Book excerpt: Part memoir, part history, Russia and the Arabs reveals the past half-century in the Middle East from a viewpoint seldom seen by Westerners. Yevgeny Primakov, formerly the head of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service, Foreign Minister, and Prime Minister of Russia, exposes how key political events unfolded through the personal interactions and rivalries among notable leaders from Yasser Arafat and Yitzhak Rabin to Anwar Sadat and Saddam Hussein, whom he knew personally. He shows how the 1967 and 1973 Arab-Israeli wars developed, exposes Russia's previously unknown role in the 1991 Gulf War, and assesses Russia's Middle East policies alongside those of other foreign players, including the United States. The author's first-hand accounts of behind-the-scenes encounters and his insights into what really drove the region's key events make Russia and the Arabs an essential read for everyone interested in world affairs.