ISBN: 978-1-101-94754-8
Jørgen Jensehaugen
Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO)
Long time US Middle East diplomat Martin Indyk
has written an impressively researched and well-written homage to his larger-than-life
role model, Henry Kissinger. There is no doubt that Kissinger mastered the ‘art
of Middle East Diplomacy’. It is not surprising that, as someone who for decades
was involved in trying to make diplomatic breakthroughs in the Middle East,
Indyk admires Kissinger. He amply demonstrates how Kissinger worked tirelessly
in 1973–75, despite opposition on most fronts, to secure breakthroughs on both
the Golan and the Sinai front. Indyk also confirms that unlike what is all too
often assumed, Kissinger clashed with Israeli leaders time and again, often
because they had such narrow visions for what ensured Israeli security. Indyk,
perhaps unintentionally, shows how we still suffer from Kissinger’s own
strategic short-sightedness. Kissinger insisted that there was no real rush for
Israel to negotiate with Jordan regarding the West Bank, and that if the US
should push for such negotiations the purpose would only have been to avoid
having to deal with the PLO. The refusal to accept that the Palestinians had
any legitimate and independent national claims was not a Kissinger invention,
but his (and Ford’s) promise to Israel to not diplomatically engage with the
PLO put spokes in the wheels of any serious US attempt to deal with the core
Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Indyk insists that this was not Kissinger’s blind
spot, rather it reflected his strategic vision. It is also ironic that Indyk
mocks Carter’s approach (1977–79) when his was the only US diplomatic endeavor
to lead to a peace agreement in the Middle East until the 1994 Israel-Jordan
agreement.