Henry Kissinger Essay Example for Free

Henry Kissinger Essay Henry Kissinger is remembered and revered for his well-documented contributions to American foreign relations. The fact that he remained in office under two US Presidents, Richard Nixon and his successor Gerald Ford is a manifestation of his success in the political arena. His political and diplomatic maneuvers earned him a reputation across the political spectrum as one of America’s great statesmen of the 20th century. Kissinger was born in Furth, Germany in 1923 and as a Jew he fled Hitler’s anti-Semitic ideology, finding refuge in New York City in 1938. Kissinger demonstrated early signs of perseverance. Once he was settled in New York with his family Kissinger attended high school at night and took on daytime employment at a factory. After graduating from high school, Henry Kissinger enrolled at City College, New York in 1943 and from there he was drafted into the military and his career as a German interpreter began during World War II. Following Germany’s surrender, Kissinger continued to hold various positions within the military. Following his discharge from the US military, Kissinger became fully matriculated as an undergraduate at Harvard University, graduating summa cum laude with a B.  A. in 1950. He continued his studies at Harvard and graduated in 1954 with both a M. A. and a Ph. D. By the year 1962, Kissinger was a professor at Harvard and simultaneously served as an advisor to both Governor Nelson Rockefeller and the Council on Foreign Relations. Kissinger’s flair for American foreign policy and diplomacy became a matter of public record when a book written by him titled ‘Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy’ was published. The publication gained Kissinger a reputation as a scholar of foreign policy. It was in this book that Kissinger publicized his theory that the success of America abroad was not solely dependant upon her military prowess, but also in her ability to effectively identify and respond to aggression. In 1968 when Richard Nixon took office as US President, Kissinger formed a part of the Nixon administration. He was initially appointed to the office of National Security Advisor and was subsequently elevated to the position of Secretary of State. He continued to serve as Secretary of State throughout both Nixon and Ford’s administration. In his capacity as Secretary of State, Kissinger’s role in US foreign diplomacy, although active was secret. A secret trip in July 1971 to Beijing helped prepare Nixon for his February 1972 trip to China which thawed US relations with the Chinese Republic. Kissinger continued his secretive work negotiating the terms and conditions of the 1973 Paris agreements which truncated the US involvement in the Vietnam War and resulted in the coveted Nobel Peace prize in 1973. The prize was shared with North Vietnamese peace advocate Le Duc Tho. Kissinger admired the principles and ideology of realpolitik, which is a German term for political polices based on practical concepts as opposed to idealistic concepts. Realpolitik is aligned to realism. Using realpolitik ideals, Kissinger organized a short term period of detente with the Soviets which involved the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks and the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. Kissinger also organized and negotiated an end to the Yom Kippur war in 1973. The Yom Kippur war had began with the invasion of the Sinai Peninsula by Egypt and the invasion of Golan Heights by Syria. What followed was an era in US/Middle East relations that was characterized by Kissinger’s intensive diplomatic peace negotiations and the aftermath that shapes the current US/Middle East relations. With Kissinger’s advice and cunning Egypt and Israel agreed to the terms of a peace treaty in 1979 following the Camp David meetings which were engineered by then President Jimmy Carter the previous year. But Kissinger’s most controversial conduct was in December of 1975 when he and President Gerald Ford met with Indonesia President Suharto and gave him US approval that country’s military invasion of East Timor. Approximately 200,000 Timorese natives were killed during the invasion that followed and Kissinger’s critics advocated for him to be brought up on war crime charges. Previously there had been similar accusations and cries for prosecution against Kissinger for essentially ‘authorizing’ the Cambodian bombing in 1969. When Jimmy Carter was elected President of the United States in 1976, Kissinger resigned his office. He did however continue to play a minor role on an advisory basis to both Presidents Ronald Reagan and George Bush. In 2002 President George W. Bush appointed Kissinger to the chair of a committee that investigated the September 11 attacks on the US. As a result of criticism from both Democratic and Republican party members particularly with reference to his previous secret conduct and attitude toward the public together with his refusal to disclose his financial records, Kissinger resigned from the committee in December 2002. The Arab-Israeli Conflict The Arab-Israeli conflict refers to the ongoing political struggles spanning over one hundred years over the State of Israel’s endeavor to establish itself as a Jewish nation. The Arab-Israeli conflict also involves the strained relations between Israel and Arab nations. The Arab-Israeli conflict developed at beginning of 1917 following the fall of the Ottoman