U.S. Failure in the Mideast
Sherman, Aleph V.
U.S. FAILURE IN THE MIDEAST Territorial dispute between Iraq and Iran points up 'weak, fumbling character of U.S. policy' and endangers region's peace By A. V. Sherman LONDON THE DISPUTE between...
...Iran, despite its extremely exposed position and real internal difficulties, has been a loyal member of the free world's system of alliances...
...Then the border incidents began...
...The bone of contention between the two countries is a five-mile stretch on the Shatt-el-Arab's eastern shore and certain related riparian rights in the river channel which had been ceded to Iran by the Bakr Sidqi military government of Iraq in 1937...
...It's most striking and disquieting feature, however, is the light it throws on the weak, fumbling and dispirited character of United States policy in the Middle East, which seems to be increasingly based on appeasement of the West's enemies at the expense of its allies and friends...
...The British Foreign Office followed suit shamefacedly...
...the USSR can outbid it politically...
...declared its neutrality in the kind of language one might adopt toward a schoolboy tiff...
...Such a policy is bound to fail, for no matter how far the U.S...
...Yet nowadays Washington appears to be slightly ashamed of its ties with these free states and will lower itself considerably to win a word of approval from the Soviet-oriented nationalists...
...Even more ominous—in view of Iraq's apparent denunciation of the 1937 agreement and the unequivocal statements by Kassem and Foreign Office spokesmen that the 1918 border is the only valid one —were Radio Baghdad's threats, on December 21 and 23, that Iraq would "defend its border in the Shatt-el-Arab by force if necessary" and would "crush all aggressors...
...And the Kurds of northern Iran and the Arabs of the south are being promised their "liberation," an ominous development in view of the Soviet build-up in the region...
...And he warned that if certain undefined "border problem...
...economic and military aid will never buy loyalty, nor will the U.S...
...statement, Colonel Mahdawi...
...and he has just been given a U.S.-financed World Bank loan to widen the Suez Canal, despite the fact that he continues to prevent passages of Israeli cargoes through the Canal in defiance of United Nations rulings and Dulles' assurances to Israel...
...Pakistan...
...These attacks were fully supported by both the Iraqi Communist press and "Radio Free Iran," which ordinarily accuses the Shah's Government of being an imperialist lackey that does not defend Iran's national interests adequately...
...United Arab Republic ambitions in North Africa and the Persian Gulf, and Iraqi or UAR offensives against Jordan or Israel quite uninhibitedly...
...because Iraq had been short of money...
...when Moscow moved in and took the prizes...
...when it was first advanced...
...which operates from Soviet territory, except that the Iraqis use far more violent language...
...Kassem's speech was followed by an increasingly violent anti-Iran campaign carried on by Iraqi Government officials and the radio and press...
...But the policy's first fruits were so bitter— Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser's decision to seize the Suez Canal and his victorious emergence from that crisis, Egypt's annexation of Syria, disruption in Lebanon, the collapse of Iraq's pro-Western regime—that they led the late Secretary of State John Foster Dulles to a hurried reappraisal in mid-1958...
...For another...
...Toward the end of last November, the Iraqi press and radio began to denounce Iran for "aggression" and '"trespassing" in the estuary, and on December 2 the Iraqi dictator...
...Following Kassem's lead, subsequent Iraqi spokesmen repeatedly referred to "imperialist pressure...
...Kurdish and Arabic languages, the latter two of which are used by minorities in Iran...
...Without mention of the origins or rights and wrongs of the case, the Department spokesman said U.S...
...Baghdad denied the incident, then claimed the Iranians were smugglers, then that they were unemployed Iranians who had stolen across the border into Iraq to look for work...
...For centuries, in fact, the border between the Ottoman and Persian Empires had moved back and forth with the fortunes of war and politics, particularly in the area which now constitutes Iraq...
...policy' and endangers region's peace By A. V. Sherman LONDON THE DISPUTE between Iraq and Iran, which involves conflicting claims to the Shatt-el-Arab estuary where the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers flow together into the Persian Gulf, is now entering its third month and still endangers the peace of the region...
...Iraqi spokesmen discovered that Iran had been "committing aggression against Iraq for centuries...
...Through CENTO, it asserted, the "imperialist powers" are using Iran as a base for aggressive operations against Iraq...
...The most effective support for neutralism in the Middle East now comes, ironically enough, from the impact of America's own actions...
...and admonished both sides to keep calm...
...He accused Iran of plotting to attack Iraq and openly called on the Iranians to emulate Iraq's revolution, a call that is now addressed to Iran daily...
...Iraqi troops crossed over into Iran and fired on Iranian citizens...
...Libya and Israel: and they are incomparably less free...
...In a broadcast on December 7, for instance...
