The Baghdad Pact: From British to Turkish interests

The idea of a defence organization in the Middle East has always been a policy goal of many states to protect and preserve their national boundaries and interests. Following the end of WWII, a lot of effort has been made by regional as well as global powers to realize this goal, which commenced with the futile attempt of a British Middle East Command (MEC), followed by the United States’ project of the “Northern Tier” which culminated in the 24^th of February 1955, with Turkey as well as Great Britain, Iraq, Pakistan and Iran signing a regional defence pact known as the Baghdad Pact. The rationale behind each of these states in signing this pact is usually perceived as an attempt to counter the Soviet Communist threat in case the Soviets attempted to extend their influence towards the Middle East and South Asia. Though this perception is true to some extent, it serves no more than a simplification of the underlying motives behind the rationale of these states and lacks the analytic power to explain the reason behind the collapse of the Baghdad pact following the 14 July 1958 revolution in Iraq (Sinjian, 1997) as well as its failure to explain the mechanisms in the metamorphosis of the organization into the Central Treaty Organization (CENTO).

Most of the discussions in international relations about the international milieu following the end of WWII neglect one important aspect in regards to the Middle East, which is the struggle of Britain to retain as much control as possible in the region. To better understand the inception and evolution of a defence organization in the Middle East and the Northern Tier, it is essential to give weight to the British as well as the American relationship since the end of WWII.

Following the end of WWII, the British Empire sought to preserve its influence on two potential regions mainly the Middle East for the sake of oilfields and control of the Suez Canal, and South Asia particularly the British raj in India, which constitutes “the pillar of British imperium” (Jalal, 1989, p. 409). However, the consequent unpleasant events of internal turmoil in India which resulted in its partition and emergence of Pakistan forced the British to forsake its influence at the expense of retaining control over the Suez Canal and the Oilfields in both Iraq and Kuwait:

In the event, hostilities between Pakistan and India, and the growing importance of the Middle Eastern oilfields in Western strategic calculations, shook many of the old assumptions on which the British had based their plans for imperial defence. Given the strategic and economic links between South Asia and the Middle East, it might be tempting to argue that partition and the division of the Indian Army sorely undermined Great Britain's capacity to arrest her declining influence in the Muslim belt stretching from Egypt to Iran (Jalal, 1989, p. 410).

The importance of the oilfields particularly rose following the quest by the West for economic revival, therefore for the British the defence of India no longer held a strategic importance (Devereux, 1990, p. 15), that would amount in a British effort to resolve the Indo-Pakistani conflict, which it sought of accomplishing at earlier time but failed.

Yet nonetheless, the British sought not to create any antagonism and attempted to keep a momentum in its relations between both parties. The rationale behind this was that the British empire was seeking to establish a common defence network in both the Middle East and South Asia in an attempt to maintain its influence in the region, therefore, maintaining a close relation with both countries was essential for a viable common defence policy based on the premise of non-exclusivity of either side. However, given the weakened position of the British, their attempt to establish such a network was an impediment as it lacked inducements to persuade both sides to its plan.

Given the circumstance there was only one country capable of providing such inducements, the United States. Yet at the time the United States was much concerned with Europe, which for the British it was a commercial and a strategic advantage for the United States to stay away from its sphere of influence (Jalal, 1989, p. 416).

It was not long until the United States began to spread its sphere of influence which included the regions of the Middle East and South Asia following the establishment of the National Security Council Report No.68:

Deeply worried about the potential dangers of a Cold War vacuum in the Middle East, not to mention disconcerting signs of nationalist fervour there against Anglo-American imperialism, policy-makers in Washington wanted to help the British to solve their problems in Egypt while at the same time concentrating on building their own network of client states (Jalal, 1989, pp. 417-418).

At that time, the Pakistani government was seeking to increase its strength in the face of any future Indian threat, as a result of this at the beginning it sought military and economic aid from the British who saw this as an opportunity to resolve the impediment for the establishment of its defence policy to protect the oilfields and influence in the region. However, the British became aware that by doing would be at the expense of detaching the Indians away which could later fall under Soviet influences and therefore backed from this idea, a point which the British tried to explain to the Americans with no avail (Jalal, 1989, p. 423).

This argument however did not deter the United States from the idea of including Pakistan in any future defence agreement in the region. This in turn brought the two Western countries at odds as the “director of the Near Eastern affairs division of the State Department, Loy Henderson, had suggested that Washington should be 'ever watchful of opportunities to use British problems to American advantage'” (Jalal, 1989, p. 421). The attention of the United States towards the Middle East, is not solely based on the reasons stated above, the economic developments in Western Europe also sent signals on the future of the United States in that region. Prior to the Suez Crisis in 1956, the United States sought more or less to preserve its relations with Britain. Yet the Crisis showed signs of American impatience towards the British, and resulted with the United States pursuing its own policies with little importance to its relations with its old ally.

As for the Turkish case, Turkey was driven by the same logic of Pakistan with the exception that the threat was different; seeking Western economic and military aid based on the premise of a perceived threat which is, the Soviet-Communist threat (Bilgin, 2017), Sinjian states the Turkish position vis-à-vis the Soviets clearly:

Turkey had feared any Soviet advance in the Middle East ever since Moscow had made, in 1945, the automatic renewal of its 1925 Treaty of Friendship and Neutrality with Turkey conditional on the latter surrendering the eastern regions of Kars and Ardahan and accepting Soviet participation in the defence of the straits of the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles. Hence, the vast majority of Turks rejected Communism as a form of Russian imperial ideology, and accorded the class- and value-oriented ideological aspects of the Cold War less, though not entirely negligible, importance. Even after Moscow's relinquishment in 1953 of all its above-mentioned claims, its expressed wish to establish closer co-operation with Turkey and its repeated offers of economic help did not ease Turkish suspicions. Ankara believed that Moscow's policy was to make such attractive proposals and later withdraw them in an attempt to influence the course of Turkey's foreign policy. Therefore, while other nationalisms in the developing world were looking to Moscow for sympathy and support against the West, the perceived Soviet threat brought Turkey closer to the West and made reliance on the latter to prevent Soviet/Russian expansionism a pillar of Turkish foreign policy (Sinjian, 1997, pp. 227-228).

