THE STAKES IN THE MIDDLE EAST
Crawford, Kenneth
The Stakes In The Middle East By KENNETH CRAWFORD IT IS fashionable to assume at this moment in the world's history that everything will come out all right if we will but close our eyes for a few...
...Indeed, they probably helped force an improvement in the charter...
...THE explanation for the Lebanon affair I most often heard was that both the British and French had bought up the local government and that both were determined to cash in...
...The fact is that the French, the British, we Americans, and now the Russians all have our own axes to grind in the Middle East and that we are grinding them more or less in accordance with the established rules...
...They also try in this part of the world to propagate their own Marxian religion, a religion which has caught on so well in other places...
...This suggests that it will not be safe to assume that the Big 3, 4, or 5 will necessarily work together amiably...
...Whether the British or the French are the villains of the place may be judged by anyone according to his own prejudices...
...Fantastic...
...There is no good reason to believe that they will do anything better for the Arab camel driver than the western countries have done...
...The danger lies in rivalries among the Big Powers, America, Britain, and Russia, and France...
...Having observed the quality of French colonial administration in Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia, I was inclined to believe the worst of the French...
...Fortunately the Russians were prevailed upon to abandon their demand for veto power at the discussion level...
...But later, after traveling through the Levant, dealing with British censors and observing British colonial intrigue, I wasn't so sure...
...Here the British stepped in to insist upon release of the political prisoners and reconstitution of Parliament...
...They are profoundly convinced, whatever the evidence to the contrary, that Russia would bring the blessings of socialism to the desert Arab, if Russia were given the chance...
...They feel they must have strategic bases and friendly nations along their line of communication with their eastern Empire...
...There seemed to be no way for Joe Arab to win...
...They feel they need a station on the way to Indo-China...
...The incident in Syria and Lebanon reveals the pattern of future trouble...
...But President Truman and Marshal Stalin backed up Churchill...
...To get in one must have a Russian visa...
...We, of course, trust our own love of peace more than we trust anyone else's...
...The Russians are relative newcomers to the Middle Eastern oil fields...
...Indeed, the immediate cause of their latest troubles in Syria and Lebanon seems to have been an attempt to strengthen their way-station bases...
...Catroux was dispatched to Lebanon to make amends...
...Recently the Russians ran out a prime minister who refused them further oil concessions during the war by the simple device of buying up Iranian editors and fomenting a spontaneous press claque against the offending official...
...The San Francisco dispute over the veto power therefore is imoortant...
...Charles de Gaulle's Free French...
...These reenforcements were attacked by natives...
...The Situation Today De Gaulle, still nettled by his 1942 rebuke, charged in Paris that the British had armed the native rioters and intimated that they had instigated the uprising...
...He was a "gook" or a "wag," still living in Biblical times, and victim of all sorts of sharpers from Europe...
...It wants ports giving into the Mediterranean and it wants oil...
...American motor companies have raised wage standards (Continued on Page 14) in Egypt...
...The more democratic the, base of the world organization the better, even conceding that only the Big 3 have the industrial and military power to enforce peace...
...Except for this proselytizing, the Russians behave like the capitalists, only more so...
...Syria and Lebanon strategically situated on the land bridge between Europe, Africa, and Asia and the eastern end of the Mediterranean were taken away from Turkey and mandated to France after the first World War...
...There the matter stands as of today...
...But neither, for that matter, was the native chieftain and his representative in Damascus...
...Churchill offered to discuss the whole thing with de Gaulle, but the French leader refused, suggesting instead that he might ask settlement by the Big S. Washington seemed willing to mediate between Britain and France, but Truman made it clear that we didn't want Russia in the argument...
...THE Middle East is a danger spot, then, not because Syria may attack Saudi Arabia or because Algeria may declare war on Great Britain or because the Big 3, working together, may find it difficult to police the area...
...It is not niee to talk about imperialist Russian expansion, the disappearance of 16 mere Poles, the unofficial wars now going on in the Middle East, Yenan and Fiume, or the form of the proposed world organization charter...
...Again the British stepped in to enforce the demands of native officials...
...de Gaulle refused but was overruled by the Committee for National Liberation, then sitting in Algiers...
...One of the pipe lines from Iran crosses Syria to reach its Mediterranean port...
...I happened to be in the Middle East during the eommo-tion over Lebanon...
...When France fell to Germany in 1940, the Vichy Government, trying to hang on to the Empire, promised the mandates a large degree of independence...
