The Middle East

on the World Today

FROM the moment when American diplomats assumed the role of intermediaries in the disputes over British bases in Egypt and British oil holdings in Iran, it was inevitable that the United States would continue to be involved for its own sake in the resolution and aftermath of these negotiations. In Egypt, where the agreement on evacuation of British forces from the Canal Zone was signed late in July, the government of the Council of the Revolution scarcely paused for breath before calling on Washington to honor President Eisenhower’s yearold promise of economic and military aid.

In Iran, a series of emergency loans from Washington kept the government of General Fazlollah Zahedi from total bankruptcy while the oil negotiations were going on. Further loans are now necessary to keep Iran going until revenue from oil begins to come in again in 1955.

In other potential trouble spots, such as Iraq, the United States is attempting to bolster the defenses of the pro-Western regime of Premier Nuri al-Said with military aid and arms. In Jordan the Foreign Operations Administration has begun to channel some $8 million into the country’s anemic economic system. This first direct cash grant to an Arab state from Washington will go into development of local resources, road construction, and water projects that are beyond Jordan’s means but are essential to keep her from going bankrupt.

This grant is distinct from technical aid funds which Jordan and all receptive Middle East countries have been getting since 1951. Both types of assistance continue to go to Israel, which has had $6 million in technical aid from the United States, $209 million in cash grants, and an Export-Import Bank loan of $135 million since 1946.

Back of this policy of expanding economic aid to the Middle East as a whole is the conviction in Washington that the area is becoming increasingly subject to Soviet attention and pressure. As former Assistant Secretary of State Byroade has put it, “The more Russia’s aggressive moves are stalemated in Europe and the Far East, the more danger grows for the Middle East.”It is Byroade’s thesis that insecurity anywhere can a affect our own security; and that in the Middle East there is a chance of building up a security system before, rather than after, the outbreak of trouble. A policy of prophylaxis, therefore, was developod during Byroade’s tenure as Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern. African, and Asian Affairs.

It has been clear, for example, that the rise of an indigenous, non-Communist revolutionary government in Egypt offered a great opport unity to recast relationships between Egypt and the West. Fortunately, Foreign Secretary Eden and Secretary of State Dulles recognized early that the leaders of this revolution are men of modern mind interested in dealing with present-day realities. It was recognized, too, that until the new government could reach a settlement of Egypt’s long-standing demands in the Sudan and the Canal Zone, it would not be possible to interest it in external defense arrangements which the West believes to be urgent.

Aid without pacts

Given the agreements which have finally been reached on the Sudan and Suez, it is still unlikely that formal security ties with the West may come soon. On this point Premier Gamal Nasser pleads for patience, pointing put that throughout history treaties and alliances have meant domination to the peoples of the Middle East. Hence premature agitation for pacts now will be used by extremists of left and right to stir up hatred against the West.

Nevertheless Nasser has stated unequivocally his opposition to both these extremist groups. The actions of his government in suppressing both the Communists and the fanatics of the Moslem Brotherhood, who oppose the Suez agreement and any rapprochement with the West, indicate clearly the trend of his intentions. On this basis the United States and Britain are gambling that the Council of the Revolution will continue to carry out its program of strengthening its defenses and reforming the country’s social structure, and they are now making arms and economic aid available to Egypt. The army of 50,000 is to be expanded to some 500,000 and, aided by Western arms, it will take up defense of the Canal Zone as soon as possible.

Equally important from the Egyptian point of view are the securing of economic aid and the attraction of foreign capital to speed up an ambitious program of industrial expansion. Colonel Nasser and his Council seem to recognize clearly that with the Suez problem solved there is no longer a convenient British scapegoat on the political scene. They must now deal with the second of the two revolutions of which Nasser hits written so eloquently in his book, The Philosophy of the Revolution. Now that Egypt has been freed from external “tyranny,” the Council must free it from its staggering poverty.

