Elemental Force

In the space of 30 minutes last week, Dwight Eisenhower recaptured for the U.S. great tracts of lost diplomatic ground. Before the President made his U.N. speech (see NATIONAL AFFAIRS), the U.S. had drifted into bootless "You're another" exchanges with Russia and Egypt--exchanges from which all parties emerged somewhat soiled. After Ike's speech the U.S. again stood clearly before the world, not as a spokesman for the Middle Eastern status quo, good or bad, but as a power devoted to orderly international evolution. In the process, the half-convincing Soviet picture of the U.S. and Britain as an "aggressor" in the Middle East was destroyed, and the General Assembly diverted from sterile argument to the more positive task of trying to find a remedy for the conditions that had prompted the landings in Lebanon and Jordan.

These were substantial accomplishments, for the image of itself that the U.S. puts before the world matters. But the problems of the Middle East--including the most crucial immediate one of how to get British troops out of Jordan without leaving behind chaos, a Nasser take-over or an Israeli-Arab war--were as far from solution as ever.

The chief difficulty of the U.S. proposals was that they rested on the assumption that a rational and moderate Arab nationalism exists, and only needs encouragement. It may exist, but it is not in control, and so long as incitements to assassination and prodding of hatreds and fears "work" better for Nasser, there was still little in Arab nationalism for the U.S., the U.N. or anyone else to latch onto. A subterranean current of passion and unrest, which might be dammed and might be diverted but cannot be stopped, is still the elemental force in the Middle East.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.