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Оглавление3 Egypt and the October Victory
In June 1999, I walked into the main banquet hall at the New York Hilton. I was there in my capacity as permanent Egyptian representative to the United Nations to attend a reception held by the Seeds of Peace organization. His Majesty Abdullah II and Queen Rania of Jordan were also in attendance, as well as our then-ambassador to Washington, my dear old friend Ahmed Maher. Seeds of Peace was founded by an American gentleman following the Oslo Accords of 1993: he wished to provide an opportunity for young people from Israel and Palestine to meet at annual camps for several weeks annually in order to get to know each other and build a healthy relationship for peace. Circumstances at the time permitted this type of thinking.
There were more than a thousand people at the party. I schmoozed with the attendees, meeting and complimenting, doing my diplomat’s duty and searching for a VIP to meet or from whom to garner some valuable tidbit of information. Suddenly, who should I glimpse but former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. I knew he had also been the national security advisor during President Nixon’s first term.
I made my way over to him and introduced myself. He was standing with a group of American guests; still, he greeted me warmly and said in his trademark heavily German-accented English that he was always glad to meet the Egyptian ambassador. “I have great respect for Egypt.” Our country, he said, was the real key to peace in the Middle East and the Arab region, and the most capable of providing great leaders. The US, he added, might not always agree with our leaders’ vision, but Egypt’s leaders always had America’s respect because of their country’s standing and weight in the region.
We started making small talk. I let him know that I had read his books, and truthfully told him that I had learned a great deal from them about international relations and military strategy, particularly regarding nuclear armaments. I mentioned specific books of his that I had read over the years, especially The Necessity for Choice. This seminal work established Kissinger as an American authority on nuclear strategy on the level of such greats as K.J. Holstetter, Herman Kahn, and Maxwell Taylor. I also spoke of The White House Years, his memoir about his tenure as national security advisor from 1968 to 1972, and Years of Upheaval, about his tenure as secretary of state from 1973 to 1976. Kissinger was impressed and pleased, especially when I mentioned his Harvard thesis, “A World Restored: Metternich, Castlereagh and the Problems of Peace 1815–1822.” He wrote it at the end of the 1940s, after participating in the war against Germany. This started a conversation that lasted more than half an hour, with us gradually drifting away from the other attendees until it was just the two of us discussing political affairs. Suddenly, I launched my missile: “Did you know, Your Excellency, that your conversation with Dr. Zayyat in the summer of 1973, specifically when you said, ‘I have no time to waste on the Middle East right now. You lack the ability to modify your relations and/or the balance of power in the region, and the capacity to achieve anything militarily. You also refuse to acknowledge the necessity of paying the price of your defeat’—did you know that those words contributed to, indeed pushed us to, war?”
His shock was palpable. His face darkened at hearing this testimony, as my words gave the impression that Kissinger encouraged the Egyptians to launch a military action against Israel. He began vehemently to deny that he had been urging us in any way to undertake any military action, even though we came to that conclusion after Kissinger’s meetings with Dr. Zayyat and other Egyptian statesmen.
The fact is that from the start of 1973, Egypt had been continuously working to expand its military capabilities (via new fighter bombers, ground-to-ground missiles, and whatever other weapons President Sadat could, with great difficulty, convince the Soviets, to supply to Egypt that year) and, on a different front, to reach a political settlement with Israel without resorting to war. This was the job of Egyptian National Security Advisor Hafiz Ismail, who held meetings, consultations, and conversations with Kissinger himself. There was a meeting in New York in February 1973, and in the suburbs of Paris in May of the same year, all organized by the Central Intelligence Agency in collaboration with Egyptian Intelligence, of which Hafiz Ismail was head in 1970. In August he had high-level meetings with Ceauşescu, then president of Romania, who had a good relationship with Golda Meir, and with Tito, president of Yugoslavia. Egypt also attempted to come to an understanding with Israel with a view to finding a political solution to the conflict, offering many options. Ceauşescu attempted to convince President Sadat of his—that is, Ceauşescu—potential as a mediator between Egypt and Israel, and that he was doing his best to facilitate Egyptian–Israeli proximity talks with a view to arriving at a final or transitional recommendation. Tito was making efforts along the same lines. This led Sadat to send his national security advisor to consult with these leaders regarding the possibility of moving toward a peaceful resolution, and thus obviating the necessity for war or armed action. These efforts came to nothing. Egypt proposed a settlement with Israel, going to the UN Security Council in July. Egypt won fourteen votes in support of its proposed draft resolution, although it was ultimately vetoed by the US. Egypt’s peace efforts stalled, and it became clear that we were heading for military action.
