ABSTRACT
In the four-year period between the Camp David agreements and the death of Soviet Party Secretary Leonid Brezhnev, a number of major political and military developments took place in the Middle East that were to significantly affect Soviet policy in the region. The improvement of Moscow’s ties to Syria, South Yemen, and Ethiopia seemed to strengthen the Soviet position in the Middle East during the 1977–1978 period, and the Camp David talks and the subsequent Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty appeared to recreate the “anti-imperialist” Arab unity that Moscow had been seeking since 1973. The Sadat visit to Jerusalem in November 1977 and the subsequent Camp David agreements in September 1978 led to a major controversy in the Arab world. The internecine strife that had so long characterized intra-Arab relations returned with a vengeance with Iran playing a significant role in the intra-Arab conflicts.
