Shots from 1973
The main loser in the fifth Arab-Israeli war was the Soviet Union
Almost all participants of the fifth Arab-Israeli war, which began on October 6 1973, have left the political scene, a certain interpretation scheme of what happened has long been established in official historiography. Why is it worth today to recall this military conflict in the Middle East forty years ago? And because the past is shooting. After each war, the world becomes different, and after the 1973 war, it changed dramatically.
Petrodollars, the hegemony of Saudi Arabia in the Muslim world, the loss of Soviet influence in the Middle East - all this is a consequence of the war, then called the "October" or "Doomsday War". Actually, the war, which lasted 18 days, was only the background of a grand geopolitical intrigue that changed the world.
The geopolitical interests of Washington, the US and Israel deal, the intrigues of Anwar Sadat, the desire of Western financial circles to preserve the dollar as a world currency, the steps of the oil lobby in reformatting relations with oil-producing countries, the ambitious plans of Saudi dynasty and Muammar Gaddafi, in a word tight tangle of interests and contradictions.
Yes, some of the secret documents from the archives of the United States and Israel concerning political intrigues around that war have already been selectively declassified and are awaiting their reading.
But behind the scenes of the war continues to be so unsightly for some of its participants that an attempt to reveal some of the secrets of that time ends with "death under unexplained circumstances."
For example, as happened in June 27 2007 years in London with 62-year old Egyptian millionaire Ashraf Marwan, the son in law of Gamal Abdel Nasser, Anwar Sadat's political adviser, and in combination - the Mossad "Babylon" agent transferred the Israelis on the eve of an extremely important information war. It has been established that he “fell out” from the window of his own house. The manuscript of his book “October 1973 of the Year: How It Was,” on which he had worked over the past few years, has disappeared.
Which, however, is not surprising, because this book, in fact - testimony, could refute the main thesis, which still holds the official version of the events of that war imposed on us. The version of the "suddenness of Arab aggression against peace-loving Israel."
The declassified Israeli documents of the “Agranat Commission”, which “without delay” investigated the circumstances of the “Doomsday War” and the causes of the great losses of Israel, show us the touching unanimity of Tel Aviv politicians and military. They say in their voice: The main reason for the failures of the Jewish state at the first stage of the war was the "suddenness of the Arab attack." And consequently - the failure and "Mossad", and military intelligence AMAN. Moreover, the Americans are also guilty, because they “did not warn”. However, with regard to the fact that "the Americans did not warn," Israeli sources differ somewhat. Some argue that Washington generally concealed information about the military preparations of Egypt and Syria, others - that the United States warned, but only a few hours. However, these discrepancies relate only to the role of the Americans, with respect to the Israeli leadership, the sources and testimony are unanimous and simplehearted. Golda Meir blames the military and the scouts for everything - they didn’t insist: they don’t know what would happen if I could say what I felt: something bad is coming ... But I couldn’t clash with the chief of the General Staff and the head of military intelligence ... We were afraid that if we called for the reserve in advance, the Arabs would think that we ourselves were preparing to attack and attack earlier. "
Only those who do not know the situation of that time can believe the Israeli prime minister of that time. Israel’s victory in the 1967 Six-Day War resulted in Tel Aviv occupying the Sinai Peninsula right up to the east bank of the Suez Canal, West Bank and Golan Heights. In November of that same year, 1967, the UN Security Council unanimously adopted resolution 242, which called on Israel to withdraw from the “territories occupied in the recent conflict” - in exchange for the completion of the state of war and the right of all states in the region to “live in peace, secure and recognized boundaries. "
Israel refused to comply with this resolution, which was the beginning of the “war of attrition”, in which the parties exchanged air raids, shelling and acts of sabotage groups. Officially, it ended in the 1970 year, but actually lasted until the 1973 year.
The position of Tel Aviv with respect to the occupied territories enjoyed almost complete support from Washington, which literally “pushed” the Israeli army with the latest military technology.
In 1973 alone, Israel received 40 new American Skyhawk and Phantom aircraft, hundreds tanks, armored vehicles, artillery guns and mortars, anti-aircraft systems, homing smart bombs, various radar equipment and other military equipment. Of course, such a recharge has borne fruit, making Tel Aviv’s policy more uncompromising and aggressive.
