BRITAIN AND SYRIA
By BRIGADIER J. G. FRERE BRIGADIER LONGRIGG in his recent article in The Spectator painted a broad picture of the immediate future of the Levant States, with which I agree in the main, but in which he is content to present the problem without discussing possible solutions. His tribute to the intelligence of the men at the head of affairs in both countries should make it reasonable to suppose that a solution is being earnestly sought by the Governments themselves. But one remark which is perhaps open to question is that contained in his last sentence, in which he says : "British relations with the Levant States . . . should remain as sincerely cordial as they are dis- interested." However much Great Britain may wish to remain disinterested in any country of the Middle East, the history of the last two wars has shown the impossibility of realising such a policy completely.
The circumstances in which independence has been achieved have imposed a more difficult task on the Syrian and Lebanese Govern- ments than would appear on the surface. The assertion that " they have a costly and modern system of roads, railways, telegraphs, air- ports, town services and amenities, and military equipment " is only true in part. The system of communications touches only a com- paratively small area of Syria's potential wealth. The telegraph and telephone systems are antiquated and unreliable. The military equipment which was handed over to Syria was in a deplorable state and will have to be replaced almost entirely. The splendour of the air-ports and the town services is still in its early dawn. Moreover, during the twenty-five years of their mandatory rule the French applied their system of colonial administration to the two countries. Far from building up a foundation of stable government, they indulged to the full, in a country always ripe for it, in their traditional divide et impera. Where factions existed they were encouraged to the utmost. The Allepans were kept at enmity with the Damascenes ;. the Alaouites and the Jebel Druze were organised largely as autonomous provinces, and were provided with arms to maintain their position ; the Bedouin were allowed to remain in a state of constant hostility to the " tarbooshy " governments. The surprising thing was the unity of these conflicting elements in May and June of 1945, when the Government faced the French with the nation solidly behind it.
But the result of these developments in Syria has been that, although there exists a numerous educated class to furnish statesmen and administrators, there are few of that class who have had any training in the art of government. There is, it is true, a commercial community well able to hold its own in business with any foreign competition, but there is a real shortage of men with the agricultural and industrial qualifications required to build up the economic life of the country to meet that competition. The economic development achieved by the French is insignificant compared with the country's potentialities. Agriculture is primitive, and industry, to all intents and purposes, non-existent. The country is in a state of adminis- trative chaos, from which an over-worked band of earnest patriots is struggling to raise it. The business world is faced with a virgin area of enterprise where the possibilities are so vast that it is difficult to know where to begin. With all this it must be remembered that Syria before the Ottoman domination had been one of the richest and best administered countries of the known world, the granary of the Roman Empire, the focus of the Arab Empire at the height of its prosperity, and the centre from which scientific knowledge and much that is good in literature have been passed on to the civilisation of the West. Indeed, it is not often realised that the romantic chivalry of the Middle Ages found many of its origins in the social practices of the Bedouin, brought westward by the returning Crusaders. Moreover, for centuries Syria has made a handsome contribution to the civil services of the remaining countries of the Middle East, which have drawn many able administrators from that source.
Against such a background one of the most notable impressions which meets the visitor to Syria today is the Syrians' practical realisation of their own deficiencies. In every responsible quarter, official and unofficial, there is a demand for technical help in agriculture, industry and administration. So far the Government have had to concentrate the greater part of their attention on the internal and economic needs of the country. They know now that they have a long road to travel, and that it will be still longer unless they can get effective help from outside. At the same time, they have to watch an innate fear of foreign influence which has been engendered among the population at large by history, and which expresses itself in a lynx-eyed watch kept in the Chamber of Deputies on anything which has a remote suspicion of concession to foreigners. In the economic world the country has a liberal sprinkling of trained technicians, but their standard of technical knowledge is not yet sufficiently high to enable them to cope effectively with the major problems arising.
In spite of history, it is to the British that most eyes are turned in Syria for the help which is required. British popularity, which was carried shoulder-high when the Emir Feisal swept into Damascus in 1918, suffered considerably when, in the view of the Arabs, we abandoned them to the French in 1919. The passing years did some- thing to remove the resentment against us, but not the suspicion of our good faith. From 1941 to 1945 it was to the British guarantee that the Syrians clung, in spite of their occasional doubts, as the key- stone of their promised independence. In 1945 British popularity rose again as our troops marched into the main towns to intervene in the crisis caused by the intransigence of the policy of the local French administration. For another twelve months the Syrians, watched the waverings of British policy as it struggled to find a way out of the apparent impasse in Anglo-French relations, but it was always with a fundamental belief in British good faith. For once in a way British prestige, a little battered and war-weary, has survived the ordeal, and as a result we are offered a real and grateful friendship by a nation which faces a new and prosperous, future.
French suspicions of British intentions in the Levant States have for some time placed a handicap on our ability to take full advantage of the friendship offered. Because the French believed that it was our intention to drive them out of the Levant States, British policy had to disclaim any action which could be interpreted as official replacement of French influence. The requirements of internal security made necessary the loan of a small training team to re- organise the gendarmerie, but apart from this no official help has been given to the Syrian Government. It is worth considering whether the fact that the final settlement was made after intervention by the United Nations Security Council does not to some extent relieve Great Britain of the necessity for maintaining this altruistic attitude.
But British policy cannot deter the individual Syrian from taking advantage of the proffered friendship to establish strong and lasting commercial relations. Since the Syrians must turn somewhere for help it seems natural for them to look to the British. They take their adherence to the Arab League very seriously, and since the policy of other nations of the League is to cultivate British friend- ship the Syrians wish to be included in the same orbit. The French have sabotaged their own possibilities of co-operation in Syria for some years to come. The Americans have a strong cultural influence in the American University in Beyrout, but the country generally is too remote from their other interests to allow more than a super- ficial commercial relationship. There remains Russia, whose uneasy - stirrings in Azerbaijan, among, the Kurds, and over the Armenians may herald a boa-constrictor policy devoted to the final isolation of Turkey through Russian influence in the Levant States. If Great Britain does not make it her business to consolidate Syrian friend- ship, which is presented with a remarkable degree of sincerity, she will be opening the way to a disruptive process which may have far-reaching effects in the Middle East generally.
All these facts make it imperative that the situation in Syria should not be allowed to fall back into the limbo of British policy. Hitherto the timing of that policy throughout the Middle East has not been altogether happy. On more than one occasion obvious steps towards new relations with the Arab countries have been neglected until circumstances appear to have forced them upon us. In the present .
case British tenderness for French susceptibilities has tended towards an attitude which has threatened our own interests without improving those of the French. Yet, since the French have made it impossible for themselves to influence Syrian development in anyway for a long time to come, it is very much to their eventual advantage that the security of the Levant States should be assured by close commercial relations in which France may eventually take her share. Mean- while, in a world of critics, Great Britain can find another friend if she will make the effort to secure that friendship. And unimportant though that friendship may appear superficially now, its eventual reactions may have a profound influence on the future of British interests in the Middle East.
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