The Middle East

on the World Today

THERE is a fortunate irony in the fact that by different approaches most of the powers concerned in the Middle East are arriving at a common conclusion: the area must be neutralized and its economy developed on a regional basis. Until the Iraqi revolt in July, neutralization and reorganization on these lines were impossible. In the short run, that coup upset a delicate balance by which some Arab governments retained a vested interest in particularism, choosing among the big powers for support. In the long run, however, the coup made possible a peaceful regrouping of artificially created client states into what now appears to be a normal form of association and federation.

What, then, was all the fuss about? Why did it seem so vital in Baghdad a year ago to insist on the military necessity of the Baghdad Pact against almost solid Arab opposition? Why did Lebanon’s Christian leaders violate their essential constitutional neutrality to embrace the Eisenhower Doctrine? And why, until he was persuaded otherwise by urgent family councils, did King Saud plot for disengagement of Syria from Egypt? Finally, did London and Washington really believe that by supporting supposed bastions and friendly governments, against the tide of Arab nationalism, they were preserving the Arabs from Communism?

Positive neutrality, not arms

The assumptions underlying all these efforts were similar. The way to save the Middle East from Communism and Nasserism was by pacts and declarations, backed up by aid to pro-Western governments and snubs to doubtful ones. The vacuum theory realistically discounted Arab military capability in defending the area. But Western diplomats closed their minds to nationalist arguments that neutrality could best safeguard the area.

By 1955 it was clear that even for the sake of acquiring arms, Arab governments could not safely accept new protective treaties. Even Lebanon avoided taking this step, which would have only hastened the civil strife that followed its hospitality to the Eisenhower Doctrine. Iraq accepted the Baghdad Pact out of genuine conviction that it was a strategic necessity. But it only got through the parliament because of rigged elections and police suppression of all opposition.

Nuri es Said’s fateful decision this past summer to send the Iraqi army to help oppose revolts in Jordan and Lebanon set off the final eruption in Baghdad. The long-suppressed opposition was outraged at the idea of compounding Iraq’s violation of nationalist feeling. It was unthinkable to the opposition in Iraq that the army should help preserve governments which relied for existence on the same bases of manipulation and police suppression as did the Iraqi government.

One of the consequences of the Iraqi revolt is the necessity for abandoning a military solution for the Middle East power vacuum. The first basic shift of strategic positions look place in I 955, when Britain moved from Suez and began to center military planning for the Gulf region in Baghdad. This latest shift of power in Baghdad exposes the Persian Gulf protectorates much more openly to the prevailing political winds, leaving them protected militarily only by bases in Aden and Bahrain.

An immediate quest ion arises regarding these important vestiges of the old Indian empire. Can they and need they continue to be protected in this way? Or can a suitable set of international guarantees be devised to meet their modern needs more adequately? This question is brought to an immediate head by the change in Iraq.

While the Iraqi revolt underlines an increasing, popular Arab insistence on nonalignment in the Cold War, it also revives the more positive social aims of Arab nationalism. These have been a constant feature of each contemporary Arab revolution since the first Syrian coup nine years ago. The program comprises basic elements of a welfare state, and a chance for the young intelligentsia to have a hand in the government.

Iraq’s angry young men

In this last respect Iraq has long been on the point of explosion. The various cabinets of Nuri cs Said, despite their commendable concentration on development, completely alienated the educated professional class, which wanted social as well as physical improvement in Iraq. A ruling elite of landlords met popular demands for social change with impressive, but ultimately superficial, palliatives in the form of public works. But these landlords remained arrogantly impervious to pressures for taxation on land or incomes, and resisted to the end the sharing of responsibility. As more and more of the young men sent abroad for education returned to find themselves disenfranchised, they joined the ranks of the opposition.

The Iraqi Republic’s first reforms reflect the plans and hopes of these young radicals. The first decrees were for realistic taxes on landowners, who have been the principal beneficiaries of the development board’s river basin improvements. Tribal courts, where anyone who could scrape up a tribal affiliation avoided regular trial, were abolished. Prices of staples and rents were lowered; labor committees were set up; and the working day was shortened from nine to eight hours.

Government profits from oil

What is surprising is the relatively moderate character of these reforms. This is equally true of the businesslike attitude toward oil operations. Immediate steps were taken to protect the operations of the multinational Iraq Petroleum Company (I PC) which has long held exclusive oil rights throughout Iraq. The new government proposed not to nationalize the company but to renegotiate its contract to increase Iraq’s share in the profits. The last accomplishment of the Nuri government had been to persuade IPC to relinquish certain unexplored areas in Iraq so that competitors might bid on them. The present government hopes to attract new concessionaires willing to deal on the basis of newer, more speculative concessions recently granted elsewhere in the Persian Gulf. Many of these provide for operations more nearly on a partnership basis, with the host government ultimately getting a major share of the profits if oil is found.

