A Vague Foreboding

Over the Middle East last week hung a cloud of fear--a vague foreboding not felt since the days of the Suez war. Under its influence the Lebanese, alarmed by repeated discoveries of smuggled arms, reinforced their police patrols along the Syrian borders. Under its influence King Saud, accompanied by 50 retainers in two Convairs, flew unexpectedly into Beirut to see Lebanon's President Camille Chamoun and Premier Sami Solh.

In directionless confusion, people feared the Israelis, the Americans, the Russians, fellow Arabs--anyone who might start something. They talked about the latest Soviet fleet maneuvers in the Mediterranean. Nobody seriously argued that anybody was about to attack Syria, or that Syria was about to attack its neighbors.

No Fishing. But the Syrians, as if to dramatize their geographic importance in the most barbaric and graphic way, let half a train shipment of 1,000 Iraqi sheep die on the way to Beirut by simply refusing them water. As the carcasses were burned in a giant pyre at Beirut, the message was clear: it is not so easy to isolate Syria. Syria was also laboring to convince everyone that it had not turned Communist. "I am a considerably wealthy man, and I am determined to keep my wealth," protested Syrian Acting Defense Minister Khaled el Azm, who negotiated the arms deal in Moscow. "The policy of Syria's present government is to keep Communism away from the country."

Egypt, so recently a firebrand 'in the Middle East, was also circumspect. Cairo's press, noisy as ever, swore eternal loyalty to Syria, even threatened that Egypt would close the Suez Canal if Syria were attacked. But Nasser himself, absorbed in his efforts to negotiate an economic settlement with France, and to retrieve the $40 million in Egyptian funds now blocked by the U.S., seemed to be scrupulously avoiding his old pastime of fishing in troubled waters.

Tit for Tat. The U.S., on the other hand, was determined to dramatize its concern over Syria. The U.S. embassy in Amman put on a big propaganda campaign about the airlift of U.S. arms to Jordan. This may have reassured some, but it led other Arabs to conclude that the big powers were shifting their cold war to the Middle East and developing a tit-for-tat buildup that was bound to lead to a dramatic showdown.

To stop this arms rivalry some pundits and politicians (among them Walter Lippmann, British Laborite Hugh Gaitskell) argued that the West must negotiate with the Russians. This idea too worried some Arabs. Beirut's anti-Communist Al-Hayat complained that Big Four negotiations would be "going over our heads." But it also acknowledged: "Our entry by our own mistakes into the East-West struggle has made us lose the initiative." Added Beirut's French-language L'Orient: "This game can lead to nothing but a general conflagration or to a bargain between East and West. In the first eventuality, the

Arabs will be the victims; in the second, the dupes."

The difficulty with negotiating with Russia about the Middle East is the assumption that the Communists and the West have the same objective there--namely, peace. Russia's hope is that if it cannot dominate the Middle East, it can at least stir up profitable trouble there.

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