or design, they fired upon each other. It really appeared as if the superpowers were on the brink of war. And all for what? For Syrian intransigence. The hot line between Washington and Moscow became very hot indeed. What was said lent great strength to the UN Secretary-General's call for an immediate international conference under his chairmanship in Geneva to resolve differences and resume Middle East peace negotiations. All parties concerned agreed to it.
So it was that in the latter months of 1984 negotiations as to the future of Jerusalem and the establishment of an autonomous Palestinian state, together with international guarantees designed to preserve the right of all states in the area to live in peace 'free from threats and acts of force', resumed, and might be said to have been crowned with success, for by the spring of 1985 a peace conference had been convened to take place in Geneva later that year under the joint chairmanship of the United States and the Soviet Union to 4make preparations for the signature of peace treaties by all the parties involved.
By this time much progress had been made. Violence had ceased. Israeli settlements had been withdrawn from occupied Arab and Palestinian territory. The boundary commission had made its recommendations, which had been endorsed by all sides. The future of Jerusalem on the lines of the UN Security Council Resolution was assured. The Palestinians had agreed on their future constitution and the Palestinian National Council together with members of the PLO made up the majority party of the newly-elected Palestinian Parliament. The principal guarantors of these new agreements were to be the Soviet Union and the United States with peacekeeping forces to be established along previously disputed frontiers, these forces to come mainly from Third World nations and exclude both US and Soviet troops. All that remained was final signature of the treaties and their implementation.
It was not to be, or at least not in this way. Events in the Middle East were overtaken by the outbreak of the Third World War.
The superpowers came very close to war in the Middle East and it is of interest to note the potential for waging war there that the various countries of the region, and those from outside it who had interests there, possessed.
If numbers alone could have determined the military balance, it would have been firmly tipped in favour of the Arab nations. Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States — to say nothing of the Sudan, Algeria and Morocco — mustered between them the best part of a million men under arms, excluding reserves, while Israel's total armed forces were some 170,000, although mobilization, which would be rapid, more than doubled this figure. There were, of course, peacekeeping forces from the United Nations in positions close to previously disputed frontiers — in the West Bank, Gaza, Sinai, the Golan Heights and Jerusalem — but these forces were small and lightly equipped. As for the United States and the Soviet Union, their presence at the centre of things near the new State of Palestine and in the countries neighbouring Israel was confined largely to advisers and training teams. It was true that the Soviet Union still had nearly 100,000 troops in Afghanistan, but they were being kept very busy, while the naval and air units which both superpowers deployed periodically in friendly Arab ports and air bases were, after withdrawal from former confrontation, of modest proportions.
But the game was not one of numbers alone. As tension in Europe became greater and the forces of the Warsaw Pact and those of NATO began their processes of mobilization, redeployment and reinforcement, so comparable processes were to be seen in the Middle East. It then became clear that the Arab states, led by Saudi Arabia and Egypt, far from abandoning the peaceful settlement on which they had embarked, were not intent on using their military strength against Israel, but were determined to harbour it in order to keep open the path to peace. At the same time Israel had to be kept quiet. The United States would have to help. The Arab nations, in forgoing what might have seemed to be a temporary advantage, were thus able to combine magnanimity with policy, the fruits of which were to be seen in the successful conclusion of the Middle East peace conferences soon after hostilities between the superpowers had ceased.
So it was that Egypt, whose new relationship with Libya had allowed a greatly reduced force to patrol that frontier, did not increase its forces in the Sinai from the two armoured and two mechanized divisions already there, but did reinforce the garrisons in the southeast near Ras Banas, while leaving a strong reserve near Cairo and Suez. The Egyptian Air Defence Command with its 200 interceptors and missile brigades still guarded central strategic bases and the approaches from north-east and south-east. The air force's 300 combat aircraft were deployed roughly in proportion to the army, and the navy remained with its customary distribution of submarines, destroyers and patrol craft between the eastern Mediterranean and the Red Sea.
