Appeasement in the Middle East: England's Oil Diplomacy
ARNOLD, G. L.
Appeasement in the Middle East Two Articles England's Oil Diplomacy By G. L. Arnold London "When all is said and done," wrote the Daily Telegraph on March 8, summing up a week of bad news, "the...
...Having thus stated the issue with commendable frankness, the principal organ of the Conservative party (for the Times represents Whitehall rather than Conservatism) went on to pinpoint the danger spot: "The oil-producing countries need our money as much as we need their oil but they could do without it longer...
...Anyone who regularly reads this paper cannot fail to notice that its editorialists have had their brains addled by Dr...
...In terms of past experience, Colonel Nasser's successful Jordanian coup this month corresponds to the Rhineland occupation rather than the Prague eye-opener...
...and there is no one there to pick up the reins, as Churchill did when Chamberlain was overthrown in 1940...
...Elsewhere in the Persian Gulf area, beyond the scope of Egyptian and Saudi interference, there are other existing and potential sources...
...What exactly it is that makes so many different people, outside the Labor party and a section of the Tories, react predictably to every challenge is not easy to say...
...Suppose he refuses to follow this advice...
...If it did not split the Conservative party, the reason is that any split now would have brought the Government down...
...The Baghdad Pact makes sense only within this context...
...but even if he were able also to force Syria and Lebanon to close the pipelines that pass through their territories, and so deny Iraqi oil to the West, major sources would still remain beyond his control...
...The stormy debate of March 7 shattered bipartisanship...
...and no country is more sensitive to them than Britain...
...Kuwait, which saved the day when Abadan closed down, is a British-protected sheikdom and the largest oil producer in the Middle East...
...in market terms, this means a capital investment of $5.6 billion, but the real value of the property is incalculable, since Britain and Europe literally cannot get along without these supplies...
...There is no question, though, that the mood of the mid-Thirties is creeping back like a fog...
...For the Middle East now supplies 95 per cent of Western Europe's crude oil and 77 per cent of its total oil supplies...
...its current comments on Israel, that "alien polity" introduced into the Middle East over Dr...
...Yet, the defeatist reaction is there...
...The whole of this huge investment program depends on political stability in the area...
...The oil companies have been asked by the Government to make special efforts to meet these needs, and their plans provide for heavy investment not only in production facilities but in transport...
...It is backed by the "Churchillian" tradition and by those Tories who have digested the lessons of the Thirties...
...We know from the memoirs of the former German military attache in London that the Rhineland coup of 1936 destroyed the British General Staff's illusions about Hitler...
...The present system of pipelines is due to be greatly expanded, and the tanker fleets must be multiplied...
...Even the Suez Canal now appears inadequate in the light of these expansion plans, and who is to say that shipping through the Canal will be-free and unimpeded if Colonel Nasser stays in control...
...With Nasser so obviously out to make trouble, and with Jordan proving so unreliable, Conservative faith in the Foreign Office's traditional Arab policy is being put to its hardest test...
...He has now been admonished (in a rather shaky voice) not to do it again...
...For if Nasser, using pan-Arabism as a stalking-horse, can dislodge the British from Jordan, he can make trouble elsewhere with the help of Saudian gold and Soviet arms...
...Admittedly, there are a good many Conservatives who disapprove of the Government stand on this point, but so far they have not dented the official defense line any more than the Daily Telegraph was able to do at the time of Munich (when the Times supported "appeasement,'' as it does today...
...Indeed, it is no great exaggeration to say that its meaning lies precisely in this domain...
...The idea of taking out a reinsurance policy by signing a security treaty with Israel is gaining ground among influential Conservatives (the Labor party needs no persuasion on this subject...
...Industry needs more energy each year, and the supply of coal is static...
...value of Middle East oil handled by British and Anglo-Dutch companies alone amounts to some $560 million annually...
