NO MORE APPEASEMENT
BRITISH Middle Eastern policy is a failure. That is the lesson of the Washington talks. Out of all the discussions between President Eisenhower and Sir Anthony Eden has come nothing more than an agreement to see what can be done about Israel and the Arab States, and an agreement to differ over Saudi Arabia and the Baghdad pact. Anglo- American policy has got itself into such a cleft stick in the Levant that it is now obvious that there is no easy way of extricating it. A year or two ago everything looked rosy enough. The Anglo-Egyptian agreement had opened up new Possibilities of understanding. The agreement over Persian oil had settled a thorny problem in a way which brought advintage to both sides. There even seemed a ,chance that Colonel Nasser's new Egypt might take the lead in a Middle Eastern defence pact. In any case the arrangements for the `northern tier' were well under way.
It is hard to realise'that a comparatively minor Soviet inter- vention has upset all these pleasant prospects. The Levant as once viewed by the Foreign Office is now such stuff as dreams are made on. Perhaps it always was. The picture is very different today : Egypt accepting Soviet arms and technicians; Jordan the scene of riots against adhesion to the Baghdad pact; Saudi Arabia causing trouble with the large sums of money coming to her from the royalties paid by ARAMCO; Russia intervening actively in an area where the only rivalries were once between Britain and America. The Prime Minister's state- ment in Parliament and the Russian warning against British or American intervention in the Middle East have once again made it clear that this has become potentially the most danger- ous theatre of the cold war.
One fundamental error has long conditioned British policy towards the Arab States. That was to believe that the course of Arab nationalism would always be friendly to us. No doubt, this error was caused by history. Great Britain freed the Arab States froth the domination of the Turks, but she also replaced the Turks as the dominating power, and, in so doing, she became associated in the minds of Arab nationalists with a foreign hegemony. The weakness of Sir Anthony Eden's Guild- hall speech was to propose sacrifices on the part of Israel—a State which is certainly pro-Western, which indeed cannot be anything else—for the sake of appeasing States that at the best are deeply divided and. full of explosive material. This appeasement has been carried very far indeed. Whatever Sir Anthony may say about not starting an arms race in the Middle East, the fact remains that Egypt has Centurion tanks and Ilyushin jet bombers and Israel has none. Whatever Mr. Harold Macmillan may have thought about the potentialities of the Baghdad pact, the fact remains that Jordan has been alienated by an ill-judged attempt to force her to join it and that Russian intervention was probably precipitated by its signature. The troops sent to Cyprus are an eloquent commentary on the faith the Foreign Office has in its ability to control events. Yet, there are several things that should be done in the Middle East. Support should be given to the States in the area that are sure allies and free from the possibility of internal convulsions: Turkey and Israel. We cannot prevent Soviet arms going to Egypt without prior agreement with Russia, but we can guarantee the Israeli frontiers and give Israel such arms as she needs to defend herself. This would remove the present danger of an Israeli preventive war as well as the long-term danger of an Arab attack. The UN could be associated in any such guarantee, but, however this may be, it is urgently necessary to stabilise the situation and seal off the dispute. The arguments against such assurances to Israel seem weak enough when they are examined, in spite of their hypnotic effect on the Middle Eastern Department of the Foreign Office.
British interests in the Levant are concerned both with military bases and with oil, but will these interests be seriously damaged by the sending of arms to Israel or a renewed guarantee of its frontiers? British bases in the Middle East are at the moment supplied by the Baghdad pact countries and by Jordan. Now the situation precipitated in the latter country by the unfortunate Templer mission makes it seem unlikely that bases there could be used in the event of any real emergency. As for the Baghdad pact, most of the countries adhering to it are not Arab States and would. not be powerfully affected by closer British relations with Israel.
The exception is Iraq, but here the economic side of the Baghdad pact should be taken into consideration. If the West can offer economic stability as the price of accepting the existence of Israel, it seems probable that Iraq would hesitate to refuse these terms. The value of the pact lies far more in this economic prospect than in its military advantages.
Our oil supplies come from Iraq, from Persia, and from the sheikdoms along the Persian Gulf. It seems very unlikely that any of these countries will be so moved by assurances to Israel as to cut off our petrol and their own royalties. As for the other Arab States, the same considerations apply to them. There is no need to suppose that Colonel Nasser is as fanatical in his hatred of Israel as the Egyptian man in the street. Egypt too can be offered economic aid, though we should avoid the ignominious kind of rush to get in before the Russians that has taken place over the Aswan dam. The Egyptian leaders might even be glad to have forced on them an acceptance of Israel, which they cannot voluntarily make. As for Saudi Arabia, it is clear that this is the one State that cannot be appeased, for her irresponsible ambitions menace the vital British interests along the Persian Gulf.
Britain must work out a new realism in her policies in the Levant. That realism must be based on friendship with States that can be trusted and whose rulers have some claim to repre- sent their own public opinion. With the Arab States we can have relations based on mutual economic advantage, but it seems likely that,' for the majority of them, suspicion of the West is too strong to make attempts to bring them into a Middle Eastern defence system anything more than a dream. Israel should not be abandoned for the sake of that dream.
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