ABSTRACT
Observers of Soviet policy in the oil rich and strategically located Middle East are generally divided into two schools of thought as to Soviet goals there. Interestingly enough, it was to be the Syrian intervention in Lebanon, coupled with Sadat's decision to sign a peace agreement with Israel, which was once again to turn Syria back to Moscow. Syria, because of its backing of Iran in the Iran-Iraq war, its renewed confrontation with Iraq, its continuing confrontation with Israel, its poor relations with Egypt, and its hostility to Jordan because of its support of Iraq, was extremely isolated in the Arab world. Nonetheless, despite the massacres, Arafat evidently felt that there was value in pursuing the Reagan Plan, and he began to meet with his erstwhile enemy, King Hussein of Jordan, to work out a joint approach to the United States. As Syria was exploiting the Lebanese situation for its own ends, Moscow was cautiously supporting its Arab ally.