Say, the 8, which began on January 1973, is a battle between Israeli and Syrian troops that lasted all day. According to official Israeli data, in the period from November 1972 of the year to January of 1973, as a result of the actions of the army, at least 500 of Palestinian partisans and 250 of Syrian soldiers were killed. In February, the Israeli Air Force shot down a civilian aircraft of the Libyan airline carrying 1973 passengers on board over the Sinai Desert in February. They all died. The UN Security Council condemned Israel for this air piracy. But less than six months later, two Israeli military fighters intercepted a passenger plane of the Lebanese airline MEA. And again - for the 120 time after the 18 of the year - a condemning resolution of the Security Council followed. Moreover, everything was so obvious that the United States did not even dare to use the right of veto. In March 1967, Israeli paratroopers temporarily captured the Egyptian island of Zukar in the Red Sea. A month later, on 1973 on April 10, Israeli saboteurs who landed in Beirut kill three leaders of the Palestinian resistance movement and blow up several storage tanks. The culmination of this undeclared war can be considered the events of September 1973 13, when as a result of air combat in the sky over the border between Lebanon and Syria, 1973 MiG-12 planes of the Syrian air forces were shot down.
The Central Intelligence Agency 26 September preempted Israel on the inevitability of war. Tel Aviv’s response was simply amazing: you shouldn’t worry, the Arabs would only be able to attack Israel in a few years. And the concentration of Egyptian troops on the border - the usual military maneuvers, which was officially announced long ago. Moreover, Israeli intelligence told her American colleagues: according to her, military maneuvers should end soon, and Egyptian officers have already been demobilized and pilgrims went to Mecca ...
On the night of 4 on October 5, just a day before the war, Mossad chief Zvi Zamir flew to London to meet with Ashraf Maroine. Marouan gave Zamira a secret code that signified the signal for the start of the war.
On October 1, only ten people in Egypt knew that military maneuvers were the forerunner of real war. On October 3, Egypt agreed with Syria on the day and time of the attack on Israel - 14.00 on October 6. Then, on October 4-5, the evacuation of Soviet specialists from Syria and part of the staff of the Soviet embassy from Egypt began, which also became known to the Israelis.
Israeli radio stations, which were supposed to stop broadcasting on Yom Kippur’s (Doomsday) 6 day in October, sent a cryptic phrase every quarter of an hour: “Sea wolf!”, “Beautiful lady!”, “Meat patties!”. The code words belonged to different groups of reservists, who urgently needed to arrive at the appropriate military units. These activities, as the head of the Israeli general staff later acknowledged, completed military preparations that had been carried out in the army during the previous ten days. Therefore, there can be no talk of any “surprise attack”.
And here in the testimony of the same Golda Meir contains actually the key to the oddities of the beginning of this war. Speaking of the fact that she was pleased with her decision to announce the call of reservists on the morning of the Doomsday, Golda Meir added that the transfer of American aid to Israel during the war was made possible by the decision not to deliver a preemptive strike.
And the whole story “October war” after these words begins to look different. It becomes clear that the Israelis, like the Americans, were well aware of the preparation attack. Israel to 5-6 October held a hidden mobilization. The debate of the Israeli cabinet 4-5 of October was not about whether the Arabs would attack or not, but about whether they should preempt them. And all this - in the framework of some secret agreements with the United States. What?
On the night of 5 on October 6, right after the cabinet meeting, Golda Meir met with Kenneth Ketting, the US ambassador to Israel.
Later, Israeli leaders themselves acknowledged that the main goal of the American diplomat was to persuade the Israeli government to abandon its intention to launch a “preventive strike” on the Arabs so that Tel Aviv would not look like an “aggressor” in the eyes of world public opinion. The ambassador made it clear that otherwise the United States would be in a difficult position to render military and other support to Israel.
But this is not all that the premier and the ambassador spoke about that night. According to sources, “the US ambassador shared the forecasts of some informed US departments about the possible results of the new round of the Arab-Israeli war.” First, Washington was confident that Israel this time would be able to “crush the Arab forces” even without a “preventive” strike. Secondly, he should not fear the union of Egypt with Syria, for they pursue completely different goals. If Damascus fights for the liberation of the occupied Arab lands and a just solution to the Palestinian problem, then Cairo, and indeed Washington, the war should, first of all, help to “unfreeze” the situation in the Middle East.
That which was invested in the notion of “defrosting”, Chief Ketting, then US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, just 18 hours later, explained during confidential talks to the PRC Ambassador to the UN, Juan Zhenyu: “Our strategic goal is to deprive the Soviets of their dominant position The Middle East ... In the outbreak of the war, the coalition of Arab countries will fail, because we, the United States, want to demonstrate to all Arab states: those who rely on the help of the Soviet Union will never succeed. "
Kissinger’s confident tone was simply explained - the presence of a “trump ace” up his sleeve, secret agreements with another key figure of the “October war”, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat. Unlike the USSR, the leaders of Israel, Syria and Libya, unlike the rest of the world, the secretary of state knew firmly: Sadat during the war would only create the appearance of interaction with his Arab allies, and in fact would closely coordinate his military and political actions with Washington .
