Hot Winds & Frail Borders

The harsh winds of crisis shifted north from Suez to the sandy reaches that in a lusher day were known as the Fertile Crescent (see map). There sit three nations--Syria, Iraq and Jordan--whose borders were drawn largely by the British, largely on sand. Last week, with Britain's last shreds of authority being blown away, these three Arab states were exposed in all their perishability to the full blast of nationalist bent and Soviet propaganda.

Headline writers and TV commentators acted as if war might break out any moment there, but the likelier consequence was chaos, which is one of the Middle East's leading exports.

Syria (pop. 3,800,000) became the new headline favorite. A flimsy agrarian republic about the size of North Dakota, Syria tries hard to sound like Nasser's most ferocious ally, though in fact it is about the weakest sister of the Arab world. The glory of the caliph's Damascus has been gone for 1,200 years. Modern Syria as a nation dates only from the World War I collapse of Turkey's Ottoman Empire. For almost 25 years the French ruled Syria as mandated territory, leaving behind some culture and much hatred. The young Republic of Syria, independent after World War II, joined the invasion of Israel in 1948 and suffered resounding defeat. Its army then seized power, has remained in the foreground through five coups and some 20 Cabinets. Out of this turmoil of political weakness has sprung the most active native Communist movement in the Arab world.

Last summer, making common cause with Communists and crypto-Communists, Lieut. Colonel Abdel Hamid Serraj, 31, gained the upper hand in the army, placed Syria's 25,000 troops under joint command with Nasser's, and pushed deals with the Soviet bloc that by last week brought the bulk of some 100 T-34 tanks, 200 armored personnel carriers and 20 MIG jets into the country. After the invasion of Egypt, Serraj blew up the Iraq Petroleum Co.'s pipeline that carries 80% of Iraq's oil across Syria to the Mediterranean, and sent a brigade of troops into Jordan. Syria's inept little army cannot make good use of Russia's modern arms; the arms were obviously being stockpiled for eventual use by Moscow "volunteers." In this uneasy circumstance, Syria's anti-Communist neighbors in the Baghdad Pact--particularly Turkey and Iraq--met and agreed to fight "subversion" from Syria. The Turks announced "routine" army maneuvers near the Syrian border and flew their Acting Foreign Minister to London to discuss "the Syrian situation" with Britain's Foreign Minister Selwyn Lloyd. Did they intend to put Syria out of its misery?

Ever ready to stoke up Arab rivalries and suspicions, Russia's Foreign Minister Dmitry Shepilov accused Britain, France and Israel of planning "new aggression" against Syria, Lebanon and Jordan, and Radio Moscow bristled against Turkey and Iraq. Just in case Syria's anti-Communist neighbors were genuinely worried about a foray from Syria, the U.S. State Department announced that it would view "with the utmost gravity" any threat to "the territorial integrity or political independence" of any member of the Baghdad Pact. This was also meant to remove from Turkey and Iraq any pretext for moving into Syria.

The U.S. is concerned over Communist arms moving through the Dardanelles and landing in Syrian ports, but has reason to know that some Syrian military and political higher-ups are also disturbed at Communist influence and the dangerous ambitions of Colonel Serraj. In both Washington and Paris last week, the word Guatemala popped up in speculations about Syria--meaning that a more pro-Western government might be encouraged to seize power.

Iraq. Syria's larger and richer eastern neighbor (pop. 5,200,000) has long been the only strongly pro-Western Arab state. This is largely the doing of astute old Premier Nuri es-Said, 68, once an officer in the Ottoman army. His country is oil prosperous, and invests 70% of its royalties in soundly planned long-range improvements (dams, irrigation, schools). But the mobs in the streets, stirred by Cairo, Damascus and Moscow radios, denounce Nuri es-Said as a British stooge. Last week open trouble broke out. For six days Arabs demonstrated in the holy city of An Najaf, killing at least two and injuring hundreds. (Radio Cairo, greatly magnifying the casualties, boasted of open civil war in Iraq.) Nuri es-Said jailed five opposition chieftains, including a former justice minister and a former president of the Chamber of Deputies, for appealing to King Feisal II to withdraw from the Baghdad Pact. The 21-year-old King opened Parliament, in a speech from the throne that Nuri had written for him, by declaring martial law in all Iraq, and incidentally, in usual Arab fashion, called for the "elimination of Israel." When no fewer than 40 Deputies clamored to speak, to debate Iraq's foreign policy, the government swiftly and summarily suspended Parliament for a month.

Jordan (pop. 1,500,000), a precarious sandtrap, is currently host to a Syrian brigade and an Iraqi brigade, nominally there to help defend it against Israel, but ready to pick up the pieces if Jordan itself flies apart. New Premier Suleiman Nabulsi, echoing the demands of the Nasserites in his Parliament, last week demanded the stopping of Britain's $33 million annual subsidy, but significantly qualified his demand by waiting to see whether his Arab neighbors would make up the difference to keep his country going. One of the few remaining benefits London gets for its Jordanian subsidy is the right to an air base at Mafraq. Last week the R.A.F. base was under virtual siege, and drinking water, which local contractors refused to supply, had to be flown in from outside. If the British subsidy ends, and nobody else matches it, Jordan will have a hard time holding its place on the map--where it was put by Winston Churchill, genially creating a kingdom for his friend Abdullah.

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