To the Edge

Russian T-34 tanks patrolled the road to Damascus last week, and from the high skies over Syria came the whistling roar of Russian MIG-17 jet fighters. But to Syrians the tank patrols and jet nights were becoming routine: Russian arms have been arriving in Syria in quantity for two years. Damascus itself was calm in the summer sunshine, but whether Syria's plain citizens realized it or not (the heavily censored press gave them little to go on), their country was the No. 1 topic in chancelleries and foreign offices around the world. Cabinets met to consider Syria; her neighbor Arab nations hurried into consultation. Some trigger-happy U.S. radio commentators, grappling by the hour with a confused and shifting political story, helped confuse it further by proclaiming that Syria was already Russia's newest satellite.

Syria might become a Russian satellite, but she was not one yet. The difference lies in the fact that Russia has no common border with Syria; between them sits Turkey, most powerful and best-armed nation in the Middle East, as well as Turkey's Baghdad Pact neighbors of Iraq and Iran. The London Times described the situation as Russia's "political parachute drop." The Russians have not marched into Syria; they were invited in.

"Leave Us Alone." Who extended the invitation, how far the Russians mean to go in accepting it, and how irreversible the present course is, remain to be seen. In Cairo, where he hustled off early last week to ease his ulcer and talk to Egypt's Gamal Abdel Nasser, Syria's President Shukri el Kuwatly, a moderate rightist but also something of a weakling, vehemently denied that his country was turning Communist. The U.S., said El Kuwatly, "should leave us alone." But El Kuwatly's own attempt to keep a check on the rise of the pro-Soviet wing had obviously failed. During the past few weeks a xenophobic junta of left-wing army officers and political schemers have quietly seized effective control of Syria.

In the limelight in Damascus was the newly appointed Army Chief of Staff General Afif Bizri, longtime Communist sympathizer (in World War II he played with the Nazis). Asked by reporters if he was a Communist, General Bizri took evasive action. "If you call every man who loves his country a Communist, then I am a Communist." Defense Minister Khaled el Azm, who has just concluded a $100 million military-aid deal with the Soviet Union (TIME, Aug. 19), stridently insisted that Syria's policy was one of "positive neutrality," sententiously added: "We are at the outer edge of that policy--do not force us to go beyond it."

Calluses of Conscience. The most powerful man in Syria was saying nothing whatsoever. He is gaunt, 43-year-old Akram

Hourani, a deft opportunist who combines considerable organizational ability with an intuitive sense of knowing just when to switch his ideologies. "Hourani," a Damascene political expert once remarked, "has changed camels so many times that his backside has as many calluses as his conscience."

Hourani got his start in Syrian politics ten years ago as a member of a vehemently anti-Communist right-wing political party. In Syria's brief and lackluster 1948 campaign against the Palestine Jews, he served as a volunteer--and improved the hour by smuggling arms intended for the front to his personal, home-town political organization in Hama.

Thereafter Hourani allied himself with whoever was in power, astutely broke with them just in time. On the side, he worked at building up his own new Socialist-Baath Party. Three years ago Hourani helped put the skids under then President-Dictator Adid Shishekly, saw his Baathists win 16 seats in Parliament and became fast friends with Moscow-trained Khaled Bakdash, self-styled secretary-general of the Communist Party and the first admitted Communist ever elected to an Arab Parliament (in most Arab countries the Communist Party is outlawed). Hourani and Bakdash speedily recruited Syrian Intelligence Chief Colonel Abdel Hamid Serraj, and with his help methodically bumped off all the remaining leaders of Hourani's old right-wing anti-Communist Party.

The Efficient Colonel. Since then Hourani and Bakdash have operated in the background, encouraging Serraj in the development of his intelligence system, while fervent Pan-Arab and Nasser enthusiasts as well as Communists flocked to their cause.

