The Foreign Service Journal, February 2005

ing and supporting anti-Soviet policies were justified and understandable. The Korean War gave further impetus to the fears of communist ambitions. The leftist rhetoric of leaders of newly independent countries and Soviet aid to these nations were seen as evidence of a continuing communist advance; in the views of Americans, nationalism became fused with Soviet ambitions. Expanding Containment To meet this perceived threat in the 1950s, the contain- ment philosophy of the North Atlantic Treaty and the Truman Doctrine was extended east- ward into Asia and southward to Africa and Latin America. Encircle- ment became the objective of global policy. The encirclement was accom- panied by a series of military base arrangements in the Philippines, Thailand, Saudi Arabia, Libya and Morocco. Such arrangements often incurred local resentment; political leaders insisted on substantial mili- tary and economic aid to help them weather resulting political storms. In at least one country, Libya, the presence of a U.S. base was a factor in the overthrow of a government friendly to the United States. For strategic thinkers at the time, the world became a giant game of Risk — with scant appreciation of the game board on which it was being played. The results still haunt us today. The first manifestation of this approach came during the prime ministership of Mohammad Mossadeq in Iran in 1953. Washington became increasingly concerned that Mossadeq’s policies, by creating unrest in the country and challenging the power of Shah Pahlevi, were providing opportunities to the local communists and the Soviet Union. Accordingly, the Eisenhower administration coop- erated with the British to restore the shah to power and bring in a new government in Tehran. Subsequent U.S. administrations built up the shah as an anti-communist surrogate in the region. Such support was of little avail when, in 1979, Islamic militants overthrew the shah and took 53 American diplomats as hostage. The earlier U.S. role in the removal of Mossadeq figured prominently in the anti-American rhetoric of the Iranian revolution, and is still recalled in Iranian politics today. In the wake of the Korean War and the Mossadeq experience in Iran, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles began the effort to create a series of treaties that would contain the Soviet Union in Asia. Beginning with the sign- ing of the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization in 1954, the pacts were intended to close the circle between NATO and the U.S. strategic position in Japan. “Non-align- ment,” popular among the newly independent nations, was not, for Secretary Dulles, an option for free nations. In the mid-1950s, the United States faced two serious threats to its perceived interests in the region: more aggressive Soviet moves and strong Arab nationalist influ- ences emanating from Egypt’s Gemal Abdul Nasser. The two were intertwined. Two initia- tives intended to counter both prob- lems led to failures and further deterioration in the American posi- tion in the region. The U.S. opposi- tion to the French, British, and Israeli attack on Suez in October 1956 only temporarily reversed this trend. In 1955, Washington stimulated the organization of the Baghdad Pact, ultimately to include the United Kingdom, Iraq, Turkey, Pakistan and Iran. Secretary Dulles saw the pact not only as containing the Soviets, but as an effort to divert Arab, and especially Iraqi, attention away from Israel to the communist menace. Iraq, on the contrary, saw adherence as a possible way to gain greater American sup- port for the Arab position. The United States did not for- mally join the pact, but supported it financially and mili- tarily. The pact was attacked by Arab nationalists as an effort to continue the “colonial” domination of the period of the earlier British and French mandates, with serious consequences for U.S. policy. In Baghdad the pact was seen as a continuation of the unpopular alliance with Britain. With the overthrow of the monarchy in 1958, Iraq withdrew from the Baghdad Pact and the remaining members continued the alliance as the Central Treaty Organization. Significantly, the decision of Iraq’s strongman, Prime Minister Nuri al Said, to join the pact was at least one of the factors that under- mined the Hashemite monarchy and led to the revolution in Baghdad. The series of military coups that followed that event led ultimately to the rule of Saddam Hussein, with consequences clearly visible today. Meanwhile, because of the continuing dispute with F E B R U A R Y 2 0 0 5 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 61 For strategic thinkers at the time, the world became a giant game of Risk — with scant appreciation of the game board on which it was being played.