Henry Kissinger and the Yom Kippur War

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While President Anwar Sadat and the leaders of the armed forces were drawing up plans to liberate Sinai, Sadat wanted to give a last chance for a peaceful solution in which the United States would participate, so he opened a secret channel with it, and assigned his National Security Advisor Hafez Ismail to meet with Henry Kissinger, the National Security Advisor to US President Richard Nixon, in order to explore with him the United States’ readiness to participate in this solution. This meeting took place in two stages: the first in Washington in February 1973, and then in Paris in May of the same year. General, and took place mainly and directly with Kissinger. In these sessions, Kissinger crystallized his response to the Egyptian position by saying, “Our ability to persuade, and even our desire to strongly call for this solution to the extent that we can point to tangible changes in Egyptian positions, is the key.”

Hafez Ismail records Sadat’s reaction to this phrase, saying: “Egypt’s national security in times of crises.” “I saw the president raise his head, slide down in his seat, and straighten in his seat as if the message he was waiting for had been delivered.”

We are called upon to make more concessions on the positions we have reached.” Hafez Ismail concludes: “I did not realize that I had not witnessed at that time the president’s decision that there was no longer any escape from going to war... We have reached the end of the stage in our political work.” Indeed, this was immediately followed by the meeting of the new cabinet that Sadat formed under his chairmanship in one of its most dangerous meetings, where it unanimously acknowledged, with limited reservations, the inevitability of entering into a military battle. When Anwar Sadat assumed power, Kissinger's opinion of him was low, but the transformation occurred with the outbreak of the October War and the military achievement achieved by the Egyptian army.

Then Kissinger realized that a balance had occurred on the ground that allowed him to intervene, especially after Sadat’s invitation, so he made 6 shuttle rounds between Egypt and Israel, which ended with disengagement agreements between Egypt and Syria on the one hand and Israel on the other hand.

These agreements were the basis on which Sadat developed and built the strategy of transition from war to dialogue and negotiation, and he reinforced it with his visit to Israel, an event that convinced US President Jimmy Carter to hold a conference at Camp David between Egypt and Israel, and to devote 13 days to it, which ended with the Camp David Accords in 1978, then the peace agreement between Egypt and Israel, which changed the map of politics in the region.

In his book, which he wrote months before his death, “Studies on Global Strategy,” Kissinger wrote about six international figures, including Anwar Sadat, and considered that they worked in difficult circumstances and changed their environment.

What Kissinger did not say about Sadat as a “statesman” is that Sadat fulfilled his old dream of ending the Soviet presence in Egypt (see the White House years). Sadat's opponents say that he betrayed the forces that supported Egypt in peace and war, while its president, Nixon, opened the American army's stores and sent an airlift to Israel that saved it from defeat. He was then given a hero's welcome in Cairo. As for the supporters of the school that there are no morals in politics - and Kissinger is one of its leaders - they believe that had it not been for what Sadat did, Egypt would still be negotiating over the Sinai.

Quoted from “Al-Masry Al-Youm”