The Futility of Force
By MICHAEL IONIDES THERE is a detente in the Middle East, owing to the initiative of the ten Arab States in tabling a resolution which has been passed unani- mously by the UN General Assembly; and although the American forces are still in the Lebanon and the British forces in Jordan, there is a widespread hope that before very long they will move out. It is a useful moment to consider what part military force has played in the Middle East during the crises of these last three years.
Military force has been used, or threatened, on five identifiable occasions. It was used in Suez in 1956, and threatened by the American Sixth Fleet in 1957. Then there was the air lift of arms to Jordan by the Americans in the same year; and in 1958, the American landings in the Lebanon and the British landings in Jordan. Throughout this sequence of events there has been a running debate about the use of armed force in the Middle East. Its legality and its moral justi- fication have been discussed at length. But what has never been clear is precisely what armed force was supposed to do to help the situation.
In a very general way its purpose obviously was to oblige the Arabs concerned to do things we wanted them to do instead of things we did not want them to do. We wanted them to be on our side against Russia instead of indifferent, or neutralist, or uncommitted, or pro-Russian. This has been our objective throughout the cold war, so as to safeguard our vital interests in oil and communications. Our treaties with the Arab Governments, the Baghdad Pact and the Eisen- hower Doctrine were all designed to commit Arab Governments to our side, against Russia.
In our preoccupation with Arab Governments, our Government forgot that in the -last analysis it is the people of the Arab States that matter. In particular, the operation of the oilfields and the pipelines, the Suez Canal, the airports, rail- ways, seaports and other installations require the co-operation of Arab officials, technicians and labour. If those people withdraw their co-opera- tion—go on strike, so to speak—then the primary objective of safeguarding our vital interests is prejudiced or lost. If our policy of keeping the Arab States on our side and against the Russians is to work, then we must have the willing co- operation of the people as well as the signatures of their Governments to our treaties, pacts and doctrines. Should we lose that co-operation, then we will not be able to rely on the Arab people doing the jobs they have to do if we are to get from them what we want to get.
It is against this background that we must con-, sider the relevance and utility of our threats of, or use of, armed force. In the Suez war we were in effect saying to the Egyptian people something like this : 'We are shooting you and bombing your country because we do not like your Presi- dent and his policies. Therefore you Egyptian people must suffer for his sins.' In 1957, the Americans were saying to the Jordanians and the Syrians : 'Here are our battleships and arms which may need to be used to shoot you Arabs because we do not like the Syrian Government and its policies.' In the Lebanon and Jordan this year, we and the Americans were in effect saying : 'Our troops are among you with guns in their hands, which may need to be used to shoot Arabs if the Governments, whose policies we like, are threatened.'
Of course, our Governments did not put it As crudely as that. They talked of 'countering inter- national Communism,' indirect aggression,' sub- version,"putting out forest fires,"stabilisation,"of protecting the rights of small nations.' But you cannot shoot an abstract idea. If the threat of military force had any relevance at all, it was with the idea that the guns might go off. If they went off, they would be pointing at people. The only people they could be pointed at were Arabs. That could only be intelligible if we were shooting at some Arabs and protecting other Arabs; if, in other words, we were giving military form to a quarrel between one set of Arabs and another— which means, in plain terms, turning civil quarrels into civil war, diViding Arabs against themselves. In the one case where there was shooting—at Suez in 1956—a radio station on Cyprus (not run by the BBC) launched out on a barrage of propaganda addressed to the Egyptian people, urging them to rise and depose Nasser. This 'Voice of Britain' was inciting the Egyptian people to rebel against their established regime. The language was obscene. Naturally, this was not much publicised in England, but Arabs heard it. That is one of the reasons they accuse us of hypocrisy when we talk disapprovingly of their own propaganda broadcasts.
