British Defeat in Jordan

...As it happened his money fell on extremely fertile ground...

...Maintenance of Western defensive strength also calls for immediate action on Cyprus...

...King Saud, with his oil millions, has admittedly become the most prominent single ally of the Communists in their anti-Western drive, but his money alone would have been ineffective...

...The simple truth is that General Templer and the Foreign Office completely misjudged the situation...

...The Palestine issue may be important, but it is far from decisive in this context...

...The demonstrations were staged by students and teachers of Amman and Jerusalem, lawyers, physicians and Government employes...

...The British have been following a wait-and-see policy here which has paralyzed the Balkan Alliance...

...While these suspicions may be highly exaggerated, they raise serious doubts about his ability to act as a neutral mediator between Greece and Turkey, or between Israel and the Arab world...

...LESSON FOR THE WEST British Defeat in Jordan By Walter Z. Laqueur London Formulation of a unified Western policy for the Middle East will be a major subject of discussion when Prime Minister Anthony Eden confers in Washington later this month with President Eisenhower and Secretary of State Dulles...

...The West must accept the fact that the Arab countries are neutral in the struggle between Communism and the free world...

...At present, large sections of this intelligentsia are under the influence of Communists, their fronts and other anti-Western groups...

...The Government of the day refused...

...Unless this procrastination is ended soon, there is a good chance that the alliance will break up altogether...

...There is no great danger of the Communists making a bid for power here in the immediate future...

...Sir Anthony is under a handicap: In Greece, he is generally believed to be pro-Turkish...

...Britain's present difficulties are the result of an imprudent attempt to bring Jordan into the Baghdad Pact-now composed of Iran, Iraq, Turkey, Pakistan and Britain...

...What can the West do to prevent another "Jordan debacle" somewhere in the Arab world...

...Western observers apparently know even less about the internal situation in Baghdad than they did about conditions in Amman...

...Thus the opposition consists of the intelligentsia and large sections of the middle class who have been antagonized over the years by the monarchy's autocratic rule...

...A constructive economic program should be accompanied by a new political approach...

...The British in particular have always gone along with aristocratic Bedouin sheiks...

...Since the royal court was backed by the British, they automatically became anti-British(and anti-Western...

...Thus the talks in Washington will not be able to proceed along originally scheduled lines...

...To try to extend the pact to other Arab countries is tantamount to inviting a disaster in this area from which the West may never recover...

...The London Times, for example, said the Baghdad Pact move failed because it had been "too sudden...

...The prestige of the present regime, therefore, is lower than ever...

...All Bayar got for his efforts was the destruction of the Turkish consulate in the Old City several weeks later by a mob of demonstrators...

...Immediate political dividends, however, should not be expected...

...The latter requires a great deal more experience and maturity, which calls for patience and wisdom on the part of the West before closer relations are possible...

...There is public support for the Northern Tier setup in Turkey, and some support (though not really enough) in Iran and Pakistan...

...Iraq may remain a member of the Baghdad pact for another year or two, but it would be unrealistic to expect more than that...

...This can be expected to erupt violently with the resignation or overthrow of the Nuri as Said Government...

...The rioters in Amman and Jerusalem carried on against "Western imperialism...

...A basic weakness of British and American policy in the Middle East has been the fact that their relations are confined to a small group of absolute monarchs, rich feudals and professional politicians...

...In all these matters...

...Israelis consider him pro-Arab because of his record as accoucheur of the Arab League and his unhelpful attitude when an attempt was made in 1943-44 to save one million Jews from Nazi-occupied Europe...

...This led to full-scale anti-British riots throughout the country...

...will have to do more than merely approve a British plan of action for the Middle East...

...In Iraq, on the other hand, there is no public support and a great deal of latent opposition...

...Sir Gerald Templer, Chief of the Imperial General Staff, visited Amman with a high Foreign Office official in mid-December and urged Jordan's adherence to the Northern Tier pact...

