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[[File:Nixon_30-0316a.jpg|thumbnail|300px|left|President Richard Nixon]]
The 1973 Arab-Israeli War was a watershed moment for U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. It forced the Nixon administration to realize that Arab frustration over Israel’s unwillingness to withdraw from the territories it had occupied in 1967 could have major strategic consequences for the United States. The war thus paved the way for Secretary of State Henry Kissinger’s“shuttle diplomacy” and ultimately, the Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty of 1979.
====Anwar Sadat proposed to reopen the Suez Canal====
[[File:Anwar_Sadat_cropped.jpg|thumbnail|left|250px|Anwar Sadat arriving at Andrews Air Force Base.]]
In February 1971, however, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat presented the Nixon administration with a new opportunity for Arab-Israeli peacemaking. Sadat proposed that Egypt would reopen the Suez Canal if the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) pulled back from the Canal’s east bank and later agreed to a timetable for further withdrawals. He also indicated that he would renounce all claims of belligerency against Israel if the IDF withdrew to the international border.
However, Egyptian-Israeli normalization would have to wait until Israel withdrew from all the territories it had conquered in 1967. The Israelis responded haltingly, and Nixon and Kissinger made little effort to change their minds. Despite Sadat’s public displays of frustration, as well as warnings from Jordan’s King Hussein and Soviet Secretary-General Leonid Brezhnev, Nixon and Kissinger believed that given the military balance, Egypt and Syria would not attack Israel, a view supported by much of the U.S. intelligence community. Until the fall of 1973, the President and Kissinger held that any American diplomatic initiative would have to wait until after Israel’s elections that October.
====The Egpyt Attacks and starts a War and its Consequences====On October 6, 1973, Egypt and Syria attacked Israel’s forces in the Sinai Peninsula and the Golan Heights. Despite initial Israeli setbacks, Kissinger, now both Secretary of State and National Security Advisor, believed that Israel would win quickly. He feared that a rout of the Arabs could force the Soviets to intervene, raising their prestige in the Arab world and damaging détente. Thus, he proposed that the United States and the Soviet Union call for an end to the fighting and a return to the 1967 ceasefire lines. The Soviets, who were uneager to intervene on behalf of their clients, agreed, but the Egyptians rejected the ceasefire proposal. Wanting to avoid both an Arab defeat and military intervention, the Soviets then began to resupply Egypt and Syria with weapons. By October 9, following a failed IDF counter-attack against Egypt’s forces, the Israelis requested that America do the same for them. Not wanting to see Israel defeated, Nixon agreed, and American planes carrying weapons began arriving in Israel on October 14.
====United States began airlift to supply Isreal and slow progress towards ceasefire began====
On October 24, Brezhnev sent Nixon a hotline message suggesting that the United States and the Soviet Union send troops to Egypt to “implement” the ceasefire. If Nixon chose not to do so, Brezhnev threatened, “We should be faced with the necessity urgently to consider the question of taking appropriate steps unilaterally.” The United States responded by putting its nuclear forces on worldwide alert on October 25. By the end of the day, the crisis abated when the Security Council adopted Resolution 340, which called for a ceasefire, the withdrawal of all forces to their October 22 positions, and U.N. observers and peacekeepers to monitor the ceasefire. This time, the Israelis accepted the resolution.
====Conclusion====
The 1973 war ended in an Israeli victory, but at great cost to the United States. Though the war did not scuttle détente, it nevertheless brought the United States closer to a nuclear confrontation with the Soviet Union than at any point since the Cuban missile crisis. The American military airlift to Israel, moreover, had led Arab oil producers to embargo oil shipments to the United States and some Western European countries, causing international economic upheaval. The stage was set for Kissinger to make a major effort at Arab-Israeli peacemaking.
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