The Middle East

on the World Today

THE Truman Doctrine, hastily improvised a year a*ro to fill the vacuum which threatened to follow British withdrawal from Greece, begins to emerge as part of a new long-range American policy for the Middle East. In Greece the policy is having its first test; and, as temperatures rise and fall along the line running, almost as sharply as a geological fault, from Konitsa along the northern borders of Turkey, Iran, and Afghanistan (and incidentally Sinkiang), the Kremlin must now have a fairly clear idea of how seriously the Western powers will take any new pressures on this line.

The positions taken up by the United States in the Mediterranean are being backed by British forces. The British token army and air force remaining in Greece will not be withdrawn, as planned. British troops from Palestine will soon move northwest to Cyprus.

That this policy cannot be merely a military or static one becomes evident as we become more involved in Middle East affairs, and as more of the basic facts of political life there sink into American official consciousness. We must realize what Britain and Russia have always understood: that the Eastern Mediterranean basin and the Middle East countries bordering it are parts of one political complex. This complex now extends as far as Pakistan; and a new line from Karachi north to Kabul must enter into the calculations of Washington as it has for many years into those of Moscow and London.

Knowledge of the interrelationships in the Middle East may enable us to place seemingly isolated disturbances in their true context. It is illuminating, for example, to see the everyday use rival powers make of the common denominators of poverty, unenlightenment, and minority troubles all through the Middle East. The Soviet propaganda attributes all of these difficulties to “imperialist influences.”A recent series of articles in a Soviet magazine circulated widely in the Middle East reports the sufferings of the Azerbaijanis in Iran since the departure of the Russians. The emphasis is on the influx of inferior American goods, which are said to compete with local industries to such an extent that the Azerbaijanis have lost all incentive to produce. The Iranian government’s custom of using Persian as the official language in the province, rather than the local dialect, is another point stressed.

A further installment of this saga, attributed to a “traveler” from the U.S.S.R, relates the distress of the masses of Syria and the Lebanon, who are pictured as being ready for liberation from the yoke of feudal leaders. Russian propaganda since the vote on the partition of Palestine has taken the line that the decision is in the best interests of the Arabs, implying that since it is good for them they should welcome it. How this will go down remains to be seen. But it is clear from the relatively mild tone of Arab criticism of the Soviet position on partition, as contrasted with the violent expressions against the United States in the Arab press, that some of the Soviet propaganda is working.

Britain and the Arab League

The historic British policy of “divide and rule” has undergone considerable modification in the Middle East since the end of the war. First evidence of the change was in British encouragement, of the Arab League. Set up in 1945 to help newly independent Arab countries meet some of their regional economic and social problems, the League has become the chief instrument of the politically articulate peoples between Cairo and Riyadh, Baghdad, and Beirut.

Its leading spokesman is Secretary-General Abdel Rahman Azzam Pasha, an Egyptian intellectual who has fought and is again fighting for the independence of Libya. His present preoccupation is, of course, with Palestine. But Azzam Pasha paints with a very broad brush indeed, for he envisions a united Arab world from the Atlantic to the Taurus. Standing for the development of democratic institutions and planned economic development of this whole area, he represents the moderate and more advanced element in the Arab movement.

It is notable, for example, that it was Azzam who, after the war, first suggested to the Western powers that if they would take a fair share of Europe’s displaced persons, the Arab countries would do likewise. A more recent warning issued to students in Cairo rioting against partition is significant. He assured the students that the Arabs would win in their struggle against partition as they had against the Tartars and the Crusaders.

But he went on to point out that the Christian Arabs are now second to none in their loyalty to the Arab cause; and he stressed that all Arabs had a duty to remain hospitable to foreigners within their gates, as Arab tradition demands, a warning evidently directed at extremist elements playing up anti-foreign sentiments in Egypt.

It is to leadership of Azzam Pasha’s type that Britain turns as she is forced to realign her position in the Middle East. In his January speech on foreign policy in Commons, Bevin suggested that by improving the agricultural and industrial potentialities of the Middle East and so raising the standard of living of the masses, Britain would be fulfilling her real destiny in that part of the world. He anticipates that such coöperation in economic and social fields may carry with it responsibility for mutual defense.

Politics in Iran

British mediation in Iran may have prevented a crisis for the moment. A supposedly pro-British Premier has succeeded Ghavam, whose standards of rectitude in government proved too flexible even for the Iranians.

The new government has made several moves calculated to ease tension at a moment when Russian loss of face and temper over the proposed northern oil concession threatened further trouble. Premier Hakimi announced in January that Iran would grant no concessions to outsiders, but would develop its resources on its own; he also cut down drastically on the amount of military matériel previously requested from the United States, asking with considerable show of bravado, “What do we need so much material for? . . . I don’t think our gendarmerie . . . need that much.”And he has stated that it would not be to Iran’s advantage to accept a proposed loan of 250 million dollars from the International Bank, partly to exploit the coveted northern oil fields.

Since politics, not oil, is the real issue here, and Russian fears of rival powers in the region are real, these tactics obviously are designed to allay such fears and keep the border quiet. The appearance of Anthony Eden in Teheran recently, during an unofficial visit as guest of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, points up continuing British interest, however, and may serve as a gentle warning to Moscow that Britain is on guard in Iran, with or without troops.

Oil royalties in Bahrein

Eden’s recent tour took him also to the Persian Gulf island of Bahrein and to Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia. British influence is, of course, paramount in the island of Bahrein, where a British adviser in the service of Sheikh Sir Sulaiman ibn Hamid al Khalifa has initiated the most constructive use of oil royalties known in the Arab world.

Briefly, one third of the royalties paid by the American-owned Bahrein Petroleum Company goes into the royal coffers; another third goes into public works and local government, giving the islanders considerable lead over neighboring oil-rich states in matters of sanitation and schools; a final third goes into long-term investments outside the area, to protect the Sheikhdom when the royalties diminish or cease altogether.

Eden will have inspected, in addition to these helpful by-products of a daring and successful American oil venture, the naval base and air base which make the island an important link in the British transportation route eastward to Pakistan, India, and Singapore.

But across the Gulf, on the Saudi Arabian mainland, where he had a royal lunch with Ibn Saud, he will have found less evidence of British influence. In view of Bevin’s announcement of an impending new treaty with Saudi Arabia to replace that signed on the occasion of Britain’s recognition of the present Saudi Arabian government, it is reasonable to assume that Eden’s visit had hot political importance for three countries, the third the U.S.A.

In the context of the entire Middle East struggle for stability, the Palestine tragedy stands out, calling for greater statesmanship and insight than have yet been displayed by any of the powers. By narrowing the question to its local dimensions — that is, to a two-way dispute between Arab and Jew — the United Nations Assembly recommendation leaves unsettled the wider implications which are only recognized in the trusteeship arrangement for Jerusalem. For here there is taken into account the principle that is still denied by both Zionists and Arab nationalists, that Palestine is an international problem.