American Arabesque
UvErrrs in the Middle East have recently taken d on something of the recurrent pattern of an arabesque. Mobs out in the streets of Jordan towns, Communist infiltration, a Hashemite prince forestalling an army coup d'etat—it all has a drearily familiar sound. It is only when we read that the mobs were shouting 'Down with the Eisenhower doctrine' that anything is different. Instead of Arab nationalism versus Western imperialism, the issue at stake in Jordan is sud- denly seen to be the future of American influence in the Middle East—an influence which is men- aced before ever it has begun to make itself felt.
Whether or not King Hussein has won the day in Jordan it is too early to say. He may have temporarily brought it off, the Unicorn in the shape of General Abu Nuwar may have been chased all round the town, but it is unlikely that he, Colonel Sarraj, Colonel Nasser or the Soviet Union will be content to let the matter rest there. The King is at a disadvantage owing to his fairly obvious siding with the West; he cannot accept help from his Iraqi cousins without risking absorp- tion—not to mention an Israeli intervention; he can hardly rely on the good offices of the Saudis, America's agents in the area, since past relations between his house and that of Ibn Saud are hardly such as to inspire confidence in the good faith of the latter's son and heir. All he can do is to sit tight and repeat with some fervour the platitudes of Arab nationalism while relying on the support of the Bedouin element in the Arab l..egion and such Palestinian politicians as are hostile to the young left-wing officers and intriguers from whom the danger of a coup has so far come. This he has done with some success, but it is hardly a very inspiring programme, and it is significant that he has had to take Mr. Nabulsi back into the cabinet.
faut tottfours faire le bien publique par les moyens les plus terribles,' remarked Saint-Just, and King Hussein may yet live to regret not having been able to adopt more radical measures.
In spite of the King's care not to identify him- self too closely with the West, whether he and President Eisenhower like it or not, there is little doubt that present events will be taken throughout the Middle East as representing a trial of strength between the US and the USSR, a conflict not so much ideological in its significance as bearing witness to the power in terms of hard cash, arms and clients of two great competitors. The loss of Jordan to Syrian or Egyptian influence would mean the nipping of the Eisenhower plan in the bud. To avoid this the State Department will naturally strain every nerve, and it is curious to notice how naturally they have been led in Jordan to rely on exactly the same elements as Britain once supported : the King, the Bedouin in the Arab Legion and the traditionalists. Western inter- vention in the Arab world, in fact, tends to fall into the same inevitable designs, and the sinister side of this is clear when we reflect what happened to British hegemony there.
America, in fact, seems to have learned nothing from, and forgotten nothing of, British policy in the Middle East between the wars and up till 1956. Particularly is this the case with regard to Israel, where the State Department has achieved as masterly a piece of prevarication as ever came out of a diplomat's brain. After repeated assurances that the US recognised no belligerent rights of the Arab States towards Israel, the Saudi ambassador is assured by the State Department that no agreement for the passage of American tankers to Elath through the Gulf of Aqaba exists and that the arrival of one ship does not con- ititute the fulfilment of any pledge to Israel on the question of freedom of passage. Whom is this poor man's machiavellianism meant to deceive? All that it will do is possibly encourage Saudi Arabia to set up batteries in the Straits of Tiran and provoke Israeli reprisals. This appeasement of an Arab ally at the expense of good faith and Middle Eastern stability is precisely the kind of action that marked the disastrous course of British policy up to Suez. It is true that, even in this country, there are some people to whom even Suez has not brought home the facts of life in the Middle East. Lord Home's statement in the House of Lords that 'it is not the arming of the Baghdad Pact Powers against the threat of Com- munism which causes the tension; it is the reck- less supply of arms to Israel and her immediate Arab neighbours' reveals such depths of official ignorance and wishful thinking that it is almost impossible to plumb them.
All this is the more ironical because in Egypt America is leaning over backwards to hold the balance even between her Western allies and Colonel Nasser, who is not her ally and not likely to be, whatever Mr. Dulles may or may not think. It now looks as though Colonel Nasser will get his de facto Canal regime—in spite of Lord Salisbury's call to action in Tuesday's Times there is very little anybody can do to prevent it— and, since Greek and Italian shipping is appar- ently going to use the Canal, Western Europe would be cutting off its nose to spite its face were it to boycott Suez indefinitely. On the other hand, the question of Israeli shipping through the Canal is still unsettled and the apparent unwillingness of the US to bring real pressure to bear on the Egyptians—an attitude which again exactly duplicates the British point of view after the 1951 Security Council resolution—presents another temptation to Israel to repeat her military ex- pedition into Sinai. It seems incredible that it should not yet have been realised in Washington that every concession over Israel to the Arab States simply increases their conviction that, with persistent use of their power of blackmail, this unwelcome intruder can be destroyed, but the history of the Middle East is strewn with these gigantic misunderstandings. We might, however, have hoped that the State Department would choose a new set instead of exactly the same job lot they inherited from the Foreign Office.
The fact is that American policy in the Middle East is pursuing two incompatibles. On the one hand, American action during the Suez crisis and over the Gaza strip had as its apparent motivating force the need for peace in the area under the auspices of the UN. On the other, the Eisenhower doctrine is designed to keep the Soviet Union out of the Middle East—an operation which is almost impossibly difficult. To achieve this, America is using exactly the same instruments which Britain handled for so long with such conspicuous lack of success and is being increasingly reduced to the same discreditable expedients to avoid offending them. And all the while a stable solution for the area is put off, and it falls, into greater and greater anarchy. In order to put an end to disorder, the Arab States must be led to accept the existence of Israel, but this cannot be brought about without some measure of agreement between the great powers who have been bidding for their support. For the Middle East to be settled, America must talk to Russia. They are rivals, but they can surely find a common interest in the wish to prevent an outbreak of war. Of course, it may be that Russia does not really wish to see an end to anarchy in the West's oil-supplying area, though in the past it has shown itself willing to come to a settlement in time of real international danger. If that is the case, we must expect the situation in the Middle East to get worse before it gets better, but, as increasing symptoms of breakdown make them- selves felt, the great powers should come to realise that they are playing with fire. And neither in Moscow, Washington or London are statesmen salamanders.
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