ABSTRACT
Pundits at the time of Anwar Sadat's assassination wryly noted that Sadat had lost two elections; one in America where Ronald Reagan was elected and the other in Israel in which Menachem Begin was reelected. Strategic consensus was primarily an expansion and articulation of the Carter doctrine and the concept of the Rapid Deployment Force. Presupposing a fear of Soviet expansion among Middle Eastern leaders comparable in magnitude to its own, the Reagan foreign policy team sought to create an anti-Soviet entente. Statements such as formed the core of the Reagan initiative. The product of the realization was America's third Middle East policy in as many years--strategic cooperation. Strategic consensus had the same goal, and although it was a failure it at least recognized the troublesome task of sustaining two policies simultaneously.
