Danger: Professor at Work

MIDDLE EAST

Touring the Middle East under the auspices of the U.S. State Department, Duke Ellington and his band found themselves caught in the middle of a coup in Iraq last week. Fascinated by the goings-on, the Duke promised to compose a new piece, "The Baghdad Rock--and I do mean rocking with rockets, bombs and all."

The Duke might just as well write another piece called the Damascus Reel, for Syria, too, underwent a shakeup, quieter but no less significant. Behind the sudden shuffle of Middle Eastern leaders was a power struggle inside a strange new political force, the Baath (Renaissance) Party, which in little less than a year has turned from a shadowy, clandestine movement without popular support into a dynamic power challenging Gamal Abdel Nasser for leadership of the Arab world.

The avowed aim of Baath is to unite Iraq and Syria, which it already controls, and to add all other Arab countries to this union, through persuasion or subversion. Last week's tussles were caused partly by the clash of ambitions within the party, partly by differences over how quickly and radically the Baath aims should be pursued.

Out of the Shadows. In Syria, Premier Salah Bitar, 52, a co-founder of the Baath Party, resigned after being accused in party councils of "self-isolation from the masses." Translation: he must make way for an ambitious, younger rival. The rival: Amin Hafez, 42, Syrian commander in chief and a top party leader, who took over as Premier. As a prelude to his swearing-in, jets whooshed overhead in salute--and to discourage any possible trouble.

In Iraq, the struggle was between burly Vice Premier Ali Saleh Saadi, a radical, and a faction of moderates headed by Foreign Minister Talib Shabib and Interior Minister Hazim Jawad. Saadi and his friends want more or less instant socialization of the Iraqi economy, crackdown on the middle class, revolution throughout the Arab world, and an anti-Western policy. Shabib, Jawad & Co. favor a slower, more conciliatory course.

At first it looked like a clear victory for the moderates. Backed by gun-toting aides, Shabib and Jawad seized Saadi and three other Cabinet ministers, bundled them into a military plane without luggage and flew them to exile in Madrid--where Saadi kept hinting that he would yet return to Iraq in triumph.

Next morning Saadi's supporters in the labor unions and the National Guard poured into the streets of Baghdad, led by Air Force Colonel Munzer Wandari, a fiercely mustachioed fanatic who personally took up a jet fighter and strafed the presidential palace with rockets. When the moderates called on the army for help, troops cleared the streets and jailed Wandari. But he had apparently made his point. An emergency meeting of the Baath high command decided upon a plague-on-both-your-houses gesture: Shabib, Jawad and five aides were hustled into another plane and sent into exile too--in Beirut. Strangely silent in the uproar was the one non-Baathist in a position of power, Iraq's President Abdul Salam Aref, who was reportedly under palace arrest.

Until party elections are held some time next year, Iraq will apparently be run by the Baath Central Committee (which includes a Jordanian, a Lebanese and a Kuwaiti as well as Iraqi and Syrian generals) and by Michel Aflak, the Secretary-General and real power in the party. It was the first time that Aflak, a withdrawn, seemingly gentle intellectual who has sanctioned the executions of hundreds of political opponents, emerged from his shadowy position behind the scenes.

National Families. What precisely is Baath? Nasser seems to consider it an even greater threat than his old enemies, the Arab monarchies of Jordan and Saudi Arabia, and complains: "I have read every book by or about Baath and I could understand nothing." A Western diplomat describes it as an "Arab Cosa Nostra." On the contrary, one knowledgeable observer thinks Baath "is probably ahead of its time--reformist, progressive and secular in a world of Arabs bound by tradition, religion and narrow, personal interest."

Founder Aflak, 53, whose scholarly manner has won him the nickname "The Professor," defines Baath through his career as much as through his words. Born in Damascus to the Greek Orthodox faith in an overwhelmingly Moslem environment (Aflak's father was a moderately successful grain merchant, and his mother, now 75, is still illiterate), Aflak got honors in history at the Sorbonne. In Paris he argued politics with other Afro-Asian students, read Marx, Nietzsche and Jefferson. He says, "I quickly found Marxism inadequate, based on materialism without human and spiritual values, without national consciousness. Nations are only large families, and the Arab family needs more than Marx. Thus we evolved the Baathist doctrine of socialism mingled with nationalism and the human spirit."

Returning to Damascus as a teacher, Aflak was soon indoctrinating students in his revolutionary ideals, drawing support from those who were overeducated, unemployed sons of the poor. In 1942, after leading a strike against French history texts being used in Syrian schools, he quit teaching and became a fulltime agitator, drawing support from those who, like himself, were overeducated, underemployed sons of peasants and workers. The luminous classical Arabic of his political tracts fills Baathists with ecstasy, but in translation, his ideas seem rather murky: "Nationalism is love before everything else"; "Revolution is the opposition of truth to the existing situation." Aflak wrote Baath's democratic-sounding constitution in five days, and it has never been changed or, for that matter, implemented.

