ABSTRACT
After Egyptian President Anwar Sadat took the peace initiative last November, the Soviet Union galvanized its propaganda machine to set up a barrage against Egypt. The Middle East is strategically important for Soviet contention with the superpower for world domination. Before 1972, the Soviet Union kept a firm grip on the Arab countries while conniving at Israel in its aggression, thus exerting an incalculable influence on war and peace in the Middle East. With the expulsion of nearly 20,000 Soviet military personnel from Egypt, it lost its control over the Middle East situation. And this has become a source of vexation for makers of the policy of aggression in the Kremlin. Furthermore, Moscow's worries were increased after the October Middle East War, when the United States assumed the role of special mediator between the Arab states and Israel, basically excluding the Soviet Union from the Middle East peace talks.
