Conflict in the Middle East has the potential not only for destabilizing the region or upsetting the balance of power but also affecting global stability. For these reasons, the Middle East has been a center of world affairs. This volume provides an account of international relations in the contemporary Middle East.

Shortly before the Middle East peace talks began in November 1991, the United States Institute of Peace conducted a four-day simulation of what was about to unfold in the diplomatic dialogue between two enemy countries, Israel and Syria, whose representatives had never before sat together. This volume presents a description of that exercise and its implications for peacemaking and conflict resolution in the Middle East, a discussion of simulations and their utility for diplomats and for the field of conflict resolution, and a discussion among the participants of prospects for the overall Middle East peace negotiations.

Making peace in the long-troubled Middle East is likely to be one of the top priorities of the next American president. He will need to take account of the important lessons from past attempts, which are described and analyzed here in a gripping book by a renowned expert who served twice as U.S. ambassador to Israel and as Middle East adviser to President Clinton. Martin Indyk draws on his many years of intense involvement in the region to provide the inside story of the last time the United States employed sustained diplomacy to end the Arab-Israeli conflict and change the behavior of rogue regimes in Iraq and Iran. Innocent Abroad is an insightful history and a poignant memoir. Indyk provides a fascinating examination of the ironic consequences when American naïveté meets Middle Eastern cynicism in the region's political bazaars. He dissects the very different strategies of Bill Clinton and George W. Bush to explain why they both faced such difficulties remaking the Middle East in their images of a more peaceful or democratic place. He provides new details of the breakdown of the Arab-Israeli peace talks at Camp David, of the CIA's failure to overthrow Saddam Hussein, and of Clinton's attempts to negotiate with Iran's president. Indyk takes us inside the Oval Office, the Situation Room, the palaces of Arab potentates, and the offices of Israeli prime ministers. He draws intimate portraits of the American, Israeli, and Arab leaders he worked with, including Israel's Yitzhak Rabin, Ehud Barak, and Ariel Sharon; the PLO's Yasser Arafat; Egypt's Hosni Mubarak; and Syria's Hafez al-Asad. He describes in vivid detail high-level meetings, demonstrating how difficult it is for American presidents to understand the motives and intentions of Middle Eastern leaders and how easy it is for them to miss those rare moments when these leaders are willing to act in ways that can produce breakthroughs to peace. Innocent Abroad is an extraordinarily candid and enthralling account, crucially important in grasping the obstacles that have confounded the efforts of recent presidents. As a new administration takes power, this experienced diplomat distills the lessons of past failures to chart a new way forward that will be required reading.

In recent decades, Saudi Arabia has committed itself to playing the part of mediator in intra-national and international conflicts in the greater Middle East region. Examples include the two Saudi-introduced Arab Peace Initiatives of 1982 and 2002, mediation attempts between Algeria and Morocco in the West Sahara conflict, Iraq and Syria during the Iran-Iraq War and Iran and Iraq towards the end of their military conflict. Saudi Arabian Foreign Relations provides a new insight to current studies on Saudi foreign policy and mediation in international relations. The book offers a detailed analysis of Saudi Arabia’s intermediary role in the intra-state conflicts in Yemen, Lebanon and the Palestinian territories, and the successes and limitations of each. Additionally, it provides an updated examination of Saudi Arabia’s role towards resolution of the larger Arab-Israeli conflict. Saudi Arabian Foreign Relations contributes to a far deeper understanding of Saudi foreign policy, and therefore will be of great interest to students and scholars of Middle East Politics and International Relations.

Kaye (RAND) has written a thorough, thoughtful analysis of track two diplomacy in the two most difficult areas to practice this craft: South Asia and the Middle East. She includes descriptions and comments on a number of such efforts in both regions, which will be invaluable to both scholar and professional negotiators. Her discussion of the roles for track two talks--socializing elites, making others' ideas one's own, and turning ideas into policies--would be useful in any negotiation course. With respect to work in the two regions, Kaye speaks insightfully of projects under way: their potential, constraints, and the role of the regional environment. Her suggestion that each region may learn from the tribulation of the other is arguably thoughtful. Her suggestions for improvement--expand the types of participants, create institutional support and mentors, and localize the dialogues--deserve further study.