Empire when World War I ended. At that time British forces occupied the area known as Palestine and there was an influx of Jewish immigrants to the area. An atmosphere of Arab hatred toward the Jewish immigrants, fueled by encouragement from Muslim religious leaders helped to generate violent conflict. By the end of the Second World War, the conflict garnered international attention. The United Nations with input from the Soviet Union, Great Britain and the United States developed and introduced ‘two-state solution,’ which was essentially a plan to solve the Arab-Israeli conflict. The United Nations called for a partition of the region and the plan was put into motion in 1948. But rather than resolve the conflict, it only contributed to make matters worse and the first real Arab-Israel war erupted with Israel winning. A number of wars followed namely, 1956 Suez War, the 1967 Six Day War, the 1970 War of Attrition, the 1973 Yom Kippur War and the 1982 Lebanon War. There have been innumerable conflicts of less intensity than the all out military conflicts and two major Palestinian uprisings called intifadas. Henry Kissinger and the Arab-Israeli Conflict Following the Yom Kippur war of 1973, Kissinger gave new meaning to the term ‘foreign diplomacy’ with his practice of ‘shuttle diplomacy’ within the Middle East. ‘Shuttle Diplomacy is a tactic most often used when two primary parties do not formally recognize each other but want to be involved in negotiations in order to disengage opposing armies as well as to promote a lasting truce’. By this method, a third party will typically liaise between the two conflicting parties. The third party spends a great deal of time ‘shuttling back and forth between the feuding parties. ’ The term ‘shuttle diplomacy’ originated out of Henry Kissinger’s mediation efforts in the Middle East during his term as U. S. Secretary of State from 1973 to 1977. ‘Kissinger was famous for primarily using shuttle diplomacy to mediate conflicts in the Middle East throughout the1970s, specifically those between Israel and Arab States following the 1973 Yom Kippur War. Kissinger implemented ‘shuttle diplomacy’ to initiate a ceasefire following the 1973 Yom Kippur war. His reason for employing this method of mediation was to stifle and outwit the Soviet Union’s mediation efforts in the ceasefire negotiations. While Kissinger played a key role in bringing an end to the conflict between Israel, Syria and Egypt, he stepped up his efforts to intervene and mediate the ongoing Arab-Israeli conflict from 1973 to 1975. Kissinger’s attitude toward the Arab-Israeli conflict was obviously one of forced conciliation. As late as 2001 he said as much when asked about the ongoing conflict. Kissinger said, ‘the Arab-Israeli conflict went from an irreconcilable cultural clash to a belief that maybe it was all a terrible misunderstanding and that if only the psychological barriers could be removed, a final settlement would be quite easy. This is what led Clinton to organize Camp David, in the belief that in one session you could finish the peace process. It turned out that there were deeply religious and philosophical obstacles. As a result, both parties have trapped themselves and have pushed the situation almost back to the point where it was when the peace process started. I think we have to go back to a much more modest understanding. We have to get back to coexistence. ’ Kissinger’s peace-making tactics during the Arab-Israeli conflict manifested itself in the days and months following the Yom Kippur war. After the ceasefire efforts primarily negotiated on behalf of the United States by Henry Kissinger, Israel was able to recapture the territory it had previously lost when the war began. In fact, Israel had acquired new territory from both Syria and Egypt. These new acquisitions included land in east Syria forming part of the Golan Heights as well as land on the west bank of the Suez Canal. Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger persuaded Israel to forfeit some of the new territory back to the Arabs and as a result the first seeds of peace between Israel and Egypt were sewn. Kissinger’s efforts also contributed to the ebbing of bitter relations between the US and Egypt, a situation that had started in the 1950s when Egypt adapted a pro-Soviet ideology. Kissinger’s peace-making strategies with Egypt came to fruition in 1976 under the Camp David Accords, spear-headed by then US President Jimmy Carter. During the Camp David Accords, Israel agreed to cede Sinai back to Egyptian control provided Egypt agreed to recognize Israeli sovereignty and put an end to the conflict. William Viorst is of the opinion that Kissinger’s peace-making efforts in the Middle East during his tenure as Secretary of State was colored by an anti-Soviet agenda. Viorst’s contention is not without merit. Kissinger made no secret of his disapproval of America’s primarily moralistic approach to the Soviet Union and advocated for a more pragmatic approach to the superpower. He acted as foreign policy advisor to both the Johnson and Kenney administrations and is said to have been ‘the main intellectual force behind JFK’s flexible response strategy, which advocated maintaining both conventional and nuclear forces to respond to Communist aggression, rather than resorting to threats of massive nuclear retaliation. ’ Viorst maintains that when Kissinger commenced his mediation following the Yom Kippur War he was forced to balance two objectives. These two objectives were ‘pressing for concessions from all sides to establish some permanent negotiated settlement, and ensuring Israel came out of the agreement strong enough to act as the U. S. proxy in the area against Soviet threats. ’ Viorst said that in order for Kissinger to knit together an exchange that called for the ceding of territory by Israel and the Arabs agreeing to a non-violent response meant that Kissinger ‘had to commit the U.  