The outbreak of the Korean War made the Far East a principal focus of the Cold War, and obscured the fact that for the previous five years, since the end of the Second World War, the Middle East had been such a focusj—though of a more discreet kind—with Greece, Turkey, and Persia the points at which maximum pressure was applied. This volume provides an account of the period before the enunciation of the Truman Doctrine (March 1947), during which it was largely left to a war-weakened Britain to save the threatened countries from the fate which was to/befall Czechoslovakia. It describes the frustration of Ernest Bevin’s efforts to reconcile the uncompromising demands of pan-Arab and Zionist nationalism with Britain’s need to retain a strategic base in the Middle East, and the United Nations’ handling of the Palestine dispute, with the resulting deadlock between Israel and the Arab countries. It examines the effects of American aid on Turkey and also traces the intricate pattern of influences in Persia which was to bring Dr. Musaddiq to power.
Contents
Abbreviations Used in Text and Footnotes / VII Part I. Synthesis: The Interplay of Policies, I945_I95° / 1
Part II. Turkey, Persia, and the U.S.S.R. (i) Turkey: (a) From ‘War of Nerves’ to ‘Truman Doctrine’, 1945-7 / 21 (b) From the Truman Doctrine to the Korean War, 1947-50 / 38 (ii) Persia: (a) The Cold War, to the Repudiation of the Soviet Oil Demands, 1945-7 / 56 (b) The Frustration of Western Aid, to the Rejection of the Anglo- Iranian Supplemental Oil Agreement, 1948-50 / 90
Part III. The Arab Countries and the Western Powers (i) The End of European Ascendancy in the Levant States / 106 (ii) Anglo-Egyptian Relations: (a) The Background to Negotiations, 1945-6 / 116 (A) Negotiations in Cairo and London, 1946 / 119 (c) Egypt’s Appeal to the Security Council, 1947 / 130 (d) Anglo-Egyptian Financial Negotiations, 1947 / 136 (e) Constitutional Developments in the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, 1947-8 / 138 (f) Interlude: the Palestine War and its Aftermath, 1948-9 / 143 (iii) Anglo-'Iraqi Relations / 147 (iv) The British Regime in Cyprus: (a) The Background, 1931-45 / 159 (b) The Labour Government and Constitutionalism, 1945-8 / 166 (c) The Cold War reaches Cyprus, 1948-9 / 178 (v) The British Regime in Palestine, 1945-8: (a) The Mandatory Power and the Jewish Resistance Movement, August to October 1945 / 187 (b) The Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry, and its Still-born Report, November 1945 to May 1946 / 198 (c) Trials of Strength and Unsuccessful Efforts at Compromise, June 1946 to March 1947 / 217 (b) Investigation and Debate by the United Nations, April to November 1947 / 239 (e) Guerrilla Warfare in Palestine, and Proclamation of the State of Israel, December 1947 to May 1948 / 251 (vi) The Palestine War and its Aftermath, 1948-50: (a) The Palestine War, May 1948 to January 1949 (1) From the Arab States’ Intervention to the First Truce, 15 May to 11 June 1948 / 270 (2) The Operation of the First Truce, 11 June to 7 July 1948 / 276 (3) The Ten Days’Campaign, 8-18 July 1948 / 281 (4) The Second Truce, and the Murder of the United Nations Mediator, 17 September 1948 / 282 (5) Israel’s Offensives of October 1948 / 286 (6) Stalemate at the United Nations, October to December 1948 / 289 (7) Israel spoils the Egyptians and forces Bevin’s hand, December 1948 to January 1949 / 291 (J) The Aftermath of the War, 1949-50 (1) The Israeli-Arab Armistices, January to July 1949 / 294 (2) Israel’s Admission to the United Nations, May 1949 / 301 (3) The United Nations Conciliation Commission, 1949 / 302 (4) Stalemate over Jerusalem, 1949 / 304 (5) King 'Abdullah between Israel and the Arab League, 195 / 309 (6) The Three Western Powers’ Declaration of May 1950 / 312 (7) Conclusions: (a) Arab Defeat and the Refugees / 313 (b) Israel’s Economic Problem / 316 Index / 321
MAPS
The Shûna Agreement of March 1949 / 298 Stages in the Partition of Palestine, 1946-9: at end
Map A: British Government’s Provincial Autonomy Plan, July 1946 Map B: Jewish Agency’s Partition Proposals, August 1946 Map C: United Nations Recommendation, November 1947 Map D: Armistice Lines, Spring 1949
PART I
Synthesis: The Interplay of Policies I945 - I950
The political atmosphere of the Middle East during the Second World War1 may be compared with a gas under compression in a closed vessel. For the Allies the region was strategically important during the war, not merely or even primarily as a link in British imperial communications or as a source of oil supplies (which had been its significance between the two World Wars), but as the principal avenue (other than the dangerous Arctic sea-route) through which the United States and Britain had access to the Soviet Union. It was the supply of war material to the Soviet Union through Persia that brought United States troops into the Middle East for the first time since the young Republic’s campaigns against the Barbary pirates at the beginning of the nineteenth century; it was through the Middle East that statesmen and soldiers from the West travelled on their difficult missions to Moscow; and it was at Tehran that the ‘Big Three’ Allied leaders met for the first time in 1943. For the Governments and politically conscious classes of the Middle Eastern countries, however, the war supervened on the efforts which they had been making since the First World War or earlier to achieve their complete independence of Great Power influence and control; a control which, exercised primarily by imperial Britain and secondarily by France, had in 1919-20 been greatly intensified over the countries of the Fertile Crescent (hitherto subject to the Ottoman Empire) at the very time that it was already being challenged in Egypt, Turkey, and Persia. By 1939 the two last-named countries had for more than fifteen years been fully independent and