Word: iraq
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Syria has stood midway between the pro-Western and the Anti-Western Arab states. Recently she has listed menacingly towards the Communist side. The Syrian nation is bordered on the North by Turkey, on the East by Iraq, both states of the pro-Western Bagdhad pact, of which Britain is a member. To the South is unstable Jordan, to the West solidly pro-Western Lebanon. For sixty miles on the Southeast Syria borders Israel. Syria's economy is weak, but she holds a strong card in lying squarely across the vital pipelines leading from Iraq to the West...
Syria's main target at present is Iraq. Under strongly pro-Western King Faisal II, and Premier Nuri el-Said, Iraq has pursued a policy of opposing Soviet infiltration in the Middle East. She is, however, not entirely pro-West, as was demonstrated last Saturday when Faisal spoke of "beloved Egypt" and regretted her "present woes." There are Iraqui elements which are far more Kremlin-inclined than Faisal or el-Said, and which would ally Iraq with the Syrian and Egyptian camps if they could gain power. Some observers sense a gradual anti-West drift in Iraq...
Internal sentiments in both countries reenforce the major political forces. In Syria, long-nurtured anti-West popular resentment supports Saraj and his pro-Nassar position. In Iraq, popular sentiment stands behind el-Said, and his dream of Arab unity under Iraqui, pro-Western leadership...
Western policy in the Mideast must, of course, encourage the elements most favorable to the West. In the present crisis, it would seem, American policy should pursue the complementary goals of preventing Seraj from seizing formal control in Syria, and preserving and buttressing the el-Said regime in Iraq. If either of these objectives is not realized, Russia could gain the Arab foothold she seeks to step from Egypt to other areas of the Middle East...
...awaiting an improvement in relations (see NATIONAL AFFAIRS). For another, the U.S. is anxious to keep the American-owned Trans-Arabian pipeline from Saudi Arabia to Syria in operation, is going slow so as not to provoke Syria into blowing up that line as it did the line from Iraq. The U.S. was also, obviously, not willing to rush to the aid of Britain and France while their troops remained on Egyptian soil...