IN 1973, in the midst of the war between Israel, Egypt and Syria (aka Yom Kippur War) the then US secretary of state Henry Kissinger helped end that battle between the Jewish state and its Arab adversaries, and then went on to negotiate a historic diplomatic deal between Egypt and Israel that ushered in an era of relative stability and an ensuing Pax Americana in the Middle East.

Dr Kissinger’s diplomatic success was based on his belief in a gradualist, step-by-step approach that in a way became his leitmotif. His strategic objective was to remove Egypt from the arena of the conflict with Israel by integrating it, like France after the Napoleonic Wars, into the new US-led Middle Eastern order while isolating the radical Arab states then backed by the former Soviet Union.

In the pursuit of these strategic objectives at the end of the 1973 war, Dr Kissinger managed emergency supplies of weapons to Israel after it was attacked by a coalition of Arab states that almost destroyed the Jewish state.