Tiered Up

Many of the Arab League countries are so engrossed with their quarrels with Israel and with Great Britain or France that they pay little heed to the menace of Soviet Communism. However, there is more concern where the Soviet Union is near, and in general, the northern tier of countries have an awareness of the danger. There is ... a vague desire to have a collective security system. --John Foster Dulles, June 1, 1953

In the 28 months since the U.S. Secretary of State made this statement, allied diplomats have worked to turn a vague desire into a concrete fact. Their first reward came in February, when Turkey and Iraq signed a mutual-defense pact in Baghdad. Britain, representing Cyprus, joined in April, Pakistan in July. Last week Iran signed up, and the "Northern Tier" became one of the important realities of international politics.

Closing Link. Four countries with 123 million people, reaching in an east-west chain from the Bosporus to the Himalayas (see map), are now--but for the formality of Iran's parliamentary approval--bound to come to each other's aid in the event of armed attack on any one of them. Between them, they have 50 standing divisions, some better than others, but all with a share of modern weapons. Through Turkey, on the west flank, they are linked with NATO; through Pakistan, on their east flank, they are linked with SEATO. Thus the Northern Tier completes a collective-security system which, with the U.S. at its center, now stretches around the earth.

A measure of the chain's value was Soviet Russia's vigorous pressure against Iran's joining. For months, Soviet diplomats worked above and below ground to keep the last link from closing. "As a good neighbor," a top Soviet diplomat warned Iran, "Russia is ready to settle all pending accounts with you without fuss, but there are certain evil hands which give you a dagger to injure her face. That you must not do." Russians wined and dined Iranian officials, offered free newsprint to neutralist newspapers. Premier Bulganin invited Shah Reza Pahlevi and his Queen to Moscow, but the cautious young Shah posponed the visit. Said he last week: "The neutrality and peaceful intentions of the Iranian nation in two world wars did not save our country from aggression." Foreign Minister Molotov thundered back: "The pact ... is inconsistent with the peace and security of the Middle East and runs against the friendly relations between Soviet Russia and Iran."

The peace and security of the Middle East were indeed menaced last week--not in Iran, but in Egypt. The first shipment of Communist arms (mostly small-caliber weapons) reached Cairo from Czechoslovakia. Emerging from the Egyptian foreign office, where he is a frequent and welcome visitor these days, Soviet Ambassador Daniel Solod urbanely told newsmen that the Communists now hope to extend their new relationship into all phases of Middle Eastern life. Said he: "Soviet foreign policy ... is to develop relations ... in political, economic and cultural fields." Solod confirmed reports that Russia had offered to build Egypt's High Dam, Premier Nasser's No. 1 economic project, and added that already "scientific missions, archaeologists, people of agriculture and so on" were on their way from Russia to Eygpt.

An Advantage. The Communists could hardly have hoped for quicker or more emphatic results. Whipped to a fever by their leaders' boasts of what the Czech arms will do, Egyptians paraded in the streets, and dark-eyed belly-dancers canvassed the city in a mammoth "Arms Fund Drive" to help Premier Gamal Nasser's government pay for the incoming weapons. By week's end, more than $1,000,000 had been subscribed. Arab League leaders, gathered in Cairo to confer with U.S. Envoy Eric Johnston over final detail of the U.S.-backed Jordan River plan, were emboldened to put off a project designed to give the Arabs water for irrigation and means for the resettlement of Arab refugees from Palestine.

"The arms deal has thrown a bombshell into the whole Middle Eastern situation," said one Western diplomat. "It has distracted the attention of the Arab world from constructive projects and focused it on destructive ones."

Across the border, Israel rustled with concern, noted that the current Egyptian military budget was almost three times that of Israel. Said Premier-Designate Ben-Gurion: "Israel has a better army . . . but her armament is far below the general standard of that of the Arab armies. Our only advantage over our neighbors is in the quality of our personnel." While it was hard to believe that the Communists would endanger the great credit they had built up with the Arabs by also offering to sell arms to their hated Israeli enemies, there was an unofficial report from U.N. sources--given credence by the U.S.--that the Reds were doing just that. This gave Israeli Ambassador Abba Eban a chance to say that Israel would refuse any such offer.

Outright Struggle. As a possible prelude to a formal plea for U.S. arms. Israel proposed that the U.S. should guarantee the borders between Israel and the Arab states, as suggested by Dulles last August. Retorted Syrian Ambassador Farid Zeineddine: "Any U.S. security guarantee for Israel would very probably create outright struggle." The tension was dangerously high--so high, in fact, that the U.S. and Great Britain felt it necessary solemnly to warn Israel against any thought of preventive war.

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