At the reception, Kissinger flatly refused to acknowledge my explanations and vehemently denied that his words to Hafiz Ismail were the impetus behind our armed action. Indeed, he contended that he told us back then, “I’m busy with the Vietnam War negotiations in Paris. I have no time to waste on a cold case and Egypt’s stubborn refusal to pay the price of the 1967 defeat.”
I met Kissinger again socially in New York in 2000. He approached me and made a point of repeating his categorical denial that he bore any responsibility for Egypt’s resorting to a military solution in 1973. My own assessment is that Kissinger wished to deny any responsibility for that war, for fear of being accused by certain circles in the US and Israel of indirectly egging the Arabs on to armed action against Israel.
Allow me for a moment to digress from 1973 and skip forward to January and February 1974, the year when Hafiz Ismail left office. Dr. Abdel Hadi Makhlouf, office manager for the national security advisor, called me into his office. In his trademark quiet manner, he said, “Ahmed, you know the room adjoining my office in Abdin Palace? A big room with one of the biggest armored safes in Egypt. It contains some of the most crucial—and classified—historical documents in Egypt.” I nodded. “Now that our tenure with Hafiz Ismail at the Presidency is almost over, he has entrusted me with creating a complete archive of these documents. They cover internal Egyptian affairs. There are blueprints for Egyptian political and/or military actions concerning the October War and the time leading up to it.” He gave me fifteen days to archive this mountain of papers, a treasure trove of information and historical documentation.
I entered the room and opened the safe. Opening the files, I dutifully set to archiving and filing. Instead of working a few hours every day, I got lost in reading. I devoured the papers. All the information that I never knew—indeed, that many people in the office of the national security advisor, Ambassador Makhlouf and Ahmed Maher al-Sayed excepted, never knew—was laid out before me. I had my hands on the minutes recorded by Ambassador Osman Nouri, assistant national security advisor, and Ambassador Makhlouf, of a vital meeting dated September 30, 1973. The meeting was headed by President Sadat, and every Egyptian political leader was present, including Mahmoud Fawzi, Mustafa Khalil, Mamdouh Salem, and Ahmed Ismail. “We are going to war,” said the president, “and we must all prepare ourselves.” Some objections were voiced. Some of those present opined that Egypt could make another attempt to negotiate a peaceful settlement, citing Egypt’s difficult situation and the unequal balance of power with Israel.
The discussion went on for pages and pages. Dr. Mahmoud Fawzi, the former foreign minister, said that he appreciated the need for the armed conflict. He told a parable about when he was a young diplomat in his thirties stationed in Japan. At the time, he said, he was enrolled in samurai fighting classes on how to use a katana and wakizashi. One day, he went into class, dressed as a samurai, katana tucked into his belt. “Where’s your short sword?” his trainer asked. “You have only your katana.” Samurai generally carry two swords, the katana, a blade longer than sixty centimeters, and a wakizashi, or short sword for close combat or in case the katana is lost or broken. Fawzi concluded, “Egypt lost our katana in 1967; no matter whether we have exchanged it for a longer, sharper one, or whether we only have a short sword, we must use whichever blades we have in hand to achieve the objectives of the upcoming military action—the objective of moving the peace process forward, and creating a new military and political balance with Israel that can impose on both Israel and the US to cooperate with Egyptian demands for full withdrawal from Sinai.”
This led to a heated discussion in the historic meeting. Hafiz Ismail said—in one of his interventions—that in light of some of his colleagues’ fears about the results of the upcoming military action, we might move gradually toward Egyptian military actions resembling those of the War of Attrition that lasted from 1967 until the ceasefire in July 1970. The national security advisor proposed military–political initiatives to liven up, as it were, the Egyptian frontlines short of engaging in outright hostilities, thus avoiding the negative consequences of a full-scale military action. Field Marshall Ahmed Ismail Ali, then defense minister, disagreed. His evaluation stemmed from his conviction that “Israel will certainly not confine itself to a limited response to any limited Egyptian military action, or an Egyptian attempt at livening up the front. Israel knows it cannot support the burden of an extended military mobilization, nor a months-long extended attrition in the form of small, dispersed operations, especially since Israel knows that Egypt’s military and air force have upped their efficiency over the three-year ceasefire period,” meaning from July 1970 to September 1973. It followed, he went on to say, that Israel would immediately escalate, with maximum force.
