Guerrillas, arms and oil
Ian Meadows
Beirut In recent days it is noticeable that Mr Yasser Arafat, Chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organisation, has been given a lot of public exposure, and his public appearances in Lebanon come at a time when the entire guerrilla movement is supposed to have gone underground, so they are significant. They also happen on the eve of the Palestine National Congress, in Cairo, and as the key Arab capitals vibrate to the ripples of a new Middle East peace initiative. In brief it looks as if Mr Arafat is going to attend the Cairo Congress as the man already tacitly nominated by the majority of Arab states as the sole, legal representative of the Palestinian guerrilla movement, and, by virtue of their controlling voice, of the whole Palestinian people. Each of the countries concerned is highly suspicious of the others, fearing that they may make separate arrangements with Israel, leaving them out in limbo with only a very slim hope of recovering what was lost in the 1967 war.
This is most apparent in Syria, Egypt's partner in Federation. Damascus has had some very harsh words for the Egyptians, over their failure to come to Syria's aid during the recent clashes with Israel; two squadrons of obsolete Mig 17s are of no use whatsoever, barked the Syrian High Command, and it's still not clear whether Egypt has been able to placate Syria Without getting dangerously involved. But Within the next fortnight the Syrian Defence Minister is awaited in Moscow, indicating that Egypt has offered little of practical value.
The Syrians, a realistic people, know full well that if Egypt and Jordan were coerced into separate agreements with Israel, Syria would be left terribly exposed. However Jordan, like Egypt, has been hedging its bets. King Hussein has advanced his plan for a United Arab Kingdom which would dovetail into the Palestine government-inexile scheme, or pave the way for a separate Palestinian entity, a ' civilian ' one composed of the West Bank of the Jordan, to be linked later to Gaza, in case a settlement is ever achieved bilaterally by Jordan with Israel.
The concern over Jordan was nowhere more acute than in Saudi Arabia. King Peisal is known to feel that adamant Jordanian refusal to accommodate or co-exist With the Palestinian guerrillas could be the catalyst that brought the final upheaval in Amman. And Jordan would be the place Where other Arab states could expiate their )vvn guilt complexes over the Palestinians.
In Egypt, President Sadat's year of destiny, as he has called it, is about to dawn. There are whispers along the diplomatic grapevine that Sadat has already surrendered a large part of his Power to the army and that he is merely being retained as a figurehead. What may be more plausible is that the Egyptian President has been able to keep the military at bay by utilising the westernoriented business sector of Egypt to convince the armed forces that if Egypt is to survive the next three decades she must orient westwards, towards Europe now, or slide backwards, and downwards into poverty and strife, In this respect it will be interesting to follow the results of a visit to Abu Dhabi and the lower Arabian Gulf states by Egyptian Prime Minister Aziz Sedki.
For more than a month now there has been evidence of substantial arms talks between Britain and Egypt. Now, there are more details in a leak, called 'diplomatic,' involving many millions of dollars in the shape of Lightning aircraft (incidentally no longer produced in Britain), an interceptor already in use in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, light but desert-adapted tanks, anti-tank rockets, submarines and fast surface vessels. In short, just about every type of weapon that Egypt needs to make any Israeli thrust costly, weapons that Russia has never supplied. The bill for the reported deal would be picked up by oil-rich Abu Dhabi, Quatar and, if Lighting planes are involved, possibly Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, for it seems more likely that these two Arab countries would in fact hand over their aircraft to Egypt and update their own air forces — probably with American planes in order to even up the commercial value of the deal.
If this is right, as seems likely, it means that Britain, with European and American approval, is arming Egypt to a level that will balance the Middle East forces, and which in turn means that it is part of a Middle East peace plan. There is further substantiation in the fact that Israel's arms contract with the US ends in late 1973, so the present period is about the best for such an evening-up.
In all of this the prime importance of crude oil is more and more visible. The Persian Gulf has been fortified by the Iranians. It is virtually secure. The Arab Gulf states have a great deal to benefit from this new security arrangement. So it is logical that some of their petroleum revenues should go to financing peace further west, by arming Egypt, by making it easier for her to get off the hook. In a general spirit of give and take, Egypt in return can pressure the Palestinians and other Arabian Peninsula Resistance Movements to lie low, and to gain the precious time needed for the new, immense oil revenues to filter down to that level of development where it really counts.
But the 1971 statistics also reveal, eloquently, the gap between the oil ' haves ' and 'have nots.' Even the oil experts find it hard to be accurate about the immensity of the 1980 oil scene. Their estimates of investment requirements for the next decade of oil growth range from a low of 360 million dollars to a whopping 1,000 million dollars. The bulk of Middle East production for the corresponding period, and of course the profits, will be held by Saudi Arabia, Iran, Kuwait and the Arabian Gulf. In the harsh world of business realities where the balance sheet is king (estimated American profits from Saudi Arabia alone 600 million dollars in 1972) the weak or unprepared will find it hard to survive. Egypt, as her efforts to find European backers proves, is keenly conscious of this hard fact of life.
The silent clash of oil lobby versus politicians has been very much in evidence at the United Nations General Assembly debate on the Middle East, except that this year, there are encouraging signs that Washington is beginning to realise that something has to be done in the Arab-Israeli conflict. If America, as is estimated, will require four hundred million metric tons of Middle East oil in 1980, it will have to rely on Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Iran. North Africa simply does not have enough oil to fill the needs of Europe alone, and the 1985 projection shows that overall requirements of the US, Europe and America can just about be met by all the North African and Middle East producers put together. This is why Saudi Arabia has sought long-term individual contracts with the US, and why America was quick to sew up twenty-year-duration natural gas deals with Algeria. And why Europe including Britain is willing to discuss private deals, on a similar long term basis, with Iraq and even Egypt.
President Nixon's second term of office will expire at the end of 1976, a year extremely close to the crucial 1980s, so it is quite conceivable that the current Nixon administration will have to make the decisions now in preparation for that particular period. Meaning that America, faced with a fast-growing Europe, will have to act soon in the Mediterranean, in respect of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Europe is, as we have seen, afraid that the recent crude oil price increases will finally be paid by the European consumer, the true beneficiary being America, by virtue of its greater-sized investment and stake in the area. The general direction, the future trend, should be visible by the end of the General Assembly session.
Concurrent with the New York debate the Palestinians will meet in Cairo to decide their future. We know now that Egypt and other Arab poles of influence have gently shifted responsibility for their own future over to the Palestinians themselves, the carrot being a Palestinian government-in-exile, recognised by the Arab League and having a voice in future Arab-Israeli peace talks. The Palestinians then are faced with the unpleasant prospect of accepting a lot less than their very legitimate demands. And if they are caught in a clash of area interests, for which they are totally unequipped, the prospects are not very rosy. For if the Mediterranean foots the increased oil bill, but nevertheless accepts that price, it will be the oil-less Levant coast and the Palestinians in particular who will pay the political piper.
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