Contrails of Communism

These days the most popular Arabian nights' entertainments are the televised trials staged in Baghdad by the Iraqi People's Court, under the presidency of Premier Karim Kassem's cousin, Colonel Fadhil Mahdawi. Premier Kassem himself is known to have turned on the television in the middle of a Cabinet session, listened to the colonel's brutal buffooneries and irrelevancies, and murmured: "What a jewel we have here." Last week, with 16 officers and one civilian on trial for their lives, accused of taking part in the Mosul army revolt in March, sheep-eyed, sheep-headed Judge Mahdawi was in sparkling form as he interrupted a witness:

"I wish to disclose something here. The Premier's parents were always trying to get him to marry, but his personality was so strong no one could bring pressure to bear on him. I was his relative and dared approach him. He would say: 'Fadhil, I have an objective.' I knew his objectives were connected with a great revolution. After the revolution his sincere friends hoped that he might get married. His answer was that there were objectives that remained to be achieved. The Premier eats little, sleeps little and works hard though he is ill sometimes. Can any wife live under such circumstances?"

Unhidden Persuaders. With such gossipy asides, Mahdawi had little time to waste on hearing the defense. The court-appointed defense counsel, a woman named Rasima Zainab, spoke less than 15 minutes for all of her 17 clients. She hailed Colonel Mahdawi as "a symbol of justice." Before the verdict was announced, Mahdawi favored the audience with a history of May Day, said that labor movements paltered along in places like Britain until "the emergence of the Communist Party and the great Soviet Union, sincere friend of our democratic republic." When the applause died down, Defense Counsel Zainab popped up to say: "If my defense of the People's Court and the Iraqi people means that I am a Communist, then I have the honor to be so." Mahdawi read the verdicts amid a storm of applause: six officers to be shot, nine officers and the civilian sentenced for life, one officer acquitted.

As the hapless mutineers stumbled off to their cells, the Communists turned their control of press, radio, unions and of the Baghdad street mobs to seek out other enemies, particularly in the Foreign Office. For the first time the Communist press openly demanded representation in the government. In Washington, U.S. Intelligence Chief Allen Dulles told a Senate subcommittee last week that the situation in Iraq is one of "the most dangerous in the world today." But the manner in which the Communists pressed for more power showed that they did not have it yet. At week's end Iraq celebrated the first May Day parade in its history, and the many thousands of Iraqis marching through Baghdad behind anti-imperialist banners was chilling proof of that mob might. But the night before, Kassem made a brief speech saying that he is opposed to political-party activity in Iraq just now--and not ready to take Communists formally into his Cabinet.

Another Berlin. There were other echoes of struggle. The Baghdad radio called on the public to help the Communist-led people's militia catch foreign infiltrators who were crossing the border from Syria. In the north 2,500 anti-Communist Kurdish tribesmen bolted across the border asking sanctuary in Turkey from Iraqi Kurds led by the Soviet-trained Mullah Mustafa el Barzani. And just across the Iranian border, Russians were stirring up Kurdish tribes in the Azerbaijan region that separates Russia from Iraq. In the skies over the northern city of Tabriz, contrails were visible as Iraq-bound Soviet jets darted across Iran. Obviously, the Russians would dearly love a Soviet land bridge to Iraq, but 160 crucial miles of Iran separate the two, and recently the U.S. signed a bilateral pact with Iran, promising to help it defend itself. Iranians crack that the Russians now have their own isolated Berlin in the Middle East--Baghdad--which can be reached only across enemy territory.

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