Restless Province

In the atmosphere of mass exultation that attended the birth of the United Arab Republic last February, Egyptian and Syrian leaders acted as if the union of their two countries, which do not even share a common border, were the most natural thing in the world. The U.A.R.'s propagandists denounced the rival Hashemite Arab Federation of Iraq and Jordan* as a "sham" that would soon collapse, while theirs was a merger of peoples bound by history, blood and religion. Impulsive Syrians, who voted almost unanimously for Gamal Abdel Nasser as the first President of the new republic, thought of him as an Arab and only incidentally as an Egyptian. But after five months, Syria (pop. 4,000,000) has become a province of poorer Egypt (pop. 24 million)--and not everyone is happy about it.

Red Swarm. Nasser, replacing Red influence with his own, has made progress in preventing the Syrians from slipping farther into the Soviet orbit, but the socalled "northern region" of the U.A.R. remains infiltrated by Communists to an alarming degree. An estimated 1,000 Soviet technicians, military advisers and embassy personnel are stationed in Syria; the area is aswarm with "technical" missions of bridge builders, oil surveyors and "fertilizer experts." Syria is dependent on Russia for $170 million of its $600 million development program.

One-third of Syria's wool exports (ten times last year's amount) and more than half of the cotton crop will go this year to the Soviet bloc. Although Syrian Communist Boss Khaled Bakdash fled to Moscow when the union was proclaimed, the Communist newspaper Al Noor still publishes the Red line. And Damascus Radio echoes it. Sample broadcast about Lebanon: "The U.S. has taken off the fancy dress hiding her real identity as a slippery snake trying to emit poison, suck blood and eat human flesh."

Rebuke from Cairo. To consolidate his own authority in Syria, Nasser has dispatched more than 200 civilian officials and several thousand Egyptian troops into Syria, stationing at least one Egyptian officer with every Syrian army company. Playing his proconsuls against each other. Nasser has split authority in Syria among 1) Old Politicos Akram Hourani and Sabri el Assali, Vice Presidents of the U.A.R.; 2) Colonel Abdel Hamid Serraj, now Interior Minister, press czar, and boss of a police state intelligence network; 3) Mahmoud Riad, onetime Egyptian army colonel and Ambassador to Syria, who is Nasser's shadow in Damascus. But while Nasser still rides tall in the saddle with the masses, he is faced with a growing restlessness among influential Syrians. Items:

P: Syria's freewheeling political parties, although supposedly dissolved at the time of the merger, still function unofficially. Nasser, who allows only his own National Union in Egypt, was recently forced to call his opportunistic Vice President, Hourani, to task for encouraging the continued clandestine operation of Hourani's Socialist-Baath Party. P: Syrian civil servants are grumbling that all the good jobs are going to the Egyptians. Of the 800 prospective employees of the U.A.R.'s foreign service, probably only 100 will be Syrians. Syrian army officers have protested when transferred to Egypt. P: A serious drought has cut this year's wheat crop in half and the barley harvest by one-third, threatening a budget deficit in Syria in 1958 of $70 million, compared to $28 million last year. P: The Lebanese crisis shut off tourist traffic and transit trade to Jordan and Iraq; it halted oil and fuel shipments from Lebanon, immobilizing farm machinery and leaving crops to rot. A shortage of consumer goods developed in Damascus shops; kerosene is rationed. Banks report increasing defaults on debt payments. Businessmen are irritated. P: Syrian officials still act on their own. Without consulting Cairo, the Damascus government recently announced sweeping increases on Syrian customs duties for automobiles and other "luxury items." Nasser rebuked his proconsuls. But when the Cairo newspaper Akhbar el Yom warned that decisions of this sort should come from Cairo and not Damascus, Syrian officials promptly confiscated the Egyptian newspaper--so that no Syrians would see who is boss.

*Which last week decided to style itself officially as the Arab Union, not the Arab Federation. Iraq's young Feisal became King of the Arab Union, while his young cousin Hussein will still be King of Jordan.

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