MIDDLE EAST: New Bastion

The West moved swiftly last week to take a new partner into its “northern tier” of Middle East defenses. Stopping over in Baghdad on his way back from Bangkok, Britain’s Anthony Eden suggested to Iraq’s Premier Nuri es-Said that Britain is ready to join the Turkish-Iraqi alliance and to replace the expiring Anglo-Iraqi pact with a new association . . . in line with those which already exist with Turkey and other partners in NATO. ” Britian’s connection with Iraq is oil,which is Baghdad’s chief source of revenue: $100 million a year.

Chief British military concerns in Iraq currently are the big R.A.F. bases at Shaibah and Habbaniya. If Britain could build a new “little NATO,”the bases could safely be turned over to it. The planes and men would remain largely British. But they would be there not by imposition of a “colonial” power, but as partners in mutual defense. Thus, the West would gain more solid bastion in theshifting political sands of the Middle East.