...That is why its enthusiastic friends in this country and elsewhere want us to play monkey right now—to see, hear, and speak no evil...
...The Stakes In The Middle East By KENNETH CRAWFORD IT IS fashionable to assume at this moment in the world's history that everything will come out all right if we will but close our eyes for a few months or vears and open them again only after human affairs, temporarily disturbed by war, have set themselves to rights...
...The French have similar concerns...
...They have shown why the form of the world organization charter is a matter of some importance...
...In 1942 the Gaullists arrested members of the Lebanese Parliament, claiming that independence could not be granted until the French Republic was reconstituted after the war...
...One may even be called "perfectionist"—the top spot word of 1945...
...They might benefit from advice and some degree of control by smaller nations having no direct interest, for example, in Middle Eastern oil...
...They claim, moreover, that they are negotiating with the native governments for terms granting increased autonomy in exchange for recognition of their special interests in these 2 countries...
...To point out the danger of war with Russia is to become a fanatical advocate of such a war...
...While Lebanon and Syria themselves are not oil countries, they are conveniently close to Iraq, Iran, and Saudi Arabia, where the British, Americans, French, and Russians are all working the oil sands...
...The Russians solemnly accused him of "disloyalty...
...France, anticipating rebuff, would prevent even its discussion by exercising its veto right...
...AS for us Americans, some of our oil companies are partners of British oil companies in Iran and consequently our interests are in a sense identical with , British interests...
...The United States is already rich and therefore vigorous Russia is still on the make...
...Trouble between Arabs and French in Syria could infect Egypt and menace the Suez Canal, particularly now that all Arab states are loosely banded together in the Moslem League...
...Generating World War III...
...American philanthropies have spread education, promoted medicine, and created a great reservoir of good will throughout the Middle East...
...They want no perfectionists interfering with this prospectus...
...It is so fashionable, in fact, that anyone who refuses to play blind man's buff according to the popular rules is accused of malicious mischief...
...However unpleasant it may be to contemplate the spectacle of French colonials with modern weapons mowing down Moslem natives in their own city of Damascus, recent events in this ancient city have served the useful purpose of opening some reluctant eyes...
...Subsequently British forces in the Middle East turned out the Vichy French and turned the mandates over to Gen...
...American oil companies have done some good things in Saudi Arabia, not only for themselves but for the natives...
...But the veto remains in the charter where investigation and sanctions are concerned...
...They are a little cruder...
...How could American interest possibly conflict with Russian interest...
...It will never fuel our warships unless they are on a mission of peace-keeping or peace-making* Others, of course, tell themselves the same thing...
...French and British garrisons remained in Syria and Lebanon and there were no further incidents until France recently tried to reenforce its Senegales detachments...
...Why worry about the Charter ? World peace will depend upon cooperation among the Big 3 anyway...
...Now the Russians are strengthening their consulates in other parts of the Middle East and refusing, as are also the British who control the southern part of Iran, to withdraw their troops from Iran...
...The Russians, having a Moslem population of their own, have the advantage over western nations that they can send true believers into the Middle East...
...They have focused attention for a moment on one of the spots where a third World War could be generated and dramatized the circumstances of generation...
...Russia is currently the most ambitious, expansion-minded empire in the world...
...Britain will be satisfied to keep what it has...
...The circumstances are not too complicated...
...One thing was obvious: neither the de Gaulle governors nor the Churchill administrators on the scene were much concerned with the welfare of the desert Arab...
...The British have interests other than oil...
...Consequently we can tell ourselves with conviction that our own share of Middle Eastern oil must be protected for the good of the world...
...France will be lucky to do as much...
...Russia's reason for wanting a weak rather than a strong charter is no mystery...
...To be sure, they have a heavy investment in Iran and their armies are in full control of the northern section of the country...
...None of us is out there just to protect peace-loving Arabs from blood-thirsty desert tribesmen and thus to contribute to the order and peace of the world, however doubtful it may be whether the Syrians and Lebanese are entirely ready for complete self-government...
...Had the Russian view prevailed, a dispute like the Syrian affair never could be brought before the world organization...
...The capitalist record is not, in fact, all black...
...They want the world to sleep while Russia grabs...
...What we are all there for is—the greatest known oil reserve in the world...
...The French make the point that they are responsible, under the terms of their still existing mandate in Lebanon and Syria...
...There is no polite pretense that the Iranians are master of their own destiny...
Vol. 9 • June 1945 • No. 25