...That is why even the Labor party feels disinclined to challenge its purpose, although Hugh Gaitskell found fault with it on other grounds during the stormy debate on March 7. He even managed to draw some Tory cheers by insisting that the Persian Gulf must not be allowed to fall under Russian control...
...But how long can the Eden-Nutting policy he continued without bringing about a debacle that will pull down more than the prestige of this Ministry...
...It may be true that the past week has provided the shock required to promote a movement in the opposite direction...
...Toynbee...
...This time, it is not a matter of having to cope with Hitler and Mussolini merely with Nasser...
...It is opposed by the Foreign Office and by something more important and less palpable the social and intellectual complex sometimes called "the Establishment," of which the Times is the principal organ...
...It is a sign of Gaitskell's rapid evolution as a statesman that in the debate he combined implicit recognition of this fact with a strong demand for immediate action to reinforce Israel's threatened position...
...It is tempting to say: "Wait and see...
...When news of Glubb's dismissal (and of the almost simultaneous anti-British riots in oil-rich Bahrein) hit the European stock exchanges, they reacted, no less sharply than the City of London, where shares of the British Petroleum Company fell by five shillings...
...Oil has to fill the gap until atomic power has been developed, and British oil consumption is scheduled to double in twenty years...
...All this was (and is) at stake in the seemingly trivial Jordanian upset...
...Fortunately, however, Colonel Nasser is not yet Emperor of the Middle East...
...Even so, it is well to remember that on the previous occasion it took three years from Hitler's march into the Rhineland in March 1936 to his entry into Prague in March 1939—for the process to work itself out...
...The free world's dependence on this source is such that industry in Britain and Western Europe, to say nothing of Australia and India, might be brought almost to a standstill if the flow were cut off...
...But Toynbee is himself a symptom of a pervasive attitude which finds expression, at different levels, in the politics of Sir Anthony Eden, in the editorial line of an influential Liberal paper like the Observer, and in the present tone of British intellectual life...
...The question worries more than merely the intended victims of Whitehall's policy of appeasing Nasser at the expense of others, while building up an anti-Egyptian counterweight in the Baghdad Pact...
...There is not much room left for retreat...
...And it looks as though that is just what he wants to do...
...Iran, an ally under the Baghdad Pact, is said to be willing to step up output...
...The f.o.b...
...any crisis that throws it out of gear must have economic repercussions later on...
...Before looking at the political implications, it is worth considering the size of the stake...
...That is why the Cabinet and Parliament reacted with such violence to Glubb's dismissal...
...He could close the Suez Canal to tankers...
...memories...
...It is likewise characteristic of the mixture of obstinacy and weakness which marks the present leaders of the Government that they dug their heels in over this issue...
...there are some signs that it may have...
...That, too, is in the tradition...
...But the matter does not stop there...
...This time, though, events may move too fast for a gradual shift from appeasement to resistance...
...Yet, Iraq is now doubly important to Britain, and any surviving hope of keeping some control over Jordan is bound up with Iraq's position in the Baghdad Pact...
...It has taken the shock of Lieutenant-General Glubb's sudden dismissal from his key post in Jordan to encourage this degree of plain speaking...
...It has become a major issue in British politics...
...Britain's and Europe's present dependence on Middle East oil, alarming though it looks, is small compared with that scheduled for the future...
...Toynbee's protests, are in the true tradition of its anti-Czech editorials in 1938...
...Both Prime Minister Eden and the unfortunately named Anthony Nutting, who caricatures his chief down to details of personal manner, made it clear that they are not prepared to run the smallest risk of Arab resentment by selling arms to Israel an attitude which caused Gaitskell to revive "Spanish nonintervention...
...Appeasement in the Middle East Two Articles England's Oil Diplomacy By G. L. Arnold London "When all is said and done," wrote the Daily Telegraph on March 8, summing up a week of bad news, "the prime aim of policy in the Middle East is to secure our oil supplies...
...but we also know that "appeasement" was practiced for a further three years, and indeed reached a pinnacle just before it was renounced...
Vol. 39 • March 1956 • No. 13