Ahmed Ismail opined that the ideal method of military action would be to deal a major, extremely violent blow via massive Egyptian mobilization across the Suez Canal. Israel’s counterstrike would have to be absorbed, and protect the Egyptian areas of Sinai that had not been taken, followed by the imposition on Israel of Egypt’s vision for a political solution.
President Sadat ended the meeting, saying, “Let’s do what must be done for the future of the country, to get this settled.”
The military action commenced on October 6. This action clearly and honorably expressed the clarity of the Egyptian vision, reflecting what Carl von Clausewitz wrote in the eighteenth century. War is a continuation of politics by other means. War should use the highest degree of armed force to impose one’s will on one’s opponent. Finally, defense, after military action, is the strongest form of battle. All of these elements were put into practice with great maturity, efficiency, and discipline by Egypt’s armed forces.
A final point remains: there is a political objective to every war, which armed action seeks to achieve. In the case of Egypt, it was abundantly clear that the objectives of armed action were to reclaim a broad strip of Sinai, strike out at counterattacks, and achieve a ceasefire. Having imposed its vision—documented in Sadat’s presidential order to the Egyptian armed forces to initiate combat on that momentous day—Egypt commenced negotiations from a new balance of power with Israel, eventually achieving Israel’s full withdrawal from Egyptian territory in Sinai. One cannot help admitting here that as a result of this armed action, Israel had only two options: to accept the results of the conflict and withdraw from Sinai, or to allow the Egyptian katana to remain hanging over their heads, in the form of a continuing threat of expanding Egypt’s small strip eastward by degrees commensurate with the growth of our armed forces’ capabilities.
Everyone working in defense and Egyptian national security was acutely aware of this. Everyone was worried about how we would strike against Israel and how the coming battle would be managed, politically and militarily. And, although still a young diplomat, I had ideas I was encouraged to present to the national security advisor. This important man always encouraged me and other members of his office staff to discuss strategic affairs related to the coming war and how we could manage its progress in a manner best suited to our interests. We sought to secure a lively diplomatic process within a time frame that took into account military requirements until an accord was reached.
I had my own discussions and memoranda with Hafiz Ismail. One day in June 1973, a few months before the war, I wrote that we must prepare a surprise strike aiming to achieve limited objectives on the other side of the Suez Canal in Sinai, after which we must transition to diplomatic efforts in the form of direct or indirect negotiations with Israel, until it agreed to withdraw from Egyptian territory. I presented my memorandum to Dr. Abdel Hadi Makhlouf, who presented it to the national security advisor, who unfortunately kept it. (I always enjoyed reading his astute comments and observations, written in his trademark flowing hand.) Dr. Makhlouf’s response reached me a few days later, and treated me to an extensive response to my memorandum, handwritten by Hafiz Ismail.
Aboul Gheit,
Your memorandum raises a number of issues related to military action. I cannot say I agree with you.
1. As I understand it, you are assuming:
a. A surprise Egyptian strike.
b. A rapid blow to achieve specific objectives.
c. Israel accepting the results and agreeing to a ceasefire.
Perhaps you remain preoccupied by the image of operations in 1967; you seem convinced that these can be repeated.
2. There are a number of considerations that lead me to differ with you.
a. It will be difficult to strike a strategic blow to take Israel by surprise; war might begin before we start it.
b. Egyptians do not like to plan or execute Blitzkrieg-style actions. The nature of the positions we are faced with, the defenses, the Israeli vanguard, and the use of aerial forces will lead to a slugging match, with the edge to strength rather than agility.
c. American intervention to bring about a ceasefire (which you assume we will accept) assumes Israel being defeated in western Sinai, and our destruction of most of its armed forces. The reverse is true: the US will sit back and wait as long as Israel possesses the capability for counterattack. Still, operations may well be drawn out, and we must plan for that. This requires a very special type of planning.
d. This raises the question: When and how will operations cease? I believe that we should not start unless we estimate that it is within our capacity to achieve a certain objective: to stir up the situation so as to allow for political action afterward, or provide a path to Egypt’s future security, securing maritime traffic in Suez and the Gulf, and draining both Egypt’s and Israel’s capacities, thus leading them to deescalate gradually, if not for good.
e. These are just thoughts, which may need further contemplation and analysis, to form a conception of how war may be started—and finished. Please return this document.
