ABSTRACT
The post-1967 political order in the Middle East was tested in both Egypt's War of Attrition against Israel up to 1970 and in the Jordanian crisis of 1970 but was further unsettled by the shift in Arab politics under the leaderships of Anwar al-Sadat of Egypt and Hafiz al-Asad of Syria. Both Sadat and Asad, men from military backgrounds whose training and experiences were forged in the postcolonial experience in the modern Middle East, sought to reposition their states after the tumultuous politics of the 1960s and pursue their states' interests in the Middle East with more pragmatism. Asad personally needed to show the Syrian people that a disengagement agreement with Israel symbolically marked the beginning of Israel's withdrawal from the Golan Heights. This chapter discusses the missed opportunity to engage with Syria more seriously toward a comprehensive agreement following the October War certainly had a more long-lasting and region-wide effect than was immediately apparent at the time.
