Ariel Center for
Policy Research
A JOURNAL OF POLITICS AND THE ARTS
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A JOURNAL OF POLITICS AND THE ARTS |
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NATIV ■ Volume Seventeen ■ Number 1 (96) ■ January 2004 ■ Shvat 5764 ■ Ariel Center for Policy Research |
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SYNOPSIS |
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THE CLOSED CIRCLE: In the Arab world, the collapse of Soviet Communism in 1991 had momentous and immediate implications. Arab power holders had long been accustomed to extracting arms and subsidies in pursuit of their personal policies by taking positions or maneuvering between the Soviet Union and the United States during the Cold War. In the first decade or so of his rule, Saddam Hussein had been able to profit by playing one superpower against the other. Hafez Assad in Syria, and Yasser Arafat for the Palestinians, had staked their future on Soviet supremacy in the Cold War; Hosni Mubarak and the Saudi royal family had on the contrary aligned themselves with the United States. American moral and political support for Israel complicated the choices open to Arab power holders, and the relationships between them. Nonetheless, a time has arrived quite unexpectedly in which the bitter cycles of enmity in the whole Middle East might ease, and even come into realignment. Arab power holders who correctly calculated the shifts in the balance of power could expect rewards, while whoever miscalculated would be punished...
The complete article (in English) will be featured in the upcoming (February 2004) issue of NATIV Online. |