“The most striking thing was that at first, literally no one was fully aware of what this man was,” Kissinger would say about him later. May be. But the fact that the new Egyptian president can be included in the anti-Soviet party of the United States in the Middle East was understood in Washington quite quickly.
In contrast to his predecessor, Gamal Abdel Nasser, Sadat was primarily an Egyptian nationalist. As is often the case, for all its foreign policy brilliance, the post-Nasser ARE was a political and economic bankrupt. The unbridled ambition and self-confidence that prevailed after the successes of Cairo in the 1956 Suez crisis of the year turned into dust after the defeat in the “six-day war”. Over 20, the percent of the gross national product of Egypt was allocated for military spending, which made it impossible at least any success in economic development. There was a growing social tension inside the country. The personal authority of Sadat fell as a leader who was unable to achieve either real progress in the liberation of the lands occupied by Israel, nor the improvement of the life of the Egyptians. Supporters of the late president rightly accused Sadat of abandoning “Nasserism,” of departing from the principles of “Arab socialism,” of not wanting to create a unified Arab state stretching from the Adriatic to the Persian Gulf.
Of course, it was not at all about some kind of “following ideals”, but about an elementary struggle for power, which in the East, as a rule, ends with the physical destruction of one of the parties. In a word, the seat under Sadat swayed. The new president saw a way out for himself and for the country from the critical situation in changing his geopolitical orientation, to go under the wing of Washington, to become part of the American system of control of the region. And, therefore, to receive large-scale economic assistance, peace with Israel and guarantees of their own power.
To begin with, in the 1971 year, the "May correctional revolution" was carried out. The most active opponents of Sadat from Nasser’s entourage were removed from power and arrested. A rejection of pan-Arab ambitions was recorded in the renaming of the country from the United Arab Republic to the Arab Republic of Egypt.
In July, 1972, although the USSR continued to supply it weapons, Sadat expelled Soviet military advisers and technical experts from the country, the total number of which at that time was about 20 thousand people.
The “invitation to dance” for Washington was more than obvious, but no one had opened the expected open arms to Sadat, as he might have expected. The United States needed stronger evidence of loyalty. Moreover, Sadat was obliged to accomplish something that finally “burned the bridges” and made it impossible for him to renounce his partnership with the Americans.
In winter, 1972 and early spring, 1973. Kissinger held several secret meetings with Sadhat’s national security adviser Muhammad Hafez Ismail. According to one of Ismail’s staff, Ahmad El-Sayed, who attended the meetings, Kissinger said plainly that “Egypt cannot expect at the negotiating table to get what it lost on the battlefield,” and that “Washington can do little to help Egypt as long as he himself does not take decisive steps. " The hint was more than transparent: in order to return Sinai, Egypt had to go to some kind of active actions.
By a strange coincidence, after these consultations, Sadat began to discuss with his entourage the forceful option of Sinai’s return, which included an attack on Israel in coalition with other Arab countries. “Sadat’s goal was not so much to gain territorial advantages, but to fuel the crisis, which would defuse the frozen relations between the parties and thus open the way to negotiations,” Kissinger later said frankly, shyly silent about the fact that it was he who “put into Sadat’s head” this target. “Surprise and shock will make it possible for both sides, including Egypt, to demonstrate flexibility, which was impossible while Israel considered itself to be a militarily superior party, and Egypt was paralyzed as a result of the humiliation inflicted on it. In short, Sadat’s goal was more psychological and diplomatic than military. ”
A month before the start of the October war, Sadat admitted to a well-known Egyptian journalist, in fact, to his personal biographer Mohamed Heikal: “This is our last chance. If we do not grab it, we will eventually miss the train. ”
True, this chance involved the betrayal of other partners from the Arab world. Before the war, Sadat received from Muammar Gaddafi "to fight with Israel" military and financial assistance, estimated at least a billion dollars. However, he did not warn about the upcoming military operation. But he informed the Saudi monarch, King Faisal, who promised him "support in all his endeavors." Attracting Syria to a military operation against Israel, Sadat did not hint at all about Egypt’s limited objectives in this operation. And then, when October 11 Israel launched an offensive and advanced deep into Syrian territory at a distance from which Damascus could be fired, did not lift a finger to come to the aid of an ally.
