THE MIDDLE EAST: The Baghdad Bastion

First there was NATO. Then there was SEATO. Now there was METO—the Middle East Treaty Organization.

METO was born last week in Baghdad.

Meeting in an extra, rose-bordered palace of King Feisal’s, the four Premiers of Iran, Iraq, Turkey and Pakistan and Britain’s Foreign Secretary Harold Macmillan gathered to give formal shape to the new organization. The last link in a defensive chain forged around the Communist land mass from Norway to the Philippines, it interlocks with NATO (through Turkey) in the West, with SEATO (through Pakistan) in the East.

Iran’s Premier Hussein Ala arrived patched with adhesive tape where the revolver, hurled by a frustrated assassin, had nicked his head a fortnight ago. With Macmillan came Britain’s chief military man, General Sir Gerald Templer. Turkey’s bland Premier Adnan Menderes arrived last, as befitted the nation with METO’s biggest army. Representing the U.S. as “observer” and backstage sponsor was U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Waldemar J. Gallman and Admiral John H. Cassady, commander of all U.S. naval forces in the Eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean.

Unities & Divisions. With the dispatch of men who are agreed, the five quickly organized themselves into the “Permanent Council of the Baghdad pact,” picked Baghdad as their permanent seat, set up a permanent secretariat and standing military and economic committees. There would be no joint command staff like NATO’s; the council’s permanent deputies would simply be the respective ambassadors stationed in Baghdad.

But even while they talked of the common danger that united them, the new allies could not conceal an overriding concern for the acute problem that divided them—the Israeli-Egyptian crisis.

Ten months ago, Iraq’s Premier Nuri es-Said had brought the wrath of Egypt’s Premier Nasser on his head for joining Turkey to form the nucleus of the new organization. Now Nuri tried to reassure Nasser. Iraq, he said, “will not hesitate to use her resources for the assistance of any Arab state subjected to Israeli aggression.” Macmillan seized his chance to argue that Communist frustration in Europe and Asia had forced the Reds to seek out new areas for expansion. Egypt’s deal for Communist arms was the result, and, considering the situation, he could not blame Nasser, said Macmillan. One effect of Nasser’s deal was to “make us feel we must support our friends even more strongly than before.” This meant, he indicated, more arms, more economic aid, more technical assistance for the Arab world. Britain candidly hopes METO’s principal value will be in coordinating and stimulating the region’s economic self-development.

But Britain, as each of the Premiers realized, was only the junior Big Brother.

Major economic aid, and military aid too, depended chiefly on the support and benevolence of the U.S., and the new METO allies were frankly counting on more of both as a price for daring the wrath and possible economic reprisals of Russia. All eyes swiveled around expectantly to silent U.S. Ambassador Gallman.

It was time, said Pakistan’s Chaudhri Mohammed AH, that “the observer made some observations.” Iran’s Hussein Ala was more blunt: “We would warmly welcome the early accession of the U.S.” For the U.S., unwilling to join a pact with a country (Iraq) which is still officially at war with Israel, Gallman could only reaffirm the U.S.’s continued encouragement and support.

Defense Position. How strong a bastion will METO prove in the Mid-East’s shifting sands? Truth is that METO is more a geographic than a military entity, more a psychological pact than a strategic strongpoint. Not including Britain, METO disposes in theory of nearly 850.-ooo men under arms. But Turkey’s tough 500.000-man army and Pakistan’s 200,-ooo are already committed to the free world’s defenses (through NATO and SEATO). To the Middle East’s defenses.

METO adds only the forces of Iraq and Iran—and a defense position.

The forces do not amount to much.

Iraq’s young new army, trained by the British, has between 40,000 and 50.000 men organized into two divisions, with a third in the process of formation. Iran’s 150,000-man army, for years a tatterdemalion outfit rotted by Communist infiltration and paralyzed by low morale, has been spruced up under the guidance of a U.S. military assistance group headed by Major General Robert McClure. currently consists of twelve passable divisions, three of them armored. The U.S.

has supplied both armies with considerable equipment.

The defense position is more impressive. Under the strategic plan pushed by the British ever since their evacuation of Suez, the main Middle East defense line would be established along the rugged Zagros mountain range which runs from eastern Turkey southeastward along the north shore of the Persian Gulf. This line, the British argue, is “the only reasonably defensible terrain,” can be supplied readily from Iraq, and they figure they could fly in an armored division from Libya, Jordan or Cyprus in less than three weeks after a Russian attack was launched.

The Zagros line would effectively protect the Iraq oilfields, and. beyond them, Saudi Arabia and the Suez Canal. It would even protect the Iran oilfields and refineries around Abadan.

But infantry-minded military men sometimes seem more intent on defending mountains than people. The Zagros line would mean abandoning to the invader most of Iran’s territory, nearly two-thirds of its population, and Teheran itself. Not unreasonably, Hussein Ala objected. Iran, he warned, proposed to defend “every inch” of its territory. In other words, Iran was not interested in providing the site of METO’s rampart if most of Iran was left outside it.

The METO nations had declared their trust in the West—and that was perhaps the greatest importance of the Baghdad meeting. In the end, METO will be strong or weak in the exact degree that the West is willing to make it so.