The first step to this end was the enactment and immediate execution of the land reform law, which has proceeded with novel speed and efficiency during the last two years. The cooperative movement is being pushed to give new landholders a means of marketing their crops. Wheat production has been increased and the cotton market stabilized. The laws regulating foreign investment in Egypt have been amended to attract foreign capital. Sufficient inducements now exist, for example, to make it worth while for a new group of American oil companies to take up the search for oil in the Sinai district.

Next on the program is a project to develop 2 million new acres of farm land by putting up a 475-foot dam at Aswan on the upper Nile to create the largest reservoir in the world. The Search for funds for this ambitious scheme is already on. Meanwhile direct economic aid from the United States is available for the first time, in the amount of some $20 million which has been held in escrow during the Suez negotiations. These funds will be used for highway and railroad development, which have a high priority on Egypt’s list of needed improvements.

Already under way is a land reclamation project in the Faiyum area, jointly financed by American TCA funds and the Egyptian government under the direction of the Egypt ianAmerican Rural Improvement Services (EARIS).

There are no strings to the aid Egypt is receiving in these various fields except that military aid there as elsewhere in the region must not be used for aggression. This stipulation conforms to the 1950 Tripartite Declaration by Britain, the United States, and France guaranteeing the armistice lines with Israel. Nevertheless it was inevitable that Israel should look upon the departure of British troops from the (’anal Zone with a paradoxical regret, since they prov ided a very real insurance against possible attack from Egypt.

Washington’s attitude changes

The prospect of a greatly strengthened military force in Egypt and the realization that the Western powers are now helping other Arab states to build up their defenses have created a crisis in Israel which no amount of diplomatic reassurance in London and Washington has been able to calm. At the least, a reappraisal of its actual position in the Middle East will be forced on Israel; at the worst, its extremist elements, those who want to “march to Damascus,” will attempt to overthrow the moderate Sharett government.

It needs to be understood that fundamental United States support of Israel has not been withdrawn. At the same time a shift has taken place in Washington to a position of evenhanded treatment of all countries in what is now regarded as a highly critical danger zone for the entire free world.

The most definite sign of this shift in policy is the Administration’s determination to ameliorate the Arab refugee situation by means of developing new agricultural land in the Jordan River basin. On the Arab side there has been a reversal of the policy of negativism which has refused all attempts to solve this problem through UN agencies. Egypt has taken the lead recently in promoting some practical division of the Jordan waters among the four countries adjacent to the river — Syria, Jordan, Israel, and Lebanon.

This new note of realism about Israel as a fixture on the landscape may help the other Arab states to reach the same conclusion. Much hard bargaining lies ahead on this question and on a practical redrawing of the borders which must precede any real peace with Israel.

Nasser builds his fences

Egypt’s pivotal position has been dramatized further in the recent travels of Colonel Nasser and his fellow Council members to all the Arab capitals. Plainly Nasser believes that he has a mission to draw the Arabs closer together in a defense arrangement which may give some sort of substance to the paper plans which have piled up so long in Cairo, Damascus, and Bagdad.

One of his suggestions for cementing good relations seems particularly significant as an evidence of the modern attitude among young Moslems. Visiting Mecca on the annual pilgrimage in August, he proposed to King Saud of Arabia that, the annual hadj be used as an occasion for assembling the leaders of all Islamic states to consider political problems which are common to all of them.

Equally novel is a report that these two leaders laid out a program of Islamic missionary work to be conducted in Africa under the auspices of Al Azhar University. Nasser’s own description of the pilgrimage sounds a new and bold note: “Our view of the Pilgrimage must change. It should not only be regarded as a ticket of admission into Paradise. ... It should become an institution of great political power and significance.”

These views of Islam are not unique with Nasser. Current studies now going on with the object of relating the Sharia law to the conditions of modern life in the Levant countries are part of the same modern trend. An ecleclic system of legislation is being evolved, borrowing precedents which fit present-day situations from whatever Islamic sources can be found. Thus the reconciliation of an Eastern way of life and philosophy with Western techniques and services may be on the way.

