Munich : The Fallacy of Slogans
rr lin twentieth anniversary of the Munich agree- .," ment coincided with the announcement that Britain and America would soon withdraw their troops from Lebanon and Jordan, and with Mr. Dulles's change of front on Quemoy. Two and a half months ago the Anglo-American intervention was defended on the grounds that to do nothing —to appease—was wrong and that it was certainly better to do something; an argument that would have strongly appealed to the grand old Duke of York. Now that we are taking our forces out again it is time to see what, if anything, our intervention has achieved.
The Americans have achieved less than nothing. The Marines landed in response to frequent appeals by President Chamoun, who claimed that the rebels were receiving massive outside support. During the Marines' visit President Chamoun, at the end of his presidential term, retired to the mountains; General Chehab, the Presidential can- didate that the rebels had supported from the beginning, was elected President; and Rashid Karami, one of the leading rebels, became Prime Minister. If the, Marines had stayed a bit longer they might even have managed to bring Lebanon into the United Arab Republic.
A slightly better case can be made for the British landings in Jordan. King Hussein is still there—though whether he would have still been there anyway we do not know; nor, of course, do we know how long he will last. But nobody has explained what British interest is served by the maintenance of a Hashemite police State in Jordan, or indeed by the existence of Jordan at all. In any case, those who assumed that the interven- tion was necessary to safeguard British interests see now that it has only helped to drive Saudi Arabia closer to Egypt; and though the report that Kuwait has joined the Arab League seems to have been premature, Egyptian influence in Kuwait is certainly not declining.
What has all this got to do with Munich? The answer, quite simply, is, nothing. Neither in the Middle nor in the Far East do events bear the slightest resemblance to what was happening in Europe in 1938. But so many statesmen in the West have a Munich complex that they identify each succeeding situation as one in which at all costs a Munich must be avoided. It is regrettable that the West seems quite incapable of learning the two lessons which Munich ought to teach. In the first place, it is a misconception that Munich was a case of sitting back and doing nothing. The Chamberlain Government did all too much. It sent the Runciman mission to Czechoslovakia—which, with Mr. Chamberlain's three journeys to Hitler over Czechoslovakia, made his remark about 'a far-away country of which we know nothing' so discreditable. You can intervene in a crisis, or you can look the other way, but you cannot with honour do both.
Secondly, Munich is a cautionary tale against slogans. Chamberlain would be much better thought of if he had not used the phrase 'peace with honour.' If he believed what he said, he was singularly defective in his understanding both of Hitler and honour. If he did not believe it, he was surely guilty of extraordinary dishonesty. The evi- dence suggests that he did believe it—just as, three months ago, the Government no doubt believed in its slogan about indirect aggression; and just as it now presumably believes in its contradictory slogan that disputes must not be settled by force. It is unfortunate that owing to the speed of world events it has had to adopt the second while the evidence of its former belief in the first is still there for all to see.
Apart from these two unlearned lessons Munich has no relevance. But, it is rightly said, Munich was dishonourable; and we must not be dis- honourable again. Agreed : but why was Munich dishonourable? Because we forced a small Power to make suicidal concessions for our own con- venience. There is no question of our doing that in the Middle East. Few countries in the Arab world are nations in the sense Czechoslovakia was; and concessions that have to be made in the area must come at least as much from us as from anyone else. !, In the Far East it is true that some concessions should be made by Chiang Kai-shek. But even if for the sake of argument Formosa (or Nationalist China) is considered as a nation, like Czecho- slovakia was, the concession to be forced on Chiang—giving up the offshore islands—is de- signed to prevent him from committing suicide by concentrating his troops in an indefensible posi- tion. The concessions forced on President Benes were murderous because they entailed the sur- render of the defensible Czech frontier.
The other commonly used argument is that the Munich agreement was stupid because it tried to appease an aggressive dictator, and such beings are by definition unappeasable. But this again has no relevance either to the Middle or to the Far East. Military force would have been a suit- able weapon against Germany in 1938 or before (when, if we had fought, Hitler's generals might have overthrown him; when we did fight Nasser his generals didn't); it is not a suitable weapon against Egypt. One of the things we want from the Arabs is oil; and since it is not possible to procure oil from amongst an implacably hostile population, it is ridiculous to fight the Arabs, and impracticable to hold them down by force.
Mao may be an unappeasable dictator; but the object of giving up Quemoy and Matsu is not to appease him but to extricate Chiang, and Mr.
m Dulles from a hopeless strategic and moral posi- tion. If you have got to fight somebody it is un- wise to choose the weakest ground to do it on.
The fallacy in the present cries of `Munich' is the fallacy of slogans. Because the present world set-up happens to favour the West we think we can freeze it for all time. We cannot. Only when the cry of 'Munich' is seen to be the irrelevance it is, and slogans are cast away, can the course of Western policy become clear.
For a start, it is plain that some sort of agree- ment must be made with the most important Arab ruler and the most important Arab State. At the moment we are holding up recognition of the United Arab Republic and the resumption of diplomatic relations until a financial settlement with Egypt has been reached. At the same time, we tell Saudi Arabia that it is very difficult to reach a settlement on Buraimi until we have resumed diplomatic relations. Even if we refuse to remove this inconsistency by exchanging am- bassadors with Cairo before a financial agreement we should lose no time in making it—though admittedly the latest delay in the talks was cer- tainly the fault of the Egyptians, who perhaps decided to stall until British troops left Jordan.
At the same time we must show that we do not stand in the way of further Arab unity. Sooner or later Kuwait will decide to join the Arab League. She may even join the United Arab States; whether or not she does will largely depend upon the actions of Iraq, but whatever she decides there is no point in trying to stop her. Western attempts to frustrate Arab unity are self-defeating; they merely help to bring it about. In the Far East, too, the US needs to abandon its pretence that the Nationalists are the Government of China. Sooner or later, she will have to recognise the Com- munists, and allow them into the United Nations. This will not be a Munich; it will be common sense.
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