Dr. Abdel Hadi Makhlouf took the beautifully handwritten note back to Hafiz Ismail. I was not to see it again until many years later, when Dr. Makhlouf brought it into my office in the Foreign Ministry in 2009, saying, “I kept this for thirty-six years.” What a surprise! But what was more shocking, in my estimation, was the realization that Hafiz Ismail’s intention was to conceal from me, and from others in his office, Egypt’s real intentions and objectives for armed military intervention, and the way this action would be managed militarily and diplomatically.
Now, after so many years, I can see that we—especially national security advisor Hafiz Ismail, with his instincts and diplomatic and military experience—had a specific view of how both aspects, military and diplomatic, of this battle could be undertaken. Despite his accurate estimation that it would be difficult to catch the enemy off guard, tactically and strategically, Egypt managed to take the enemy by complete surprise.
Back to the armed efforts of October 1973. President Sadat, as far as the diplomatic management of the dispute was concerned, kept all lines and channels open to all powers, foremost among which was the Soviet Union, which had covert or overt tensions with Egypt in the previous three years. The Egyptian president kept the lines open with them with a view to securing military and international political support. He also kept communications open with the U.S. president and his secretary of state, Henry Kissinger.
From October 7 to October 28, with the start of the ceasefire, messages between the two sides were constantly shuttling back and forth. By the end of this period, Sadat and Nixon had exchanged fifteen messages. Twenty messages were exchanged between Hafiz Ismail and Henry Kissinger. I must mention here that Ahmed Maher al-Sayed, Hafiz Ismail’s diplomatic consultant at the time and foreign minister of Egypt from May 2001 to July 2004, was the one who conducted all of these communications, under the direct command and supervision of the national security advisor, who worked to convey President Sadat’s vision, demands, and position to his U.S. counterpart.
President Sadat continued waging the diplomatic battle by means of constant communication with the British, by virtue of their close relationship with Washington; with the shah of Iran, whom Sadat saw as a potential ally who could be enlisted into working on the Americans; and, naturally, a number of other parties. A never-ending stream poured into Egypt of ambassadors, envoys, and messengers from other countries, with whom Sadat kept the lines of communication open with a view to putting an end to the fighting, circumstances permitting, in the service of the strategic objectives of the war.
Two pivotal points remain. The first concerns a message that had everyone talking: Hafiz Ismail’s message to Kissinger nearly forty-eight hours after the start of the armed action, in response to a communication from the U.S. secretary of state. “Egypt,” it said, “has no wish to broaden or deepen the confrontation.” It has been said by some, including highly knowledgeable analysts and people of high standing, that Egypt’s action rashly exposed its intentions and gave Israel and the US carte blanche in choosing their own responses, diplomatically and militarily. But I want to go on record to say that I disagree. The US and many Arab parties spoke of the possibility of Jordan launching its own front, further complicating things with Israel. Pressure was applied to Jordan to expand the conflict, and to join Egypt and Syria in their efforts. There were somewhat apprehensive messages from the US warning of this possible development.
Meanwhile, Israel ordered airstrikes on Egyptian forces in the Nile Delta, close to the front. During an Israeli air raid on Tanta Air Base, soon after the Egyptian MiG-21 aircraft proved their efficacy, an Israeli fighter aircraft—mistakenly, under threat from Egyptian aircraft, or deliberately—bombed a village close by. Newspapers from the time bear this out. In any event, President Sadat attempted to keep the lines of communication open with the US, and at the same time to limit the confrontation with Israel to the front lines in Egypt and Syria, keeping things contained for diplomatic and political reasons in the event of a ceasefire becoming necessary. Despite his rage at the attack on civilians, Sadat assigned Hafiz Ismail to give Kissinger, who was in intensive communications with Egyptian Intelligence and the Central Intelligence Station in Cairo, the message mentioned above: “Egypt has no wish to broaden or deepen the confrontation.” This was a clear reference to his lack of encouragement to Jordan to open fire, although the Arab pressure from without and popular pressure from within did finally lead Jordan to send an armed brigade via Jordanian territory into southern Golan for a confrontation with Israel on Syrian soil.