As a result of this, Turkey thought of its own security to be of vital interest for the west, and it has sought to realize this through various attempts on its side to show its allegiance. Prior to the Baghdad pact, Turkey also sought to establish the Balkans Pact with Greece and Yugoslavia in the early 1950s, which was based on the perception of the Soviet threat as well, therefore with the normalization of relations between Yugoslavia and the Soviets following Khrushchev drained the pact of any viability.

As in regards to the Middle East, Turkey was reluctant to establish relations with the Arabs for a period of time, however, isolationism during the perceived threat of the Soviets was seen as unfeasible by the Turkish government and therefore it sought to approach them even though genuinely “had no confidence whatever in the political or military competence of the Arabs, they still hoped that Arab involvement in MEDO would make Soviet infiltration into the region very difficult” (Sinjian, 1997, p. 230).

However, the threat perception of both parties (that of the Turks and that of the Arabs) were different from each other, while Turkey was concerned with the Soviets, for the Arabs the ultimate threat lies in Israel and therefore such defence organizations were of no interest to the Arabs at the time, that as a result of this reluctance from the Arabs, Menderes in early 1953 had to stop a program to sustain relations with the Arabs as it was seen to bare no fruit.

Instead, the country which was much suitable for furthering relations was Pakistan, which was secretly encouraged by the United States (Sinjian, 1997, p. 231) and culminated with the Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation between Turkey and Pakistan on the 3^rd of April 1954 (Bilgin, 2017, p. 253). Apart from that, among all the Arab states, Iraq was the only country that was willing to participate in such defence scheme, however it lacked the courage to publicize its desires. Due to its poor economic conditions coupled with the fears it saw in the events of Communist upheavals in Iran, Iraq saw to further relations with the British specially that Iraq’s oil resources were controlled by the British owned Iraq Petroleum Company. Having signed a Preferential Agreement between both Parties in 1932 which was set to expire on 1957, Iraq “was still keen to sign a revised agreement because it considered the alliance with Britain to be a factor of stability for the monarchic order” (Sinjian, 1997, p. 233).

With the new election of Nuri al-Said as the Prime Minister, who was pro-Western, who “saw in the new American readiness to provide arms to individual Middle Eastern states, in return for their co-operation in the 'Northern Tier' project, a golden opportunity for Iraq and other Arab countries to improve their defence capability and to influence the West to agree to some of the Arab demands in their quest for a lasting solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict” (Sinjian, 1997, p. 236). Part of the initial reluctance of the Iraqis from joining a pact with Turkey was due to the thought that “The Turks were unpopular in Iraq and other Arab states, and were still suspected of harbouring irredentist designs in Northern Iraq. The assurances Nuri received later from Menderes personally, that Turkey did not entertain any territorial ambitions outside those stated in the 1920 Turkish National Pact, did nothing to allay his fears, for the terminology of the said pact as regards the previously disputed regions of Mosul and Kirkuk was too vague” (Sinjian, 1997, p. 237). Yet nonetheless, further relations has dissipated any existing misperceptions entertained by both parties, to the extent that Nuri al-Said “among all his candidates to enter the regional treaty he envisaged, only Turkey shared his determination to conclude an early agreement.” (Sinjian, 1997, p. 242). Following further talks and mutual visits between Turkey and Iraq, both countries were able to envisage and sketch the outline of the Baghdad Pact, which was later signed between Turkey and Iraq on the 24^th of February 1955 known as the “Pact of Mutual Cooperation”. The Pact was later Signed by Britain, followed by Pakistan and then Iran.

Bilgin (2017) attributes three reasons behind Turkey’s involvement in Middle East politics, the Democratic government had long attempted to prove its loyalty to the west, secondly, with the pact Turkey planned to secure its eastern and south eastern borders from direct or indirect aggression, and finally, the establishment of a pact would be a good asset to obtain more economic aid from the West. The Baghdad pact did not last long until 1958 when the Iraqi monarchy was ousted by the revolutionaries, bringing the pact to an end.

In Conclusion, the driving rationale behind each party of the pact was more related with relative gains rather than security concerns. The Soviet threat was only of utmost importance for Turkey due to its geographical proximity, which was not the case for the rest. The British and the Iraqis wanted to sustain further relations and Pakistan wanted to gain more military and economic aid to counter its perceived threats which were India and Afghanistan.

References

Bilgin, M. S. (2017). Turkey's Foreign Policy towards the Middle East in the 1950's and Its Impact on Turco-Arab Relations. Akademik Bakış, 11(21), 245-259.

Devereux, D. R. (1990). British Thinking on Middle East Defence, 1948–50. In D. R. Devereux, The Formulation of British Defense Policy Towards the Middle East, 1948–56 (pp. 15-42). London: Palgrave Macmillan.

Jalal, A. (1989). Towards the Baghdad Pact: South Asia and Middle East Defence in the Gold War, 1947-1955. The International History Review, 11(3), 409-433.

Sinjian, A. (1997). The Formulation of the Baghdad Pact. Middle Eastern Studies, 33(2), 226-266.