...Britain's move in Amman failed because the intelligentsia in the cities, who In this case constitute public opinion, were almost unanimously against it...

...One must hasten to add that a war in the Middle East would change the entire picture and might provide the Communists with the opening they have been waiting for...

...Celal Bayar, Turkey's President, learned this the hard way: In November he visited the Jordanian sector of Jerusalem and told his audience that Turkey would fight alongside Jordan if it was attacked...

...The Western decision to help build the Aswan dam was a step in the right direction...

...Indeed, events of the past few weeks have suddenly shifted the burden of responsibility for shaping this new policy to the United States...

...The U.S...

...Others claimed that the demonstrations were staged after the liberal distribution of baksheesh (bribes) by King Saud of Saudi Arabia...

...Nevertheless, the West has a vital stake in strengthening the independence of these countries...

...When the trip was first scheduled, plans called for Sir Anthony to develop a new British approach to the Middle Eastern problem which would be approved by the United States...

...they have not been able to reach the intelligentsia, the "coming force" in the struggle for this part of the world...

...None of these explanations, however, can cover up what in effect was a failure of policy and not merely an unforeseen mishap...

...But this trend is by no means irreversible, though it does demand an expression of Western sympathy with the new social forces in the Middle East...

...Still others insisted that Jordan would eventually join the alliance if it could be shown that it need not give up its anti-Israel stand and that a just (i.e., anti-Israel) settlement of the Palestine problem would be made as soon as possible...

...This does not mean that the West must resign itself to a permanently neutral Arab world...

...and the Arabs are unhappy with him because they feel he is trying to divide them by bringing some Arab countries into the Baghdad pact...

...Cutting up the latter may be a pet idea of some British Middle East experts, but it is quite illusory to assume that major surgery on Israel's frontiers will solve the entire Arab problem...

...They apparently knew nothing about the widespread Communist fronts and nationalist extremist groups which had enlisted the support of most CIVIC leaders in urban centers...

...The King was compelled to shelve the Baghdad project and force Mahali's resignation after less than a week in office...

...Even more disconcerting than Britain's defeat is its refusal to acknowledge its mistakes, as reflected in Parliamentary statements and comments by leading newspapers...

...Since then, however, the British have suffered a severe setback in Jordan and have been having an increasingly difficult time on Cyprus...

...not against Israel...

...Meanwhile, much remains to be done in the economic and political fields...

...If it was to have even the faintest chance of success, it would have had to be pushed through even more suddenly...

...the opposition can be expected to press its demands further than ever before...

...It seems only a matter of time before the British are removed from the Arab Legion-the Jordan Army that they have trained and heavily subsidized-and lose one of their last bases in the Middle East...

...If this can be prevented, however, and the West is willing to learn from its past errors, it may still have an opportunity to repair its position...

...Anglo-American financial help will probably be described in the Egyptian press and radio as an indemnification for "Western imperialist rule and exploitation during the last generations...

...At the same time, it should bear in mind that economic assistance alone does not create allies...

...This was a clear threat to Israel...

...The disorders were not organized or led by Palestine refugees, as some commentators and official spokesmen have suggested...

...But the events of the last few weeks have drastically changed the nature of the talks...

...By now it should be obvious that the Western position in the Middle East would be much stronger today if attempts to "organize" the Arab countries had never been undertaken...

...A real clue to their leadership can be found in the signatures under a recent Communist-front appeal in Jordan, which reads like the Arab social register: Husaini, Dajani, Abdul Latif, Abdul Hadi, etc...

...King Hussein then dissolved Parliament and appointed a more sympathetic Prime Minister, Hazzah Mahali...

...Old theories, as well as old policies and old ties, must be discarded...

...The refugees have played a surprisingly small role in Jordan's political life...

...But the premature emergence of an openly Communist regime (say, in Syria) would undoubtedly alarm the other Arab countries and will probably not be undertaken at this point...

...Of course, Soviet leaders will not be satisfied, in the long run, with mere neutralization of the Middle East...