Saudi Arabia's main concern was with North and South Yemen. Two Saudi brigades with supporting arms and aircraft remained in the north-west, the remaining four brigades with strong air support, and patrol units from the Frontier Force, were in the south-west. Saudi naval corvettes and patrol boats were on station in both the Red Sea and the Gulf.
Iraq's army of some twelve divisions was broadly divided between a force on the new frontier with Iran, a grouping facing Syria, and a central reserve, with the Iraqi Air Force's 350 combat aircraft supporting the army deployment and the navy's missile and patrol vessels at readiness in the waterways and the Gulf.
Iran, like Iraq, had largely made good the losses already sustained in the war between them. The bulk of the Iranian Army's ten divisions, half of which were armoured, were divided between the north-east sector facing Afghanistan and the western front, with strong reserves held centrally and in the main oil-producing areas of the south-west. The Iranian Navy patrolled the Gulf, and the 200 or so combat aircraft supported both army and naval deployment.
Syria's forces — none of which were by this time deployed in Lebanon (where UN peacekeeping forces backed up the small army) — were located with two armoured divisions each in the northern and eastern commands, while the two mechanized divisions remained near Damascus. Syria's strong air force and air defence command, which included 450 Migs, was deployed to challenge attack from any quarter.
Jordan's four divisions, all armoured or mechanized, were concentrated in the northern and eastern sectors, supported by nearly 100 F-5s, with a small naval force at Aqaba. Oman's relatively small, but efficient force of some 15,000 were deployed both to resist any further incursions from South Yemen and to guard the sea approaches. The two Yemens had armed forces of roughly similar size, the South primarily equipped with Soviet arms, the North with a mixture from the USSR and the West. Each had armoured and infantry brigades, MiG fighters and patrol craft. Both could threaten Saudi Arabia. Aden was virtually a Soviet naval base.
Thus were the various forces disposed when peacemaking in the Middle East was brought to a temporary halt. It was plain that when the two principal guarantors of the 1985 peace agreement were themselves at war — war moreover brought about by events far removed from the Middle East scene — the principal strategic aims of the Arab countries, with the exception of Syria and the inevitable dissension of South Yemen, were twofold. The first was to preserve the integrity and security of their own countries; the second, to preserve the political and military conditions that would enable them to resume implementation of the peace settlement as soon as possible. It seemed therefore to Saudi Arabia and Egypt, together with their supporters — Jordan, Iraq, Oman, the other Gulf states, Libya and Sudan — that their policy must be to isolate Israel and keep it in check; to prevent any interference by North or South Yemen; to support Iran both in maintaining its internal security and against Soviet incursions from Azerbaijan and Soviet-inspired activity in Baluchistan; and with the assistance of the United States and NATO to maintain or re-establish control of the eastern Mediterranean, the Red Sea and the Gulf.
It is not intended to give detailed accounts of how these objects were achieved. Indeed in the event there was, with two major exceptions, very little war prosecuted in the Middle East or South-West Asia during the few weeks of the Third World War. What fighting there was took place largely in Europe, and at sea and in the air. Enough to say here that the prospect of hostile action by Iraq, Syria, Jordan and Egypt, together with explicit United States warnings, kept Israel in check. Syria disallowed any Soviet proposals to fly in reinforcements, and was more conscious than ever of the proximity of Turkey, which together with the rest of NATO was by this time at war with the Soviet Union and had closed the Bosporus with mines, submarines, land-based weapons and other means. The first aim of joint Arab policy was achieved without bloodshed.
The second aim did involve some bloodshed. North Yemen, under intense pressure from most Arab nations, agreed to accept a joint Egyptian-Saudi Arabian force to assist North Yemeni troops in suppressing once and for all the Soviet-armed guerrillas infiltrating from South Yemen. Sanaa, Taiz and Ibb were all successfully cleared, and effective anti-incursion forces were established along the frontier between North and South Yemen.
Support for Iran — the third policy requirement — did not take the form of troops or arms, but rather guarantees of co-operation in frontier control, shipping protection in the Gulf and economic aid. Iran was thus able to enhance its internal prosperity and external security without fear of threat from any of its western neighbours.