Russia’s propaganda offensive

It is somewhat startling to hear the new leadership in the U.S.S.R. reviving the campaign against religion and singling out Islam for attack. A recent talk broadcast by Ashkhabad radio in Turkmen, entitled “Islam and Its Reactionary Role,” attacked “the remnants of capitalism displayed in fasting and observing Bairam as a Moslem festival.” The real complaint back of this attack seems to have been that agricultural work was hindered by these ritual practices in the workers’ paradise of Turkmenistan. Nevertheless the attack seems ill timed if the U.S.S.R. is hopeful of wooing the Arab masses, as its activities in the Middle East seem to indicate.

In direct diplomatic exchanges with Egypt and Iran, Soviet protests against any alliance between these states and the new defense partnership of Turkey and Pakistan have been firmly rebuffed. But in the Levant countries along the Mediterranean there is evidence of a steppedup propaganda offensive.

In Iraq this offensive is focused on the Kurdish tribes in the north. Further south there base appeared this year, for the first time, propaganda tracts inviting the Kuwaitis and the Bahreinis in the Persian Gulf to rise up against “the intruders and supporters of imperialism.”A “Society of the Free” in Bahrein has appealed to the leftist Voice of the Arabs broadcaster in Cairo to spread its appeal. Fortunately the answer to these inflammatory efforts is at hand in Bahrein and Kuwait, where model welfare states are being built with oil revenue.

Across the Gulf in Saudi Arabia the danger to the established regime of King Saud seems more likely to come from within. The new king has made the customary tour of the country, meeting tribal leaders and as many desert people as possible. In Riyad he is attempting to reorganize the government on a national rather than a family basis. The most important victim of this reform has been former Finance Minister Abdullah Suleiman, now pensioned off after a unique career as arbiter of all Saudi finances during the reign of Ibn Saud.

Other indications of impending change are the offer to the public, for the first time, of shares in a new fisheries company which a concessionaire company had hoped to operate on the traditional privileged lines. The fundamental problem of channeling the benefits of oil revenue down to the citizenry remains to be solved. There are indications, however, that the younger educated generation of Saudis are forcing the pace of progress.

Certainly Saudi Arabia’s days of complete isolation are over. Communications and lransportation run both ways, and the new king’s disposition seems to be to extend them. A particularly significant indication of this is the new project which he has initiated with Syria and Jordan to restore the sections of the Jejaz railway destroyed by T. E. Lawrence and his Arab followers during World War I. Nominees from these two countries and Saudi Arabia now sit on a board of directors charged with finding means of rebuilding the historic link between Damascus, Amman, and Medina.

Iranian oil settlement

The oil negotiations in Iran achieved a remarkable compromise of conflicting interests. On the Iranian side, nationalization is preserved and the National Oil Company will carry out the internal functions of the oil enterprise in Iran, being responsible for training, transport, housing, and medical services. It will also work the Naft-i-Shah oil field and the Kermanshnh refinery, which supply much of Iran’s internal needs.

Two new operating companies, one for exploration and production, and one for refining, will have Iranians on their boards of directors. And Iranians are free to develop their own tanker companies if they choose to enter the transportation field. What the members of the consortium were able to salvage was the fifty-fifty principle of profit sharing which now prevails elsewhere in the Persian Gulf, and the principle of compensation for nationalized installations.

Aside from these tangible results, the rescue of Iran from bankruptcy and almost certain Communist, engulfment was the primary objective of the American negotiators in their role of conciliation. But in the political field full success cannot be claimed until ratification of the agreement by the Iranian Majlis assures its implementation. Only after this hurdle is cleared can it be hoped that the revived Seven-Year Plan of development will actually be carried forward and Iran’s economic paralysis ended.

The firm replies of the Zahedi government to the U.S.S.R.’s protests over the agreement and over Iranian consideration of defense ties with Turkey and Pakistan are good to hear. But it would be unwise to be lulled by them at a time when the Iranian government is finding that some hundreds of officers in its army have been working early and late for Zahedi’s removal and for the Soviets across the border.