It was hard to tell the two categories apart: the Communists so completely identified themselves with Arab nationalism, hatred of Israel and opposition to Western "imperialism" that many Arab nationalists could see no difference between their own policy and that of the Soviet Union. They might not be under Communist discipline, but they were deeply under Communist influence. Item: Syrian newspapers carried no news of the Hungarian revolt except what was put out by the Russians. Friendship and trade with Russia and Communist-bloc nations increase steadily.

Most observers regard Bizri and Bakdash as certified Reds but doubt that Hourani himself is a convinced or dedicated Communist; he is more probably for Hourani and the main chance. They also think that Serraj (who used to talk daily on the phone with Nasser) believes that he is using rather than being used by the Communists. Hourani burns with the ambition of building a "Greater Syria," which, if achieved, would topple Iraq's able, pro-Western leader Nuri asSaid, take oil-rich Iraq out of the Baghdad Pact and eventually unify Iraq, Syria and perhaps Lebanon in one vast Arab State under Hourani.

This would be a neat trick if Hourani could pull it off. But even with the success he has achieved thus far, there is still an imposing array of odds against him.

First is the strong conviction among many Syrians that Khaled Bakdash is prepared to invoke his Moscow training and try to unseat Old Friend Hourani when the time is ripe; if this fails, then Bakdash will dash back to Moscow. Second, and still more important, is the fact that as

Syria veers closer to the Soviets, other Arab nations will get the jitters at the prospect of seeing the Russians with an established base of operations in the heart of the Middle East. Even Egypt's Nasser, who has put his head farther into the Soviet noose than any other Arab leader except Hourani & Co., is obviously apprehensive.

The Kings & Trumps. Arab unity, insofar as it exists at all, exists only against something. Last week events in Syria drove other Arab nations into common concern. One group of worried Arab powers centered around Egypt. Syria as a Russian satellite would rob Nasser of his chosen role as the leader of Arab nationalism, and play hob with all the talk of a Syria-Egypt merger and with the joint Syrian-Egyptian army command under Egypt's General Amer.

In Turkey gathered another apprehensive group, including those Arabs who have freely proclaimed their association with the West. King Hussein of Jordan flew in for what was billed as a ''holiday'' in Istanbul; his Hashemite cousin, King Feisal of Iraq, was already in Turkey on his royal yacht, and taking water-skiing lessons. Both cousins broke off their holidays for consultations with Premier Adnan Menderes.

They were joined by U.S. Deputy Under Secretary of State Loy W. Henderson, a veteran Middle East diplomat who had hustled off to Istanbul from Washington (see NATIONAL AFFAIRS). Henderson's trip would serve to quietly underscore the fact that though the U.S. is not a full member of the Baghdad Pact, she has joined its military committee, and can be expected to participate in any military discussions by pact members.

Action & Reaction. Military moves, except in direct response to military moves by the Soviet-armed Syrians, were less likely than an economic and political quarantining of Syria. But Syria's own trumps are also economic. One thought that gives Western statesmen worry is what would happen if Syria were to cut not only her Iraqi pipelines but also the Tapline route from Saudi Arabia (see map); these pipelines carry one-third of the Middle East's oil output. If Egypt chose to close the Suez at the same time, the West would really be in for it.

But like everything that happens in the Middle East, every action compels counteraction, and the Syrian coup involves dangers as well as advantages for Russia. The faint-seeming response so far by the other Arab states and by the West is to the Syrian coup a recognition that a counter-show of force is not the best answer. Instead the need was to rally together all the discordant and touchy elements in the Middle East that can be united on the simple proposition of keeping any "imperialism." including Communism, out of their territory.

Russia too knew that it was a subtle game. In Damascus a Syrian spokesman began preparing the ground for a more modest view of the Russian commitment. Defense Minister El Azm, the official spokesman emphasized, had gone to Moscow very much on his own. Final agreement on Soviet aid to Syria, he added, has not been reached. Moscow left it up to Damascus to brag of how much the aid would be and was careful not to commit itself irrevocably.

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