So, if we boil it down to its essence, the threat of military force necessarily implies that we have in mind the possibility of some fighting in which Arabs will be divided against themselves, and with our soldiers helping one set of Arabs to shoot others. In 1956, we were inciting the Egyptian people against their Government. In 1957, the Americans were backing the Jordanians against the Syrians. In 1958, the British and the Americans were backing the Governments of Jordan and the Lebanon against the majority opinion of the peoples of those countries. Our Governments seemed quite content if our own public opinion was behind them. The beat of the drums, fhe appeal to patriotism, could easily achieve that. But it was not our own public opinion which determined the consequences. It was from the effect on Arab opinion that the re- sults should have been judged. And Arabs do not like having their internal quarrels made worse by British and American troops coming in among them prepared to shoot them—they like it even less than division and disruptive activities from other Arab States. There could hardly have been a more effective way of defeating our prime ob- jective of keeping the Arabs committed to be on our side against Russia. The result was that each time force was threatened or used, more Arabs were determined to get rid of all traces of Western influence and power to coerce them, and to be 'neutralist.' The UN resolution which has just been passed expresses a unanimous intention to that end, including Jordan and the Lebanon, and binds all members of the UN to respect that position. The formal pro-Western Arab commit- ment, which our Governments have striven so hard to maintain and strengthen, for which mili- tary force has five times been used or threatened, has now disappeared.
In fact, the only intelligible way of using force would have been by outright conquest, followed by colonial administration, obliging the Arab people by force to work on the oilfields and the systems of communication which are our vital interest. Short of that—which was obviously out of the question—the only way is to win the co- operation of the Arab peoples. Their labour is essential to the operation of the oil and communi- cation industries. In that sense, we are, indirectly, employers of Arab workers; and Arabs are em- ployees in industries which are essential to our economy.
One of Russia's best ways of damaging our interests is to put it into the heads of workers in our own industries to go on strike, and into the heads of workers in foreign industries—for example, in the Middle East—to do the equiva- lent. From the point of view of the men in the Kremlin, the mechanism in both cases is very similar. The essence of the mechanism is the existence of an industry upon which our economy depends, and the existence of means of disaffect- ing the workers within it. In some cases, the Russians seek to do this by securing Communist control of trade unions. This is the game in essen- tial industries which are within our country. In the case of the industries in the Middle East, which are of such importance to us, their method is through propaganda designed to turn Arabs against us. We know perfectly well that to send armed troops to break a strike in an essential industry here in England would be disastrous and would give a powerful propaganda weapon to Russia and the Communists. It works exactly the same way when we send troops to coerce Arabs on whose labour and co-operation the industries we are interested in depend.
The Russians dress up their propaganda to the Arabs in all sorts of rude words; but the essence of it is exploitation of our mistake in using force to coerce Arab workers, directly or through their Governments. The position created by our sup- port of the unanimous resolution at the UN repre- sents a wholesale retreat from the position of special power which we tried to maintain through treaties with the Arab States, the Baghdad Pact, the Eisenhower Doctrine, 'aid' and the displays of military force. The settlement of the present situation in the Middle East is now left to the UN, where Russia has an equal voice with Britain, America and the rest—another thing which we have strained to prevent. This situation, greeted now with happy smiles by our' statesmen, might have come about long ago in amity instead of in conflict; in peace instead of with viole,nce and revolution. But, as Sir Alec Kirkbride put it, in a letter to the Daily Telegraph of August 23, we made 'two mistakes.' First, 'we failed to keep in as close touch with the younger generation of Arabs as we were with their forefathers.' Second, we did not realise that to the Arabs, the Western Powers and the Soviet were just two lots of foreigners competing for world domination,' so that 'it was logical for the Republican leaders among the Arabs to exploit the competition be- tween the two groups of Powers and seek to forward their interests as best they might.'
It has taken us a long time to understand that Arab Governments look to their own countries' interests first, and not to British, American or Soviet interests. If our Governments have at last really grasped that fact they will be ready to sec, the corollary; that in doing business with the rest of the world the closest natural ties will be with those countries with which Arabs do most busi- ness. The more we do business with them, in a business-like way, without using guns to scare them or bags of gold to buy them or divisive propaganda to confuse them, the closer the ties will become.
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