Uneasy Truce in the Mideast
Sherman, Aleph V.
Internecine rivalries and democratic resurgence have blocked Nasser's drive to power Uneasy Truce in the Mideast By A. V. Sherman London The Middle East has settled down into an unstable...
...Paradoxically, Kassem's regime, which Cairo now treats as Enemy Number One, is structurally and ideologically quite similar to Nasser's...
...During the early years of his reign...
...Jordan's acceptance of Nasserite nationalist leadership, with its anti-British undertones and its anti-Israeli revanchist policy, brought Nasser to the verge of almost complete control of the country...
...But the world balance of power still favors the West...
...Iran and Pakistan...
...Both rulers accuse each other of being agents of Western imperialism, and both incite each others citizens to demand a more active anti-Western line...
...Support of the former would alienate Kassem and segments of the Army...
...Thus, President Habib Bourguiba of Tunisia is the undisputed leader of a self-confident nationalist movement, pro-Western in its foreign policy orientation and kemalist in its social and economic philosophy, whose rule is unchallenged except by an atomized pro-Nasserite terrorist underground...
...they actually represent every shade of the Arab spectrum...
...These sources had, during the past year, variously predicted that Nasser's hegemony over the entire Arab world was a foregone conclusion, or that the Arab world would be the scene of a fight to the death between Arab nationalism, personified by Nasser, and Communism, personified by Iraqi Premier Abdul Karim Kassem...
...they provide some ground to discard cautiously the pessimistic predictions of recent years...
...Consequently, his ability to infiltrate and influence countries like Jordan and Lebanon, as well as Israel's Arab population, has declined, and Hussein therefore regards him as less dangerous...
...Moscow now faces the dilemma of whether to back the Iraqi Communist movement or General Kassem...
...They made it quite obvious that Algerian interests are subordinate in their calculations to their anti-Western strategy...
...This rather surprising development differs considerably from the prophecies made by such disparate groups as the United States State Department, the British Labor Party, scholarly circles and the vociferous propaganda machine at the service of United Arab Republic President Gamal Abdel Nasser...
...These are all blessings worth counting...
...This spring and summer it looked as if the Nasserites (mainly Moslems and Greek Orthodox Christians ) would carry all before them...
...and Soviet attempts to subvert the CENTO powers have failed...
...On the other hand, as a result of the split, Nasser has lost the support of Communists and even fellow travelers in many parts of the Arab world...
...The Lebanese Christians also favor this approach, since they regard the presence of the largely Moslem refugees as a threat to the Christian-Moslem balance inside Lebanon...
...Their internecine struggles are being fought out, however, within the wider context of the cold war...
...There has been a tendency in recent years to overestimate the impact of the Soviet Union on the region...
...Nasser favors keeping the refugees idle in their camps, where they are useful tools in his political warfare against Israel and convenient instruments of agitation against their host countries, Jordan and Lebanon...
...On the one hand...
...Other generally anti-Nasser governments, like those of Libya...
...Saudia and the Sudan, are wary of antagonizing Nasser, but at the same time endeavor to prevent his getting a grip on their countries...
...Jordan, however, is pressing for some form of resettlement I without using the word, which, since it implies the removal of anti-Israel irredenta, is taboo in Arab circles...
...His outspoken and uninhibited opposition to Nasser stems from three sources: (1) his rejection of UAR hegemony implicit in Nasserism, (2) his belief that Tunisia needs the West, and (3) his opposition to the strong elements of Communist thought which Nasser has assimilated...
...There are sharp differences over the Palestine Arab refugee question...
...In fact, the Nasser-Kassem split has led to a partial, though uneasy, detente between Amman and Cairo...
...During the initial phase of this impact, geography and politics certainly seemed to favor Moscow's aspirations, and this led many observers to fear that the whole area would fall under Soviet influence...
...But before the Algerian rebel government, which had moved its headquarters from Cairo to Tunis, had prepared its own guarded comments on de Gaulle's statement, both Cairo and Baghdad denounced the French declaration out of hand and called for '"war to the death against French imperialism...
...Furthermore, there is no close correlation between the various Arab groupings, on the one hand, and the battle lines of the cold war, on the other...
...In Lebanon, there is something of a stalemate between Nasserites and anti-Nasserites...
...Moscow must also face the unpleasant reality that the CENTO powers still prevent direct land contact between the Soviet bloc and the Arab countries, while Israel helps maintain balance in the region by preventing an attack on Jordan by either the UAR or Iraq...
...The anti-Nasserites, for example, do not constitute a homogeneous group...
