In the wake of the Arab spring of 2011, the struggle for leadership of the Arab world has taken on a new significance, and with this comes the ever-present issue of the Arab-Israeli Peace Process. The 1990s was a decade of US-led peace-making in the Middle East, and the Syrian-Israeli talks teetered on a deal more than once. The framework for a potential peace agreement was established through these bilateral negotiations, but after the collapse of the Asad-Clinton summit of 2000, the 'Syrian track' stalled as positions hardened and regional and domestic political realities shifted. Here, Radwan Ziadeh tracks these negotiations, from the Madrid conference of 1991, to the Asad-Clinton summit, and beyond, examining how Syria's foreign policy has changed with the rise to power of Bashar al-Asad and, in Iran, of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the assassination of Rafiq al-Hariri in Lebanon and the Iraq war. This book provides a valuable and thorough historical analysis of this period of Middle Eastern politics and international diplomacy as well as examining the potential impact of a peace deal on Syrian society, politics and economy.