A perceptive and provocative history of Henry Kissinger's diplomatic negotiations in the Middle East that illuminates the unique challenges and barriers Kissinger and his successors have faced in their attempts to broker peace between Israel and its Arab neighbors. “A wealth of lessons for today, not only about the challenges in that region but also about the art of diplomacy . . . the drama, dazzling maneuvers, and grand strategic vision.”—Walter Isaacson, author of The Code Breaker More than twenty years have elapsed since the United States last brokered a peace agreement between the Israelis and Palestinians. In that time, three presidents have tried and failed. Martin Indyk—a former United States ambassador to Israel and special envoy for the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations in 2013—has experienced these political frustrations and disappointments firsthand. Now, in an attempt to understand the arc of American diplomatic influence in the Middle East, he returns to the origins of American-led peace efforts and to the man who created the Middle East peace process—Henry Kissinger. Based on newly available documents from American and Israeli archives, extensive interviews with Kissinger, and Indyk's own interactions with some of the main players, the author takes readers inside the negotiations. Here is a roster of larger-than-life characters—Anwar Sadat, Golda Meir, Moshe Dayan, Yitzhak Rabin, Hafez al-Assad, and Kissinger himself. Indyk's account is both that of a historian poring over the records of these events, as well as an inside player seeking to glean lessons for Middle East peacemaking. He makes clear that understanding Kissinger's design for Middle East peacemaking is key to comprehending how to—and how not to—make peace.

Track-II talks in the Middle East—unofficial discussions among Israeli and Arab scholars, journalists, and former government and military officials—have been going on since soon after the 1967 Six Day War and have often paved the way for official negotiations. This book, a unique collaboration of Israeli and Palestinian authors, traces the history of these unofficial meetings, focusing on those that took place in the 1990s beginning just after the Gulf War. These talks were carried on without media coverage, and this book is the first sustained account of what took place. It is the inside story—the authors themselves participated in some of these discussions and interviewed participants in others.After describing the background of early Arab-Israeli discussions, the authors present six case studies of Track-II talks in the 1990s: the 1992-1993 discussions in Norway that led to the Oslo accords; Palestinian-Israeli talks held in the early 1990s under the auspices of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences; Israeli-Syrian meetings of 1992-1994; the 1994-1995 Stockholm talks convened by the Swedish government; talks held in 1995-1996 between Israeli settlers and representatives of the Palestinian Authority; and arms control and regional security discussions throughout the decade. Despite their different perspectives, the book's two Israeli and two Palestinian authors are able to reach shared conclusions about the effectiveness and consequences of Track-II talks. Track-II Diplomacy not only makes a valuable contribution to the historical record of Arab-Israeli diplomacy but also offers insights into the role of informal and non-official discussions in resolving conflicts.

This third edition of Conflicts in the Middle East since 1945 analyzes the nature of conflict in the Middle East, with its racial, ethnic, political, cultural, religious and economic factors. Throughout the book Peter Hinchcliffe and Beverley Milton-Edwards put the main conflicts into their wider context, with thematic debates on issues such as the emergence of radical Islam, the resolution of conflicts, diplomacy and peace-making, and the role of the superpowers. The book is brought fully up to date with events in the Middle East, covering, for instance, developments in Iraq in 2006 where a democratically elected government is in place but the insurgency show no sign of coming under control. The analysis of the Palestinian/Israeli conflict is also brought up to the present day, to include the election of the Hamas government and the 2006 conflict between Israel and Lebanon’s Hizballah. Including a newly updated bibliography and maps of the area, this is the perfect introduction for all students wishing to understand the complex situation in the Middle East, in its historical context.

The Peoples Republic of China (PRC) diplomatic engagement with the Middle East spans multiple dimensions, including trade and investment, the energy sector, and military cooperation. Connecting China through the Suez Canal to the Mediterranean and Europe, the Middle East is a unique geostrategic location for Beijing, a critical source of energy resources, and an area of expanding economic ties. The Middle East geographical and political area is subject to different country inclusion interpretations that have changed over time and reflect complex and multifaceted circumstances involving conflict, religion, ethnicity, and language. China considers most Arab League member countries (as well as Israel, Turkey, and Iran) as representing the Middle East. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and official Chinese publications refer to this region as Xiya beifei (West Asia and North Africa). China sees the Middle East as an intrinsic part of its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), and has ramped up investment in the

How do aspiring and established rising global powers respond to conflict? Using China, the book studies its response to wars and rivalries in the Middle East from the Cold War to the present. Since the People’s Republic was established in 1949, China has long been involved in the Middle East and its conflicts, from exploiting or avoiding them to their management, containment or resolution. Using a conflict and peace studies angle, Burton adopts a broad perspective on Chinese engagement by looking at its involvement in the region’s conflicts including Israel/Palestine, Iraq before and after 2003, Sudan and the Darfur crisis, the Iranian nuclear deal, the Gulf crisis and the wars in Syria, Libya and Yemen. The book reveals how a rising global and non-Western power handles the challenges associated with both violent and nonviolent conflict and the differences between limiting and reducing violence alongside other ways to eliminate the causes of conflict and grievance. Contributing to the wider discipline of International Relations and peace and conflict studies, this book will be of interest to students and scholars of peace and conflict studies, Chinese foreign policy and the politics and international relations of the Middle East.