A Quiet Revolution

While the Israelis and Arabs have held the world's attention with their edge-of-the-abyss maneuvers over the past several months, a subtle shift has been taking place in another significant set of Middle East relationships. Largely under the aegis of Assistant Secretary of State Joseph J. Sisco, the U.S. has been moving to repair its badly damaged position in the Arab world. Today U.S.-Arab relations are better than they have been at any time since the Six-Day War of 1967, and as one American diplomat puts it, "Joe is there pulling all the strings."

One indication of the current U.S. effort was President Nixon's "State of the World" address last week. Arab officials took careful note of the President's endorsement of Arab demands for the return of captured territories (though he did not spell out which border rectifications Washington would support) and his call for an equitable solution of the Palestine refugee problem (though he did not suggest a specific solution). "The U.S. President," said the Beirut newspaper Al Jarida approvingly, "is trying to strike a balance in the U.S. position." Cairo's Al Ahram detected "new elements" in the U.S. approach. That is true largely because the U.S. has lately discerned new elements in the Arab approach. Not long ago, Libya ousted the U.S. Air Force from its huge Wheelus Base; Jordan expelled an American envoy; bombs ripped U.S. cultural centers in Beirut and Amman. Today:

In Egypt, U.S. Diplomat Donald Bergus is officially listed as "Head of the U.S. Interests Section, Spanish Embassy," because the late Gamal Abdel Nasser broke off formal relations with Washington during the Six-Day War. But Bergus' contacts with top Egyptian officials have been so frequent and so cozy in recent months that the only remaining step would be formal renewal of relations. One reason for the new atmosphere is Egyptian President Anwar Sadat's impressive flexibility and reasonableness in dealing with Israel.

In Jordan, King Hussein has been in a strong position since he defeated the Palestinian guerrillas last September. The U.S. urged Hussein to take on the fedayeen, and according to one Amman diplomat, so did "his officers, his Cabinet, his brothers and even his mother." Since then, a total of $70 million worth of military and economic aid has been, or is to be, sent to Hussein. State Department aides report that assistance for Jordan is presently one of the least difficult items to get through State Department echelons--or through Congress.

In Libya, Colonel Muammar Gaddafi has toned down the anti-Western posture he struck after deposing antique King Idris in 1969. Gaddafi, who has apparently come to the belated realization that he was isolating himself from practically everybody but Cairo and Moscow, has moved hesitantly toward renewed relations with the West. Meanwhile he has been ignoring Soviet requests to let units of their Mediterranean fleet call at any Libyan port Gaddafi may designate.

In Syria, Americans were unwelcome after the Six-Day War, but now tourists and even newsmen can enter Damascus overland from Beirut. Pan American recently resumed flights that were suspended after Arab guerrillas blew up a plane to mark the opening of Damascus' new international airport in August 1969. More important, the government of General Hafez Assad, who took over last November from rivals within the Baath Party, has at last decided to repair Tapline, the American-built pipeline that carries Saudi Arabian oil to the Mediterranean and was pierced accidentally by a bulldozer last May. Previously, the Syrians had refused to let the line be repaired.

In Yemen, which suspended relations with the U.S. in 1967, Abdel Rahman Iryani, head of the governing council, said in a January interview: "There is no reason not to push the establishment of friendly mutual relations."

The shift in U.S.-Arab relations, in the words of one American official, "approximates a quiet revolution." But the revolution has not yet been secured. To an extent, the new Arab readiness to make amends with Washington grows out of a conviction that the U.S. is determined to pressure Israel into a peace settlement that will be acceptable to Cairo and Amman. If Arab-Israeli negotiations were to collapse, it is entirely possible that some Arabs would blame Washington for not being sufficiently forceful with Israel. That is what Moscow is counting on; unable to secure advantages for the Arabs by force of arms, the Soviets are merely watching and waiting in hopes that the U.S. will fall on its face. In such a case, the quiet revolution might turn into a noisy round of recriminations, and relations might be worse than before.

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