FOREIGN FOCUS
ome and abroad
CRABRO
he present Parliament at Westminster has tnessed a massacre of reputations. It is rd to think of a leading politician whose • inding in public esteem is higher today sin it was in 1966—except one: Sir Alec ).)uglas-Home. After five years of govern- tent by a former economics don it is easy feel that there was something to be said or that box of matches after all. To the uality of personal integrity which even his arshest critics were always prepared to ,ncede to him has been added, since he opped down from the highest position in re Tory party, a new authority which is ..:ognised inside and outside Parliament like.
So a pamphlet from Sir Alec's pen on itain's Place in the World (cPc: Is) is eserving of rather closer attention than the sual ephemeral political broadsheet. For ot only is Sir Alec, as Shadow Foreign vretary, defining—admittedly in the roadest and briefest outline—the policies hich he himself may well be called upon o execute in two years' time, but also, be- 'use of his hold on the respect and affec- ion of his colleagues in Parliament and his rty in the constituencies, his views are ikely to be received as a crystallisation of he true faith. As such they make slightly epressing reading.
The outlook which emerges from this imphlet seems excessively dated. The only ndication of dissent, albeit a faint one, hich he permits himself from the policies his leader comes in an implied criticism f Mr Heath's one major innovation—the all for the integration of the British and rench nuclear deterrent: 'although we hould approach the development of greater esponsibility for Europe on the defence ide as a clear aim, let us do so with aution and prudence.... Should the United ates be tempted to withdraw to any tom degree, Germany would become un- asy and would be tempted to agitate to quire her own nuclear weapons'. Where he could expect to obtain them from is ot explained.
Sir Alec's contribution to the formula- on of the official Tory party view on the ced for a military 'insurance' for British sestment in Asia is well known, and the her surprise in the pamphlet is not the 'tent of the enthusiasm displayed for ast of Suez', but rather on the contrary muted terms in which this section is ritten. Sir Alec's preoccupation is with hat he regards as the Russian naval menace. here is more than a nuance of a difference stween his emphasis on the Simonstown greement, the maintenance of bases at lawith and Gan in the Indian Ocean and C 'folly' of not taking advantage of 'the ears ahead in Singapore (in that order), nd. Mr Heath's repeated pledges about the amtenace of troops on the ground to the ulf sheiks and Mr Lee Kwan Yew.
This accords with the underlying phil- sophy of the pamphlet. 'Communism has ot changed its spots' and in the world of e 1970s which Sir Alec foresees 'the big ttalions of the United States' will remain e chief defence of 'the West' against the edatory leopard of the East. Admittedly concedes the possibility of Russian pre- cuPation with China, and also the
possibility that as 'a "have" nation' the Russians could find it paid them to 'foster comparative political stability' in the third world. And he concludes his analysis with the acknowledgement that 'should they [the Russians] reinsure [ic against China] with the United States and the West the picture would change out of all recognition'. And evidently to the benefit of all concerned.
This is a safe, familiar, landscape. If the possibility of a realignment of alliances by the Russians is envisaged, the possibility of a similar realignment by the United States is not. The thought that the natural lines of co-operation in defence of the spheres of influence mapped out between Stalin and Roosevelt at Yalta could pass from Washington to Moscow over the heads of the Europeans finds no place in Sir Alec's vision. He may be right: if the present shambling, frightened leadership in Moscow survives into the 1970s the scope for a Russo-American alliance may be limited and delayed. But one is left with an uneasy feeling that if Sir Alec is our next Foreign Secretary he could find himself dealing with a world which is indeed 'changing out of all recognition'—and not precisely in the ways he has allowed for.
Judging by his pamphlet, Sir Alec does not subscribe to the popular view that the Arab- Israeli conflict is perhaps the most immedi- ate of all the threats to world peace. Indeed it does not even rate a mention, although it would take a determined optimist to believe that the conflict will be finally resolved by the time the Conservative party returns to office.
However, there is something to be said for a certain detachment in this instance. For whatever the Tory party may say about the need to safeguard British investments and access to raw materials in the Middle East. it showed no inclination to criticise the Government for failing to use the British troops in the Persian Gulf to ensure continuity of oil supplies from the Middle East at the time of the Six Day War, and Mr Heath and his colleagues must know that if the Arab countries were now to act on their talk of a renewed oil boycott there would in practice be nothing that we could do about it.
The Israelis are largely to blame for the latest flare up. Although there is no reason to doubt their claim that the fire at the Al Aqsa mosque was the work of an Australian tourist, their failure to provide adequate protection for what is one of the historic holy places of the Muslim religion was incredibly foolish.
Regardless of the merits of the indignation of the Arab leaders, however, the strategic realities of the situation are unaltered. The burning of Al Aqsa may have temporarily revived the evanescent solidarity of Israel's neighbours against her, but any resort to military action would still expose them to yet another bloody rebuff, and very pos- sibly the loss of further territoy.
It is of course in the interest of the Arabs to keep their conflict with Israel in the headlines of the world's press. For their only hope of obtaining satisfaction is to scare the Soviet Union and the United States into getting it for them. It is a forlorn hope at the present time, for it will take much more than the repetition of increasingly bloody reprisals and counter-reprisals to persuade President Nixon to place an effective embargo on the flow of aid to Israel from the Jewish community in the United States: and this is the only form of pressure which the us government could bring on Israel which would be likely to haw any effect. As for the Soviet Union, it will be delighted to give the Arabs the arms with which to kill themselves, but it will not intervene to save them from destruction.
All that is left, then, is an expression of impotent resentment against the imagined western guarantors of Israel's existence by the interruption of Middle East oil supplies. Fortunately even if Mr Heath still some- times seems to cling to Lord Avon's delusion that the loss of oil supplies from the Persian Gulf would bring our economy to a grinding halt, his Shadow Foreign Secretary es idently knows better.
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