Iraq also proposed, within five days of the coup, that its outlet through pipelines to the Syrian coast be expanded. Immediate concern with oil transit facilities (from which Syria at present draws some $18 million a year) was expressed in talks between the Iraqis and Colonel Nasser in Damascus at the time of signing a joint IraqUnited Arab Republic defense treaty.

The timing and place of these proposals foreshadowed important readjustments within the Arab family. For the Iraqi coup opened the way to the natural alignment between Iraq and northern Syria which the Baghdad Pact had thwarted. Trade and traffic between the Persian Gulf and the Mediterranean follow a natural route between Basra, Baghdad, Homs, and Latakia. There is already joint planning for rail and road building between them.

Syria’s economic prospects are consequently brighter. By virtue of its pivotal geographic position and long-standing fraternal bonds with Iraq, it has everything to gain by closer political association as well. Yet Damascus, which has been fretting at its secondary role in the UAR, is in a delicate position. Having been rescued by Nasser last winter from too eager a Soviet embrace, its first loyalty must be to the UAR. Baghdad now offers it alternative salvation through prosperity as well as national unity.

A family bank account

The Iraqi coup therefore confronts Colonel Nasser with problems. The fundamental, historic rivalry between Cairo and Baghdad has not been just a matter of rival personalities. The two capitals have different philosophies of Pan-Arabism and different stakes in it. This rivalry will not be easily resolved, even within a revitalized Arab League. Still to be reconciled is the wide gulf between a have and a have-not country — a gulf which Nasser expects to bridge by an all-Arab federation, in which Arab oil money would go into a family bank account. One of his problems will be to attract that money by diplomacy now that his old targets in Baghdad are gone.

On the issue of the sharing of oil wealth by the Arab haves, Colonel Nasser could get help from outside sources. Both UN Secretary General Hammarskjold and the American government have proposed a partial pooling of Arab oil funds, with international contributions, for Arab economic development. This idea has been promoted by needy Arab countries for some time. In Iraq the previous government had begun discussions with the rulers of Kuwait and Saudi Arabia on possible subscriptions to an Arab Development Bank. This project will probably survive the bureaucratic purge in Baghdad.

For the first time Colonel Nasser can contemplate a general success for his Pan-Arab movement. The barricades are down along the Tigris and Euphrates. They appear to be coming down along the Persian Gulf as well. Arab neutralism too has begun to receive at least grudging acceptance from the anxious West. But there is a price for these successes. They require a stage of consolidation, a rediversion of the revolution into domestic issues, and a toning down of its aggressive aspects.

Egypt’s forward steps

Colonel Nasser may have to demonstrate more widely his genuine concern with the revolution’s welfare program if he is to remain its hero. Within Egypt he appears to appreciate the importance of this less exhilarating task. In the organization of the Suez Canal Authority, for example, he has followed the advice of an able staff. The canal is Egypt’s one source of substantial foreign exchange, bringing in some $100 million a year. Egypt reserves 25 per cent of the toll income for improvements, which are now under way. Three American firms have the contract to deepen the canal for passage of ships drawing over the 36 feet allowed at the present time. When the job is done in 1960, the passage of 45,000-ton ships will be possible.

At the same time the drive for industrialization continues. The opening of Egypt’s first steel mill was a recent cause for national celebration. Credits of some $120 million from West Germany, along with German technicians, are helping to build more factories and expand payrolls. The plan for the Aswan Dam, to furnish cheap power and irrigate more land, still hinges on a water agreement with the Sudan and on international aid in financing it.

But Nasser’s great dream is to control a socialized Arab world financed by oil. This ambition and the means he uses to reach it are a central element in the still unresolved Middle East situation.

The Hammarskjold proposals at the United Nations in August, and the American ones as well, represented attempts to channel oil contributions into general Arab welfare by pooling them with international aid. But the scars of the Suez affair remain, and Western initiatives are still scrutinized for any taint of patronage or imperialism. One byproduct of Suez was good rapport between the Egyptians and Hammarskjold, which made current negotiations possible.

The question of Palestine

United Nations and Western efforts in the Middle East labor under the added handicap of having postponed for ten years the unfinished business of Palestine. Now, as in 1948, positions taken on this issue will determine much of the success or failure of efforts to come to terms with Arab nationalism. The details of eventual settlements are less crucial than the willingness to attempt a just solution for the Arab refugees, permanent boundaries, and the status of Jerusalem.

It was Arab bitterness, particularly among the junior officers whose armies lost the badly led struggle in Palestine, which provided the spark for revolt in Egypt, Syria, and Iraq. These young men now are the colonels leading a movement which has already erased many vestiges of humiliation. Two more scores have high priority with them for settlement. One involves a gathering into the nationalist fold of their sympathizers in Jordan. The other, a settlement with Israel, requires the most disinterested solution possible on the west bank of the Jordan and on the permanent status of Jerusalem.