Hafiz Ismail’s communication was an extension of the message that Egypt had no desire to deepen the clashes by resorting to striking civilian targets. This was not impossible, for Egypt at the time had an arsenal of Scud-B missiles well capable of striking Israeli territory in Negev. This veiled threat appeared to achieve its end: there were no more strikes on any Egyptian cities or villages far inland. There were no more civilian casualties in Egypt.
It is my understanding—to the best of my ability as an analyst—that Hafiz Ismail strongly believed in maintaining a limited zone of military action, and that this was what he conveyed to Kissinger, in a message authored by his political advisor, Ahmed Maher. This is the reason, I believe, we were shocked when our leadership was accused of inadvertently betraying both the details of Egypt’s military strategy and its limited nature to Israel and the US. In my opinion, the critics may have made the mistake of linking the two points above in their reading of Hafiz Ismail’s response to Kissinger, and thus incorrectly concluded that this message led to a third Arab party joining the battle and the targeting of civilians in airstrikes.
My evaluation is borne out by the army’s efforts to develop the attack on October 14, moving eastward toward the Sinai straits, where the attack ceased in the evening after the troops sustained heavy losses. This was also the source of the attempt to develop the attack south of the front, by sending in the First Mechanized Infantry Division toward Ras Sidr, also aborted under heavy Israeli attack.
The days of armed conflict were behind us. Fighting ceased. The front finally fell silent on October 28. Major-General Abdel Ghani al-Gamasy met with General Aharon Yariv to agree on the procedures required for a stable ceasefire. We were still staying at Abd al-Moneim Palace in Heliopolis—an extremely ascetic campsite for the national security advisor, who, I remember, insisted that we subsist on army rations. I developed an aversion to black-eyed peas and zucchini with tomato sauce and rice that lasted for years. I was forced to eat nothing else for a month!
My final point on Egypt’s ability to achieve its military ends by armed means, and the end of the conflict, is my utter conviction that Egypt fully achieved its political objectives—albeit over the long term—via armed conflict. This conflict’s success, and the fact that it ended with Egypt still in possession of active and capable armed forces, should not conceal the magnitude of the dangers with which it was fraught, nor the efforts expended to achieve its ends. There was suffering; there was hardship; there were great sacrifices, which can only be fully understood by those who took part in this Herculean task. The Second Army was under threat; the Third Army was under siege. Still, Egyptian insistence and the will to fight and foil the enemy’s plans staved off all their attempts at defeating us. On the diplomatic front, this side of the confrontation showed exemplary creativity and initiative: our objectives were well-conceived and pursued without fear or hesitation.
On October 28, 1973, the war achieved its political ends, placing Egypt on the path to a final settlement that gave rise to Camp David and the Egypt–Israel peace treaty. What is certain, what has become abundantly clear in the fullness of time, is that once the battle was over, Egypt regained its strategic balance vis-à-vis Israel, both on the battlefield and in the region—a balance that had been lost for over six years, since the defeat of 1967. Egypt’s armed forces compelled the US to finally take serious action to achieve a political settlement that, while slow to arrive, led to Egypt regaining and asserting full ownership of all of Sinai and returning to the international borders of 1906 between Egypt and Palestine/Israel. The presence of active and alert Egyptian armed forces capable of taking action against Israel, in addition to an air force with proven efficacy in battle, plus a concentration of efficient Egyptian naval units controlling the southern part of the Red Sea, convinced the US beyond any reasonable doubt that Egypt could, if it wished, repeat the exercise at any moment it saw fit. This led the US to conduct the first serious efforts—via Secretary Kissinger—to defuse the Egypt–Israel military conflict, which led to a threat to the world in the form of potential nuclear war between the two superpowers in the final week of October. This paved the way for efforts to reach a political solution which, albeit in stages, achieved all the objectives of the military action Egypt was forced to undertake when its diplomatic efforts failed.
The war reaffirmed Clausewitz’s saying that war is a continuation of politics by other means. Sadat—and his advisor (mustashar) Hafiz Ismail—were well aware of this, strategizing with depth and maturity. Some in Egypt, and maybe also in Syria, imagined, conversely, that war ought to continue until the enemy is roundly defeated and absolute victory is achieved. Not only do I disagree with this way of thinking, but I also see it as myopic, ignoring the balance of power between Egypt and Israel at the time and the positions and policies of the two superpowers of that era.