Sadat lied to everyone. When the 3-I Egyptian army was under threat of total annihilation, he remembered about Moscow, sending a panic telegram to L. Brezhnev with a request to intervene and prevent a catastrophe. The Soviet leader, who considered the war "the worst political mistake of the Egyptian and Syrian leaders," nevertheless intervened, ultimately giving promise to R. Nixon that if the US did not stop Israel, then "the USSR would have to urgently consider necessary unilateral steps.
Behind these lines of the Brezhnev message were all the seven Soviet airborne divisions brought into a state of increased combat readiness, and a group of ships with marines deployed to Port Said ...
But "the shame of the eye does not exist." Sadat fully fulfilled the party assigned to him in a political performance and earned the right to "a place under the American sun."
In 1977, the Egyptian president flew to Israel and delivered a speech in the Knesset. The following year, the Camp David agreements between Egypt and Israel were signed, under which Egypt received Sinai back and was recognized as a strategic partner of the United States in the region. Washington's geopolitical mnogohodovka crowned with success. It remains only to deal with the one who was the winner, and who - the vanquished.
Of course, the Soviet Union was the main loser of the October War. His “sphere of geopolitical influence” narrowed down to Syria and the Palestine Liberation Organization, However, the loyalty of the PLO, as well as the loyalty of the then Algeria, Libya, Iraq, was not particularly worth counting on. The Soviet Union lost its strategic initiative in the region, turned to the defensive tactics of "temporary alliances". Moreover, the loyalty of the “temporary allies” very generously, sometimes unjustifiably generously, was paid. By and large, since that time, the USSR has not been able to articulate clearly not so much the goals of its Middle East policy — there were no particular problems with goals during the Cold War — but rather its own interests in this region. Therefore, he failed to appreciate and did not react in any way to the two most important changes that this war brought to the world.
One of the important consequences of the October 1973 war was the political takeoff of Saudi Arabia, which allowed Wahhabism to begin its expansion throughout the world.
The “oil crisis”, which, in fact, was a reformatting of relations between transnational corporations and oil-exporting countries, allowed the Saudis to narrow the market for hydrocarbons, pushing prices to astronomical heights. In the case of Saudi Arabia, the average market price of oil extracted in its depths increased from 2,01 dollars per barrel 1 in October 1973 to 10,24 dollars to 1 in January 1975, which was a five-fold increase in 15 months. If the kingdom revenues in 1973 were 4,3 billion dollars, then in 1974-m - 22,6 billion already! Saudi Arabia has received unlimited funds to realize its long-standing ambitious dreams of a monopoly on the understanding of Islam in the scale of the Ummah - the entire community of the faithful. The Saudi Ministry of Religious Affairs printed and distributed free of charge millions of copies of the Koran, as well as a huge number of Wahhabi religious texts distributed to mosques around the world - from the African savanna to rice plantations in Indonesia and the municipal houses of European suburbs. For the first time in a fourteen-century Muslim history in all the regions where the ummah lived, the same books appeared, the same tapes came out of the same distribution networks. After just six years, the Saudis will make an open enemy of the USSR in Afghanistan. First sponsoring "jihad", and in 1984-1985. bringing down the price of oil from 30 to 12 dollars. In 1986, the price fell even lower - to 10 dollars per barrel. The surplus in the trade balance of the Soviet economy was eliminated: the USSR was now spending more than earning.
And this was made possible thanks to another, perhaps the main outcome of the “October war” and the “oil crisis” that followed.
US President R. Nixon 15 August 1971 of the year announced a formal cessation of the conversion of dollars into gold, essentially translating the world completely into a dollar standard.
Starting in the 1945 year, world oil trading was usually conducted in dollars, because the American oil companies dominated the post-war market. A sharp increase in world oil prices, therefore, meant equally the rapid increase in the demand for US dollars needed to pay for this oil.
The US Treasury Department has developed a secret agreement with the Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency. By its terms, the huge new Saudi super profits from the sale of oil were to be invested to a large extent in the settlement of US government deficits. A young Wall Street banker named David Mulford was sent to Saudi Arabia to become the main “investment adviser” at the Central Bank of Saudi Arabia to direct oil investments to the “right” banks, naturally located in London and New York .
And soon the OPEC countries announced: they will accept only US dollars as payment for their oil. The “petrodollar” emerged, which today is the main weapon of Washington.
This is what they look like, shots from the past, from the war that happened forty years ago ...
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