A Case of Love-Hate

Everyone agrees that the ideal of Arab unity, never very robust, has once again been stabbed in the back. What caused the uproar in the Middle East last week was the question of who did the stabbing.

Moral Lepers. Egypt's President Gamal Abdel Nasser put his finger on two culprits: 1) Michel Aflak, the fraii; intellectual Christian Arab who founded the Baath Socialist Party; and 2) Salah Bitar, Aflak's disciple and the present Baathist Premier of Syria. Denouncing the two as fascists, secessionists, traitors, moral lepers and "seekers after power," Nasser blasted them as solely responsible for the collapse of the unity agreement concluded last April between Egypt, Syria and Iraq. The agreement called for a merger of the three nations into a greater United Arab Republic, but in the months since, it has become increasingly obvious that Nasser and the Baath Party were each determined to capture the leadership of the new U.A.R. and exclude the other.

In a three-hour speech--at ceremonies observing the eleventh anniversary of the Egyptian revolution that overthrew King Farouk--Nasser last week made the break with the Baathists official. Charging that most of the "ardent Syrians" who originally put their signatures to the agreement are now in Baath jails, Nasser announced that Egypt would no longer be a party to the agreement while Baath ruled in Syria.

"Nasser, O giant!" roared the crowd. "Down with Aflak and Bitar!"

Ill-Timed Rift. For a time, with typical Mideastern ambiguity, the Baathists had tried to avoid openly attacking Nasser. After crushing the July 18 uprising of pro-Nasser army officers. Syria cautiously avoided publicly blaming Nasser. Even while executing 27 Nasserite rebels, the Syrian leaders still said they wanted to forget the past and intended to keep on working for union. But last week, faced with Nasser's blast, they finally insisted on their innocence and Nasser's guilt in killing hopes of Arab unity.

Recalling the earlier Egyptian-Syrian merger of 1958 (Nasser's overbearing grab of Syria's military, economic and political plums drove the country to secede in 1961), Premier Bitar cried: The time of the strongman is past! We are opposed to the cult of personality, and this is one of the great differences between ourselves and Nasser. We've suffered much in the past through 'strongmanism,' and we're determined to banish it forever."

The rift comes at a bad time for Nasser, who has a 28,000-man Egyptian expeditionary force--at the far end of a long supply line--bogged down in a nasty little desert war with the royalists of Yemen. But the two Baath nations are having worse troubles. Iraq is deeply committed to wiping out the Kurdish rebellion in its northern provinces, and it is becoming clear that the Kurdish war is not going well. Syria is rolling downhill economically at an appalling speed, and though its Baathist regime has survived two Nasserite revolts, it may crumple before a third. Nasser certainly will not stop trying, for he has an almost mystical attachment to the embattled little country. A close friend of his once observed: "Nasser's not in love with any woman, but only with something called Syria."

New Strategy. Nasser last week tried a lover's trick to split his foes: he began wooing Syria's Baathist ally, Iraq. In a coaxingly worded invitation, Nasser urged Iraq's President Abdul Salam Aref to visit Cairo "to see personally how much the Egyptian people like you and their Iraqi brothers." Though known to have pro-Nasser sympathies, Aref played it safe by politely refusing the invitation, and pointedly phoned Syria's Bitar to assure him of Iraq's support.

Nasser also made an impressive display of military muscle. Down the handsome Nile Corniche road in Cairo rolled new, two-stage rockets capable of launching a satellite into earth orbit and putting Israel, as well as Syria and Iraq, within easy missile range. Other new weapons included amphibious tanks, antiaircraft rockets, ground-to-air missiles, and supersonic jet fighters with speeds up to 1,350 m.p.h.

Perhaps seeking the comfort of friends, Premier Bitar announced an impending conference of Baathist leaders from Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Jordan, and "certain other countries" that he refused to name. The announced purpose: to seek a "new political strategy basis for future activity in the Middle East." Not to be outdone, Nasser called for a giant rally of all Arab nationalist movements, to elect a supreme council.

In this new organization, said Nasser, Baathist members would be accepted but Baathist leadership excluded. Who, then, would lead? Gamal Abdel Nasser, of course.

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