...This, then, is the shape of the unstable equilibrium in the Middle East today...
...Both reveal roughly the same admixture of anti-Westernism, social demagogy, readiness to borrow Communist and fascist terminology, and violent militarism, which is all the more absurd in view of their actual military weakness...
...Nasser's second principal antagonist, King Hussein of Jordan, lacks Bourguiba's social-economic dynamism and mass support, and this complicates his task in fighting the UAR's constant efforts to assume control over Jordan...
...The Nasser-Kassem split has not been the only sign of Arab disunity...
...And the welcome accorded the proposals by Morocco's "left-Istiqlal" government, usually so close to Cairo, is a further sign that Nasser's writ does not run in the Maghreb, the Western part of the Arab world...
...But more recently, the democratic forces, spearheaded by the Maronite Christians, have made a comeback...
...North Africa's Arabs have made it clear that, whatever else they may do, they will never accept UAR hegemony: Lebanon's Christians have recaptured their old fighting spirit...
...pro-Western elements and movements have regained their confidence...
...The recent proposals made by French President Charles de Gaulle to settle the question were bailed by Tunisia, Morocco and Jordan, bourguiba called them "a great event in the history of France and Algeria...
...Kassem is receiving support from the Communist world (more from China than from Russia...
...The West can also count on the resistance to both Nasserism and Communism by broadly-based movements like Bourguiba's Neo-Destour, and on such groups as the Lebanese Maronites and the Moroccan liberals, and even on such regimes as those of Libya and Jordan, which are attempting the orderly modernization of their countries...
...But this should not be allowed to obscure the fact that Nasser is still getting Communist bloc economic and military aid, as well as diplomatic support in his anti-Western and anti-Israeli adventurism...
...For the time being...
...support of the latter would demoralize the local Communists and involve the further risk of building Kassem up into a potentially independent, anti-Soviet national leader...
...The Nasser-Kassem feud, seen in historical perspective, is largely an extension of the age-old rivalry between Cairo and Baghdad, which, as ever, has become entangled in Great Power politics...
...For one thing, the Kassem forces came to power by murdering Hussein's relatives: also, Hussein believes the Kassem regime is even more pro-Communist than Nasser's and therefore a potential danger on his eastern border...
...They have been aided in this by the split in Nasserite ranks caused by Communist defections since the inception of the feud with Kassem, and by the disillusion inside neighboring Syria with the results of the union with Egypt...
...The Sudan is permanently fearful of Egyptian gleichschaltung, since Egypt has never made any bones about its hopes of acquiring the Sudan's land and water surplus (especially with the Aswan High Dam project now under way), any more than it has hidden its desire to lay hands on Saudia's oil revenues...
...It has far greater economic strength in the region...
...These governments are always ready, in order to forestall agitation at home, to support Cairo on all abstract questions of Arab nationalism, but they hold off when Nasser seeks to embroil them in his political maneuvers...
...But his position is by no means secure...
...It was only after the UAR's military weakness was disclosed in the 1956 Sinai campaign that Hussein was able to pry Nasser's grip loose, with Western help...
...It is unstable not least because, Tunisia apart, the Arab social and political structure is inherently weak...
...So much for the precarious balance among the Arab states...
...The present equilibrium cannot relevantly be interpreted in terms of a simple power struggle between two or more blocs...
...And it enjoys considerable political assets there, particularly in the Central Treaty Organization countries (Turkey...
...The Soviet Union, on the other hand, has lost many of the advantages it formerly enjoyed as an "outsider" and has already been drawn into the Nasser-Kassem feud...
...A well-aimed bullet could well upset the balance, or at least endanger it—as is now apparent from the recent attempted assassination of Kassem...
...Nasser is now willing to make concessions in order to achieve even the appearance of unity against Kassem...
...Unlike Bourguiba, who has demonstratively asserted his support for Kassem, Hussein has been even more antagonistic to the new Iraqi regime than to the UAR...
...Nevertheless, certain facts are indisputable at present: Nasser's initial impetus has lost its force...
...Internecine rivalries and democratic resurgence have blocked Nasser's drive to power Uneasy Truce in the Mideast By A. V. Sherman London The Middle East has settled down into an unstable equilibrium...
...Libya, for example, had already begun to suffer Egyptian-supported, anti-Western nationalist subversion several years before the 1952 officers' coup in Egypt...
...And their haste led to bitter recriminations between themselves and Tunis and Amman...
...The Algerian question has also provided ample scope for Nasser's maneuvers...
Vol. 42 • November 1959 • No. 40