By 1947, after the French left Syria, Baath had 1,000 carefully selected members, and Aflak called the first national congress in a Damascus cafe. Two years later he was strong enough to help topple a Syrian government and served in the Cabinet for three months before resigning on the ground that he was of more value to Baath outside the government than in it.

Colliding Ambitions. Aflak was profoundly shaken by the 1948 Arab defeat in Palestine. During the fighting he prowled the front, living with Arab troops. "The Arab social structure was responsible for the disaster," he says. "A society based on disunity and inequality prevented the Arabs from reaching their full potential." Today he is as vocal as any Arab leader about driving the Israelis into the sea.

At first, Baath worked willingly with Nasser. At the third party congress in 1956, Baath decided on the union of Syria with Egypt that was accomplished two years later. But the rival ambitions of Nasser and Baath collided. Syria broke away from Egypt in 1961 and became a Baath-dominated state after a military coup last March. Baath had already won bloody control of Iraq a month earlier and televised the gory scene of the execution of Dictator Kassem. Since then, Baath has successfully and bloodily put down two Nasserite insurrections in Iraq and five in Syria, and its leaders are understandably bitter about Nasser. Says one: "We loved him and cherished him, the bastard. Nasser is a lost prophet. He tries to annihilate us, the devil. We are idealists and don't want to kill, but he makes us kill. We have to use his tactics, damn him."

The Egyptian press and radio in turn picture Aflak as a combination of Robespierre, Stalin, Ben-Gurion and the Pope. Whenever Cairo Radio mentions him, it is followed by the interjection "Yani, yani" (I mean, I mean), gibing at the fuzziness of his political concepts.

Total Hostility. Baath depends on 50.000 party members scattered in eight-man cells throughout the Arab world. "We could take in thousands more," Aflak boasts, "but we must screen out opportunists, idlers and enemy agents." Not only Nasser, but also Arab monarchs, businessmen and the traditional, middle-class politicians detest Baath. Arab Christians fear being submerged in a united Arab state. The Kurdish tribesmen, who are Moslems but not Arabs, have waged a long, bitter war for autonomy in northern Iraq.

Originally, the Communists were numbered among the many foes of Baath, and in Iraq were hunted down and executed, while Moscow railed against "Baathist genocide." But recently, perhaps in a search for allies, a Baath official in Iraq announced that "the Red hunt is over," and hundreds of Communists were released from jail. Communist leaders are joining Baath in calling for "the liquidation of feudalism," and the Baath Party newspaper proclaims "total hostility against capitalism." Still betting that Iraq and Syria, while antiWestern, will remain antiCommunist, the U.S. this year is supplying credits and loans of more than $60 million.

In taking over, Baath found both countries nearly bankrupt and has tried to revive the economy with socialist cure-alls ranging from nationalization of industry (including, in Syria, the advertising business) to converting state land into farm collectives. For strategic reasons, a paved highway from Baghdad to Damascus is being pushed to completion. This year's rich cotton harvest promises a $100 million windfall for Syria, and Iraq's coffers are being refilled by oil revenues.

Brainwashing. As set up by Aflak, the organization of Baath resembles that of the Communist Party. Each cell elects a leader, cell leaders elect district chiefs and so on, up to the various regional congresses. Over them stands the powerful Central Committee, which really runs the whole show.

In dealing with political opponents. Baath tends to rely on the firing squad, but Baath meetings are conducted strictly by Robert's Rules of Order. Membership is gained only after a minimum of two years as a candidate "on trial for sincerity and intensity." Baathism is being extended to the Syrian and Iraqi armies--in addition to military duty each soldier must spend two hours a day being politically indoctrinated. Baathist police officials are now trying their hand at brainwashing political prisoners, and boast that they have even converted Communists.

As last week proved, Baath can be as hard on its own leaders as on its ene mies. Michel Aflak, as Secretary-General of the Baath Central Committee, has survived as the only stable element in Baath. He has never made a radio or TV speech, seldom appears in public, but he is a virtuoso in man-to-man discussions, and Premiers, Cabinet members and generals dutifully report to him for "advice." In fact, many of the decisions in last week's wholesale firings of Baath leaders were hammered out in Aflak's modest, four-room Damascus apartment, with wash flapping on the balcony and his two small children playing underfoot--until the crisis forced him to fly to Baghdad and take charge personally. He was plainly reluctant to do so. "I stay away from power," he says. "I am incapable of governing."

Aflak is confident of accomplishing all his visionary goals in his own lifetime. Says he: "We have many intellectuals in the party, but not enough executive and technical talent. We need more trained cadres. We need more funds. We need more time. We need more of everything." The major problem is whether Baath's old Arab ene mies and new Communist allies--as well as its own impatient radicals--will allow the party the time it needs. Meanwhile, does Aflak ever have nightmares about Baath's victims? He says: "We only dream about our destiny."

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