...General Abdel Karim Kassem...
...Iran took the natural precaution of strengthening its security forces in the region...
...authorities "find it difficult to believe " that the two countries "cannot with good will on both sides resolve their differences by peaceful negotiation...
...Not unexpectedly, the campaign has differed little from the anti-Iranian propaganda broadcast in Persian by Radio Moscow and by "Radio Free Iran...
...In short, the U.S...
...the hanging judge of the People's Court, which combines "revolutionary justice...
...This moral and political abdication has naturally encouraged the Iraqis to go farther...
...They warned that Iraq's "patience was being exhausted...
...Iran, in turn, organized loyalty demonstrations in Teheran and in the main minority areas, and emphasized that it would defend its borders by force: Iran can hardly give up Abadan and its shipping rights in the Shatt-el-Arab without serious financial loss to the nationalized, Western-operated National Oil Company...
...Most ominous is the turn in U.S...
...The State Department has also been putting pressure on other Western powers to go easy with Nasser...
...Financial aid in the form of outright grants to Nasser amount to more than $50 million a year...
...As a result, even the half-hearted Western intervention in Lebanon and Jordan in 1958, far from causing a total breach with the underdeveloped countries, as the pro-Nasserites had warned, actually helped stop the deterioration for a while and heartened the anti-Nasserite Arabs...
...State Department issued a statement toward the end of December gratuitously denying that the U.S...
...At this juncture, ironically, U.S...
...Now this is a situation in which Iran might have had reason to expect unreserved support from the West...
...Furthermore, there is no basis for the oft-heard claim that regimes like those of Nasser and Kassem represent an upsurge toward greater freedom and social justice...
...For one thing, it is a clear-cut case of aggressiveness on Iraq's part...
...Moreover, it ought by now to be obvious that U.S...
...Several days later, Iraqi spokesmen began to promise "the inevitable recovery of the Shatt-el-Arab in the direction of Abadan and of the Republic's territories that were separated from it 23 years ago under imperialist pressure to permit their exploitation without taxation by the oil companies...
...As the Iraqi tone became more threatening...
...But in recent months, appeasement has become more chronic than ever...
...As a result, faith in the value of an unequivocal stand in the cold war is being undermined throughout the region...
...At first...
...aid to both Nasser and Kassem is being stepped up...
...Radio Baghdad accused the Central Treaty Organization (CENTO ) —formerly known as the Baghdad Pact, whose members are Iran...
...it was first tried out on Egypt in the early '50s, shortly after the revolt of the colonels overthrew King Farouk...
...Pakistan...
...This policy is of course not new...
...Instead, the U.S...
...A few days after the U.S...
...It was untrue in 1958...
...The estuary, river channel and riparian rights are vital to the work of the Abadan oil refinery in Iran...
...Pro-Nasserites have propagated the thesis that Nasser is some kind of crypto-anti-Communist...
...Moscow can support Iraqi claims against Iran and Turkey...
...were not solved and the "problem of good-neighborly relations not settled," Iraq would "be absolved from the 1937 grant and would restore it to the motherland...
...they have achieved less in the way of welfare for their people than such pro-Western states as Turkey...
...can compete with the USSR in winning over the left-influenced Arab nationalist regimes by massive economic aid—and by sacrificing the interests of allies when necessary...
...launched an open attack on the Iranians...
...Tunisia...
...ever again dare to use the weapon of withholding economic aid after its experience with Nasser in 1956...
...Both are unstable: they are being propped up by the Soviets until such time as the Communists feel able to usher in the "next stage of the revolution...
...As the campaign gathered momentum...
...Nasser is now receiving increased Soviet aid in every form: the latest armaments even before the Soviet satellites get them, a promise of Soviet aid in the construction of all three stages of the Aswan Dam, other loans which the USSR can ill afford to make (what with both China and Poland in real economic difficulties), and automatic diplomatic support...
...Soon the violent incitement was channelled into Iran itself in the Persian...
...policy: It seems to reflect the hope that the U.S...
...He claimed that the 1937 agreement had been made "under pressure...
...is taking any part in the dispute, even a "mediatory role...
...During the campaign's first fortnight, the Iranians took it rather quietly and answered the charges calmly and with reason...
...Turkey and Britain— of "hatching black plots against the young Iraqi Republic...
...Here was the West's chance to show that membership in the club is worth something when the chips are down...
...and it is even more untrue today...
...buffoonery and anti-Western hate orgies, launched a violent attack on the Shah, whom he called "the executioner of the Iranian people...
...is prepared to go...
...And this stepped-up aid has not kept Nasser from sharpening his offensive of propaganda incitement and subversion directed against "Western imperialism...
Vol. 43 • February 1960 • No. 8