sovereign; but the Turkish Republic nevertheless had difficulty in maintaining its non-belligerent status between the warring Powers in the Second World War, and Persia in 1941 temporarily lost her effective independence on account of the desire of Britain and the Soviet Union to establish communications across her territory. To the south, the independence of the Arabic-speaking states was in 1939 less complete than that of Turkey and Persia. Egypt and 'Iraq, who between the wars made the transition to sovereignty from their status of protectorate and mandated territory respectively, had been required by Britain to accept treaties of alliance with her; and the Levant States and Palestine were still under mandates. This unequal status was challenged, when opportunities presented themselves, during the Second World War itself. Britain used force, or the threat of force, in Egypt and 'Iraq respectively to secure the observance of her treaties of alliance against attempts at collusion or reinsurance with the Axis on the part of militant nationalists. In the Levant States the authority of the French mandate had been undermined, first by France’s capitulation to the Axis in 1940, but more especially by the eviction of the Vichyist regime from the Levant by the British and Free French a year later; and the nationalists took advantage of the marked differences between the British and Free French attitudes towards their demands to achieve almost complete independence by the end of the war. In Palestine from 1942 onwards, while the intransigence of the most influential of the Arab politicians had manoeuvred them into an impotent exile, the Zionist movement was energetically bent on achieving a sovereign status that would allow it complete control of immigration, land-purchase, and settlement. In Persia, even while her territory was occupied by the forces of the three principal Allies, the rejection of a Soviet demand for an oil concession in 1944 was accompanied by envious references to the valuable concession held by the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company.2
An American historian of the Middle East has observed that, as a byproduct of the war effort, Britain had unified most of the region politically and economically as it had not been unified for centuries, and that the British creation of the Arab News Agency and the Arabic broadcasting station ash-Sharq al-Adna were symbols of the process.2 In many cases, however, this unification was achieved against the wishes of local governments and nationalist movements; and their reaction against British influence was therefore likely to be at least as strong at the end of the Second World War as it had been in 1919-20. It had been Britain’s policy between the wars to safeguard her essential interests in the Middle East by a series of balances and compromises effected with other foreign interests such as those of France or those of United States oil companies, or with the more moderate nationalists themselves. This policy would continue to be pursued after 1945, but would call for all the greater finesse because the great depletion of Britain’s financial resources by the war had lessened both her absolute power and her relative status as a world Power. Britain had recognized with some reluctance during 19443 that the predominant interest in Sa'udi Arabia would henceforward belong to the United States, who were operating an oil concession that had begun to …
1 See Survey for 1939-46: The Middle East in the War. 2 See Survey for 1939-46: The Middle East in the War, p. 479. The Persian Government afterwards sought to recover sales tax on petroleum products used by the British forces in Persia during the war. This point had apparently not been covered by any Anglo-Persian agreement at the time, and the British Government afterwards contended that there ‘could be no question’ of paying tax on products that had been used in Persia ‘for the common allied cause and thus, indirectly, for the defence of Persia’ (The Times diplomatic correspondent, 9 September 1952). 3 J. C. Hurewitz: ‘Unity and Disunity in the Middle East’, International Conciliation, May 1952, pp. 222-4, 232- 4 Sec Survey for 1939-46: The Middle East in the War, pp. 261-3.
George Kırk
Survey of International Affairs The Middle East / 1945-1950
Oxford University
Oxford University Press Survey of International Affairs The Middle East 1945-1950 By George Kırk Issued under the auspices of the Royal Institute of International Affairs Oxford University Press
Survey of International Affairs 1939-1946 Edited by Arnold Toynbee Director of Studies in the Royal Institute of International Affairs Research Professor of International History in the University of London (Both on the Sir Daniel Stevenson Foundation)
The Royal Institute of International Affairs is an unofficial and non-political body, founded in 1920 to encourage and facilitate the scientific study of international questions. The Institute, as such, is precluded by the terms of its Royal Charterfrom expressing an opinion on any aspect of international affairs. Any opinions expressed in this publication are not, therefore, those of the Institute
Editorial Note Although this volume forms part of the war-time series of the Survey of International Affairs (1939-46), the author has, for the sake of continuity, also covered thp post-war years 1947 to 1950. From 1951 onwards the subject of the Middle East is dealt with in the annual Survey volumes.
Issued under the auspices of the Royal Institute of International Affairs
Oxford University Press London - New York - Toronto 1954
Oxford University Press, Amen House, London E.C.4. Glasgow New York Toronto Melbourne Wellington Bombay Calcutta Madras Karachi Cape Town Ibadan Geoffrey Cumberlege, Publisher to the University
Printed in Great Britain at the University Press, Oxford By Charles Batey, Printer to the University
