Okay. So I do have a couple of points, but like I was sick to two of them away. So you've talked about like, center, failure, and like how the peace process should be like how peace eventually would come. And I think missing parts, which also you've touched upon, as dogs, the focus on church worry is not enough in terms of the our people and seniors, there are many intersectional grievances, like in case while yes, the heart the lung back by like if you go to the Egyptian people, they also have shirt grievances with constituents who did not get their lives back. More oversaw only watch land. But now like when the killings and many blood has been shown, it's really hard to say like, well get your land back. And then as if nothing happened, all those like years ago. So just as is not only limited, I think, at least from an art perspective, to like, land or Treasury alone, which also might explain some of the failures of the peace process. My second point, as about maintaining the status quo, or like, world order. And I have two points on this, the first one is not one that might have been previously. I don't think that is personally thought, this is enough to keep up with today's problems. Just maintaining the status quo does not solve any of our existing problems and more increasing one's political ones, like military ones, to even like things as benign as climate change in the sense of like, no one is fighting.
Unknown Speaker 54:12
The second one is that when it comes to the US policy in the Middle East, especially some from Saudi Arabia, so with the US policy in the Gulf region, the focus on Jordan and Egypt and previously Syria, much have been the main main main site sense of the time, but the power and the Middle East have shifted greatly. And what unfortunately, I think in the middle ranks, at least, when it comes to policymakers and diplomats and the Gulf region, I think our perception of the US as a reliable partner and ally is really shifting to that extend. Many believe that to get what we really Want, unlike half hour saying, we would have to stop depending on the US and build our own collections, which might also explain some of the most recently happening, both between like smaller countries and also shifting perspectives on Russia and China? Sir, that's,
Martin Indyk 55:21
Yeah, that's a lot. Thank you for that. I think it's a very interesting point. So I don't want to suggest that that Kissinger has all the answers from it. And, and what I wrote about in the book was was about a particular period. In time historically, when the Cold War was raging, and the geopolitical circumstances were different than they are today. Kissinger left office in 1976, was a long time ago. But nevertheless, I do think there are lessons that to be drawn from how he promoted a peace process. That important as we think about how to go forward, for Kissinger, as I said, the Palestinians were only a player insofar as they could disrupt his diplomacy. But he considered the issue to be one that had to be handled by Israel enjoy. It was their problem. It didn't rise, in his view, to the level of an American problem as a superpower.
As I said before, he was interested in the relations between states, he didn't recognize non state actors of any client. So so, you know, I think that that, by definition, he wasn't going to be dealing with the problems that you alluded to. You're right, absolutely right, that the failure to make significant progress on the Palestinian issue led to the cold peace between Israel in Egypt, the Egyptian feeling that Palestinians have been like that, that didn't stop unless it up. It wasn't going to stop Hafez Al Assad in Syria, either. I mean, one of the things that's notable is that even back then, their concern for the Palestinians was very limited. And it's a it's kind of abiding reality. And the interests dictate Arab states will pursue, our leaders will pursue their interests, whether it helps or hurts the Palestinians. They don't have veto power. They fought they did adopt, we see that the Abrahamic coins, maybe they do with Saudi Arabia. But you would probably know this better than me. But I've noticed that that the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, has started to adjust his position. He now talks about progress towards a solution of the Palestinian problem, rather than the resolution of the conflict, Jerusalem and an independent Palestinian state of Jerusalem as its capital. That doesn't seem to be his formula anymore. And so you're you're right.
But it's it's becoming even less the case that relations between Israel and the Arab states are going to be held up as a result, failure to build on the Palestinians. From my point, that's unfortunate. But I'm just describing reality, Egypt and Jordan, having maintained a cold peace for so many decades, and now warming their relationship with Israel. And and that's for strategic reasons, which applied to the UAE, Morocco and Bahrain. And Saudi Arabia as well, but Saudi Arabia, Arabia needs more cover than the rest of them. In terms of the Palestinian issue, in my opinion, you're absolutely right. That if you approach the world as a system of states, you you focused much more on the relations between states than you are on issues which go beyond borders, and climate changes. Perfect. Thanks. Apple. And yet it still requires states to come together to take collective action. Unfortunately, as you can see, they don't do that very well, because of their competing interests.
