anticommunist Conference 2
Jean Robin assembled an international team of anticommunist writers and analysts to discuss current events in the U.S., Germany, Australia/New Zealand, and France.
Conservatives 4 Ukraine (Speakers)
Lesson’s on the Middle East
“Thanks to Eisenhower and Dulles the Suez operation resulted in a powerful gain for Moscow. With the Suez Canal now firmly in Nasser’s hands, he returned to his threatening posture against the Israelis, although even more firmly in the debt of his patron, the Kremlin. As for the British and French, they were completely knocked out of the Middle East.”
Ira Hirschmann [i]
In his book, Red Star Over Bethlehem, veteran American diplomat Ira Hirschmann outlined “Russia’s drive for the Middle East” in the 1950s and 60s. To get a foothold in the region, all Moscow needed was an Arab leader hungry for weapons. Egyptian President Gamel Abdel Nasser of Egypt was that leader. He was ambitious, he was charismatic, and he wanted weapons so he could attack and destroy the state of Israel.
In 1955 the Egyptian president told Ira Hirschmann, “If I can’t get major arms from the Americans, I will get them from the Russians.”[ii] Hirschmann asked Nasser why he needed weapons if his policy was one of peace. “I must defend my people from the Israelis,” said Nasser. “Eisenhower and Dulles are stalling on major arms. I cannot wait any longer. I will be obliged to turn East.”
Since Eisenhower and Dulles refused to give Nasser tanks and guns, he carried out his threat and aligned Egypt with Moscow. When he got Soviet tanks, he nationalized the Suez Canal. The British and French governments were upset by this because the canal was largely owned by French and British shareholders. In response to Nasser’s nationalization of the canal, the British, Israelis and French invaded Egypt. Their objective was to retake their property and depose Nasser. As the Egyptian drama was playing out, Hungary revolted against Moscow. The Soviets acted as if they might allow Hungary to leave the communist bloc. This was pure deception, of course, as they invaded Hungary to crush the uprising. It is odd, indeed, that Eisenhower did not oppose the Soviet invasion of Hungary. Instead, Eisenhower joined with Moscow in opposing the British and French (and Israeli) invasion of Egypt.
On hearing of the invasion, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles summoned French Ambassador Hervé Alphand. “This is the darkest day in the history of the Western Alliance,” said Dulles. “It might even be the end of the alliance itself.” Dulles complained that the French news blackout had “done me the gravest personal damage and has put me in an impossible situation … the action and intervention of France and Britain is just the same as the behavior of the Soviet Union in Budapest.” The French Ambassador was shocked and offended. Dulles realized he had gone too far and apologized. “I beg your pardon,” he told Alphand. “You must understand that I am speaking under the stress of the great emotion that such a terrible thing could have happened.”[iii]
Hirschmann claimed that Eisenhower and Dulles had “lost their heads.” He claimed, “Their personal resentment and personal vindictiveness were allowed to overcome their cool judgment.” But there is more to this story. The CIA under Allen Dulles knew all about the planned French/British/Israel invasion and initially appeared to support the invasion. But then, MI6 deputy director George Young suggested overthrowing the governments of Saudi Arabia and Syria in addition to overthrowing Nasser. Young even asked for American help in overthrowing the Saudi king, whose oil was exported in partnership with American interests set in place by CIA Director Allen Dulles when he was the State Department’s man in the Middle East.[iv]
The CIA warned the British that King Saud “was an American puppet and not to be touched.” The British backed off, but they had revealed intentions contrary to American interests. Filled with distrust, Eisenhower sided with the Soviets in their support for Egypt. This came as a rude shock to the French and British. Of course, Nasser thought the Americans had shown contemptible weakness by failing to support the British and French. Soon thereafter, Nasser dropped all liberal pretenses by abolishing civil liberties in Egypt. He began a crackdown against Egyptian Jews, arresting more than a thousand while seizing five hundred Jewish businesses.
Nasser was more determined than ever to build up his military for a future war against Israel. Moscow not only armed Egypt and Syria; they trained the Arab armies while planting spies and infiltrators in the process. Moscow had good reason to think the Arabs would win a future war against Israel and they believed their infiltration of Egypt and Syria would give them effective control over the Arab World. But as Ira Hirschmann pointed out: “you cannot buy an Arab, you can only rent him.” Worse yet, Moscow’s rented Arab friends were bunglers. In 1967 a Syrian military newspaper attacked Islam and the prophet Mohamed, destabilizing the regime. Moscow became frightened that Syria would suffer a popular revolution and/or an Israeli invasion. Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko went to Egypt to suggest an Egyptian mobilization into the Sinai to keep the Israelis from exploiting Syrian weakness. But don’t start a war, warned Gromyko.
A terrible comedy then unfolded. Nasser’s became overconfident from all the praise he was receiving in the Arab world. On May 24, 1967, he could not resist blockading the Straits of Tiran at the entrance of the Gulf of Aqaba. Nasser had taken things too far. The Israelis regarded the blockade as an act of war. Knowing that Egypt and Syria were not ready for war, the Soviet Union urged Israel to negotiate with Nasser using Moscow’s envoys as intermediaries. But the Israeli’s were angered by Arab attacks on Israeli civilians. They were angered at the blockade. Consequently, they were not interested in negotiating. They launched a surprise attack against their Arab neighbors, defeating them in six days. Israel took the Golan Heights from Syria, the West Bank from Jordan, and the Sinai from Egypt. Israel won a crushing victory while the Soviet Union was embarrassed by Nasser’s strategic incompetence.
Despite all of this, Russia not only failed to help Egypt to conquer Israel, but also failed to conquer Egypt from within. Here we get a taste for the kind of mistakes Moscow tends to make. An opportunist approach to acquiring allies is not always best. The failure of Soviet-sponsored Arab armies in 1967 runs parallel to the failed communist military offensives in Vietnam, in 1968 and 1973. Reflecting on these military defeats we may better understand Moscow’s present-day military failures in Ukraine.
Taking all this into account, the Russians have a virtue the West may lack; that is, persistence. After the defeat of the Arab armies in 1967 the Soviets went back to the drawing board. They opted for a great Arab offensive. In this next offensive, known to us as the Yom Kippur War of Octrober 1973, Russia would successfully bring Arab oil into play as a weapon against the West and Israel. Here we see an ongoing interplay between the Arab-Israeli conflict and Western oil dependence. Of course, the West managed to improve its position in the Middle East because of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat’s desire for peace. From this we see that the United States benefits from peace while Moscow gains entry into a region through war (using a “divide-and-conquer” strategy).
Today the Russians and their Chinese allies have drawn Saudi Arabia into their BRICS Alliance. Together with their oil-rich Venezuelan ally, they are poised for another oil embargo. What Moscow needs is another war in the Middle East. This time Iran rather than Egypt is the country that cries out for Israeli blood. One might ask, in this context, what the death of Iran’s president in a helicopter portends.
Links and Notes
[i] Ira Hirschmann, Red Star Over Bethlehem (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1971), p. 101.
[ii] Ibid, p. 21.
[iii] Ibid, p. 113.
[iv] John Loftus and Mark Aarons, The Secret War Against the Jews (New York: St. Martins Griffin, 1997), pp. 241-258. The chapter is titled, “The Revenge of the Philbys.” Note: There are obvious problems with many of the claims made by Loftus and Aarons, due to their use of anonymous sources who served in various intelligence services. Their writings reflect an uncritical approach to the “wilderness of mirrors” as few can distinguish the true allegiance of double agents or the true purpose of double games.