Asad also believed that such a piece would strengthen the Arab world.

Kissinger thought that strengthening the Arabs would destabilize his balance of power.

So he set out to do the very opposite, to fracture the power of the Arab countries,

by dividing them and breaking their alliances, so they would keep each other in check.

Kissinger now played a double game, or as he turned it, constructive and begut.

In a series of meetings, he persuaded Egypt to sign a separate agreement with Israel.

But at the same time, he led Asad to believe that he was working for a wider piece agreement,

one that would include the Palestinians.

In reality, the Palestinians were ignored.

They were irrelevant to the structural balance of the global system.

The hallmark of Kissinger's thinking about it in national politics is its structural design.

Everything is always connected in his mind to everything else.

But his first thoughts are on that level, on the structural global balance of power level.

And as he addresses questions of human dignity, human survival, human freedom,

I think they tend to come into his mind as an adjunct of the play of nations at the power game.

When Asad found out the truth, it was too late.

In a series of confrontations with Kissinger and Damascus, Asad raged about this treachery.

He told Kissinger that what he had done would release demons hidden under the surface of the Arab world.

Kissinger described them as,

Asad's controlled fury, he wrote, was all the more impressive for its eerily cold, seemingly unemotional demeanor.

Asad now retreated.

He started to build a giant palace that loomed over Damascus.

...