But it is a fair critique of the of theorder that Kissinger sought to create, that it doesn't take account of these burning issues that still have to be addressed by states, but have to be done in cooperation. His model was much more a model of conflict between states that had to be ameliorated rather than cooperation between states on issues that they had committed, excluded, but it's not his main focus. Your last point, I think, is very important not to tell anyone that you said that the United States is no longer a reliable partner. And, and that is true. I mean, if you look at at the extremists situation, of an Iranian missile and drone attack, on a set on a major Saudi oil facility, the appcake oil production facility. And Donald Trump stood back and said it was up to Saudi Arabia to deal with it on its own. And if Saudi Arabia, one of the United States to do anything about it, then they'd have to pay us to do the strictly mercenary arrange. Well, that went to the very heart of the US Saudi relationship, and the content that we've had with the Saudis that goes all the way back to Roosevelt and King AbdulAziz. And it was, you know, basic content, Saudi Arabia produces the oil, we protect Saudi Arabia. And we in the oil facilities were attacked, and we didn't protect Saudi Arabia.
But it wasn't the only case of Lebanon robot has set a set of unreliability, basically, Arab States and Israel who feel threatened by Iran, in particular, feel that the United States can't rely on the United States, because the United States is now yet again, negotiating a deal with Iran. That would take off the sanctions and enable them to sell their oil. And they would, therefore have a lot more money to do dangerous activities in the region, which affect the interests of Israel, Sunni Arab states. But that the United States has other priorities, the rise of China, Russian aggression, these are far more important these days to the United States than the Middle East. And that was underscored for them by the failure of Obama to enforce the red line that he himself articulated in Syria. And the shambolic withdrawal from Afghanistan. Even though Afghanistan is a little bit more remote, from their area of major concern, it nevertheless sent a signal that we were leaving, we were ending the Forever wars. And, and in a sense, we were not coming back. Because we will focus in other regions. And so yeah, the Arab states in Israel have reason to feel that they have to look elsewhere for their protection. And the only thing I would say about that, is that hedging by depending on China and Russia, is going to end up being an even less reliable security arrangement than the ones that have with the United States. And that ultimately, your countries Saudi Arabia, is a very wealthy country, sitting on a heap of oil. And it cannot defend itself notwithstanding all of the money that it is put into defense cannot defend itself against ever vicious powers. Had in the end it's only the United States that is willing to model was 300,000 trips sent them out to protect Saudi Arabia. So we're going to go through a difficult time in the relationship. But in the end, I believe that we have an interest in stability in Saudi Arabia.
And it's oil coming onto the world market and reasonable prices. And Saudi Arabia has an interest in securing support. But I think we got to go through a period of, of differences, even severe differences. Before we come around to, to that realization on both sides, Saudi Arabia now is in effect siding with Russia. And its unwillingness to open the oil spigot and used spare capacity to tamp down on the prices. And today, probably I don't know whether you saw this, but Saudi Arabia is, is now talking to the Chinese about denominating. Its oil sales in Chinese remember, currency rather than the American dollar, which is a direct challenge to the dominance of the American dollar is the International cards. And quite sure, that won't be appreciated in Washington. So so things have gone awry, and I think, a major way and I think both sides are to blame. And we need to find a way to to sort this out, but I'm afraid it's gonna get worse before it gets better.
Well, that is a not a cheery note, but a very middle east note to end on. So we are at the end of our hour, Martin, thank you so much for coming out. We have books, I believe Martin will even sign a book if you buy one. So thank you so much for coming. Thank you.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai