ABSTRACT
The Egyptians, in a game of one-upmanship and with an eye toward upcoming plans, followed the Saudi delegate in the UN with a robust speech depicting Egypt as the protector of Syria. While the regional diplomatic game intensified from mid-September through October, the United States began to shift its confrontation with the Soviet Union from the Middle East to the United Nations. The decision to go on the counteroffensive in the UN, however, may have precluded the opportunity to reduce tensions in the region and resolve the crisis before the superpowers became dangerously involved. In October, however, the effects of the regional diplomatic chess game in the Middle East began to alter the framework of the UN debate over Syria. The American-Syrian crisis showed how similar objectives can sometimes make strange bedfellows. Both Egypt and the United States were very interested in keeping Syria from becoming communist and from falling too deeply in the Soviet orbit.