S. to crucial involvement. ’ Meanwhile, President Nixon was back in Washington hanging onto the fringes of a discredited office with Watergate scandals exposed. On the other side of the world a ‘PLO massacre of 24 children in Ma’a lot’ left Israel demanding that Syria make a promise forbidding terrorists to cross the Golan into Israel;’ Syria’s Hafez Assad, loyal to his Arabic culture to a point that interfered with his ability to agree to such a pledge fearing he might be seen as weakening to the will of the Israelis. It seemed that both sides had reached a stalemate. Kissinger responded by sending a letter to the Israeli authorities averring that it mattered little what position they took against terrorist encroaching on Israeli territory. The United States would indorse whatever position they took in that regard. Viorst observes that Kissinger’s letter meant that ‘no future president would withhold American economic or military assistance as punishment for antiterrorist reprisals. It committed Washington to support such attacks before the world, most notably at the United Nations. In effect, it imposed a serious new limitation on Americas ability to compel restraint within the cycle of violence that so often ran amok in the Arab-Israeli struggle. ’ Two weeks after Yitzhak Rabin took office as Israel’s Prime Minister, President Nixon, with his presidency in tatters embarked upon a tour of the Middle East. Nixon’s goal was to ‘establish himself in the public mind as indispensable to peacemaking in the region. ’ While the Egyptians received Nixon warmly, and the Saudi’s were respectful, the Israeli reception was rather cool. Rabin had previously claimed to be grateful to the Nixon administration for ‘opening America’s depots to Israel’ and America in general for coming to the country’s aid in two previous wars. However, Rabin did not hesitate to tell Nixon that he was not at all pleased with the present US policy in connection with the Arab-Israeli conflict and moreover ‘Rabin said candidly he did not want Kissinger to press Israel to make further concessions for peace. He much preferred the old relationship with the U. S. , Rabin said, in which Israel was supplied with all the arms it wanted, while sitting on the diplomatic status quo. Nixon, encouraged in the Arab capitals to intensify peacemaking efforts, received from Rabins new government a sharp signal to slow them down. ’ Kissinger remained adamant in his resolve and was not to be persuaded to change tact for fear that his agenda would be compromised. He feared that if he stopped his shuttling efforts, the Egyptians and Syrians would seize the moment and ‘gravitate back to the Soviet camp’. Kissinger responded by turning his attention to Jordan where he stressed that it was imperative that the Jordanians ‘reestablish’ some sort of presence on the West Bank. His reason for this suggestion was said to be that he felt that there ‘could be no progress toward a Palestinian settlement, which he now considered fundamental to reaching his goal’. Rabin did not agree with this proposition for any number of reasons, but his main objection was predicated on his belief that the Palestinian issue was not germane to the Arab-Israeli conflict. Rabin however, had an agenda of his own. He wanted to establish Israel as a strong military presence in the Middle East and saw the United States as a means of achieving that goal. Moreover, peacemaking efforts was the way to get the United States to help Rabin realize his objective for the military strengthening of Israel. ‘He reasoned that Kissinger, itching to preside over an American-brokered peace, would pay heavily to get it. ’ When Richard Nixon resigned in 1974 and Gerald Ford took office as the US’s next president, Henry Kissinger remained in office as Secretary of State. Soon after the new Presidency commenced Kissinger began a renewed barrage of shuttle diplomacy. His first shuttle took him to Jerusalem. Rabin had a new demand he would only negotiate with Egypt. ‘He acknowledged candidly was the prospect of separating Egypt from the rest of the Arab world. Rabin stated he wanted peace with normalization. But the objective he really wanted was acceptance by the Arabs of permanent changes in Israels boundaries. ’ Rabin also made it clear, that negotiations would be on his terms or not at all. Kissinger feeling, he had no choice agreed on Rabin’s terms. By February 1975 when Kissinger revisited the Middle East he found that negotiations had declined sharply. Egypt’s president, Anwar Sadat was adamant that he was only interested in negotiating if it involved significant territorial increases for Egypt. Rabin on the other hand was not interested in parting with Israel’s territory. Jordan and Syria had grown distrustful of Sadat fearing he was only looking after Egypt’s interest. OPEC was considering another round of oil sanctions against Israel and the Soviets ‘were waiting in the wings for the opportunity to cement together the pieces of their old Middle East power base. ’