Spreading Infection

In the Middle East, revolution is reaching epidemic proportions. A revolt in Yemen last September ousted the centuries-old dynasty of the Imam and installed a "republic" that has ever since been propped up by 20,000 Egyptian troops sent in by Gamal Abdel Nasser. In two bloody days' work last month, Iraqi army officers deposed and killed psychotic Dictator Abdul Karim Kassem. Last week, on a quiet, grey Friday morning, the infection reached Syria.

Broken Bonds. Everyone knew it was coming, from Syria's strongman, General Abdel Karim Zahreddin, down to the lowliest private in the army. When Zahreddin severed Syria's union with Egypt 17 months ago, he had profited from the nation's revulsion against the police state and harsh economic controls imposed by Nasser. But Syrians, passionate believers in Arab unity, also felt guilty about breaking the bonds. Wispy President Nazem El-Koudsi sighed, "The trouble with Syrians is that we are never concerned with just our own problems but with issues affecting all Arabs."

The regime survived three major and countless minor conspiracies, but once Iraq rebelled against Dictator Kassem in the name of Arab unity, the Syrian, regime was doomed. Six Cabinet ministers re signed discreetly, and when members of the Baath (Renaissance) party were asked to replace them, they refused. Desperate President Koudsi eagerly offered to unite Syria with the new revolutionary government of Iraq but received no official reply from Baghdad. Schools were closed to prevent student demonstrations against the government, and tanks and armored cars patrolled the streets of Damascus.

The revolution came as quietly as a sunrise. General Zahreddin suspected Colonel Mohammed Hariri, chief of the southern front command, of being a top conspirator and ordered him sent out of the country as military attache to Jordan. Hariri refused to go, and the entire southern command backed him up. An armored column moved out from the Badani mili tary camp and entered Damascus, where the tanks patrolling the streets quickly joined the rebels. Scarcely a shot was fired as Syria changed its allegiance. Tempers were so cool that President Koudsi was allowed to remain at home with his family. Premier Khaled El-Azm. who lived beside the Turkish embassy, simply slipped next door and was given political asylum.

Damascus radio went on the air proclaiming the Baathist slogans of "Unity, Freedom, Socialism!" A jubilant Syrian army officer at a border post said. ''We want unity, not with Nasser, but with all Arabs." As in Iraq, the Syrian National Council of the Revolutionary Command insisted on anonymity. The new 20-man Cabinet has only two military men, and the Baath party is strongly represented. New Premier Salah El-Bitar, 45, is a former Syrian Foreign Minister and a Baathist with strong sympathies toward Arab unity. A tall, hulking Damascene with dark, brooding eyes and brilliantined hair, he once signed a manifesto denouncing union with Egypt, but later advocated close federal ties.

Two in One. Two revolutions within a single month have thus put the Baathists into power in two nations stretching from the Mediterranean to the Persian Gulf. The Baath party strongly emphasizes unity with all Arab states, including Egypt, but rejects dictatorship by anyone, ineluding Nasser. Its philosophy calls for ittihad, loose federation, and pledges overall allegiance to uruba, a pervasive Pan-Arabism. When news of the Syrian revolt reached the Iraqi capital of Baghdad, a military parade was transformed into a victory celebration, with long lines of citizens and students snake-dancing through the city. In Cairo, Nasser's men hailed the new Syrian regime. It seems probable that Nasser will profit from his past mistakes and settle for a coalition of "liberated" Arab states governed by Baathists and pro-Nasserites but retaining their separate identities and sovereignties.

The revolutionary wave next threatens the monarchies of Jordan and Saudi Arabia, which have bitterly opposed Nasser's intervention in Yemen and have no love for the unity proposals of the Baath party. The beleaguered kingdoms last week seemed to be girding for a last-ditch stand. King Hussein alerted his Arab Legion, the most efficient fighting force in the Arab world. Prince Feisal, Premier of Saudi Arabia, protested that Egyptian planes had bombed Saudi towns on the Yemen border and angrily declared, "Let the world know that we are not afraid of war. We Saudis are indeed the children of war. If we have to die, then let us die with honor. Unless these attacks, provocations and childish acts end, then this country will turn the tables and turn the aggressors head over heels."

Positive Way. The United Nations' special envoy to the Middle East, Dr. Ralph Bunche, last week visited the republican areas of Yemen as part of the U.N. effort to prevent the Arkansas-sized nation from becoming an international battleground. Yemen had delayed Bunche's visit until an Egyptian armored column could seize the formerly royalist-held town of Marib, and then exhibited it to Bunche as evidence of republican control of the country. After a 60-minute session with Yemen's Strongman Abdullah Sallal, Bunche declared, "I was most impressed by his earnestness, sincerity, strength and seriousness of purpose." Stopping off in Cairo on his way home, Bunche conferred for two hours with Nasser, then saw newsmen. He emphasized that the Yemeni people he saw supported Sallal's government "in a positive way." The radio voice of the royalist tribesmen fighting to restore the Imam plaintively begged Bunche to visit the areas they controlled "and see the real truth--see the roads, ravines and mountains of Yemen littered with Egyptian dead." But, on this trip at least, Ralph Bunche was satisfied to draw his conclusions from one side only. Later, the U.N. let it be known that he plans to visit the Imam on a separate journey in the near future.

Hard Look. In 1958, the last time there was a big revolutionary crisis in the Middle East, the U.S. rushed 14,000 marines and troops to Lebanon. Last week the U.S. role was far more ambivalent. Washington sent a message to Nasser expressing "grave concern" at continued Egyptian bombing of Saudi Arabia. Instead of marines, the U.S. sent veteran Diplomat Ellsworth Bunker to Saudi Arabia to reassure the understandably nervous Prince Feisal. U.S. policy seems aimed at safeguarding the territorial integrity of Jordan and Saudi Arabia from aggression beyond their borders, not in maintaining the monarchs in power against their own people. In Israel, Premier David Ben-Gurion interrupted a vacation to confer with his defense chiefs.

The revolution in Syria is unlikely to be the final firecracker on the string. Baathist and Nasserite elements are known to be at work in Jordan, especially among the Palestinian Arabs. Saudi Arabia can no longer trust its small air force or even the officer corps of its regular army. If it comes to fighting, the Saudi rulers will depend on their "white army," the Bedouin tribesmen traditionally loyal to the King. But if the road ahead looks rough for the monarchies, it by no means is smooth for the "liberated" states, since victory most often presents only new occasions for quarrels, in keeping with the Arab proverb that says, "I and my brother against my cousin; I and my cousin against the foreigner."

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