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To Suez & Back. It once was enough to put down disorder at home. But with the rise of Egypt's Nasser and the spread of Radio Cairo propaganda to all Arabs, Nuri found himself undercut from outside. Nuri's bold decision to sponsor the Baghdad Pact was denounced by Nasser as a sellout to "imperialism and Zionism." Other Arab leaders shied away. Jordan, pushed too-crudely by the British to join, expelled the British commander, Glubb Pasha, and placed its armies, with those of Syria and Saudi Arabia, under a common Egyptian command. Just before the Suez invasion, Iraq stood alone in the Arab world. Nasser's one "Arab nation" was gaining recruits everywhere.
Superficially, the Suez invasion was a blow at Nuri's rival Nasser and therefore a blessing. But for the British and French to attack Egypt in company if not in cahoots with the No. i Arab enemy, Israel, caused an excruciating crisis for the Pasha. He called a 2 a.m. Cabinet meeting that lasted until dawn.
That night he decided to offer help to Nasser, break relations with France, advise the British that Iraq would not sit with them in any Baghdad Pact affairs till further notice, and proclaim that Israel must "be wiped out." His gestures did not stop the Syrians from dynamiting the Iraq pipeline to the Mediterranean—at a cost to the Iraqi government of $60 million in oil income lost. "Oh, dear Iraq," cried Radio Damascus, "demolish your prison walls, free yourself of your chains and the villainy of Nuri as-Said."
Pro-Nasser feeling inside Iraq erupted in violence at Mosul. Najaf and Kut al Hai. where some 20 people were killed in street fighting. In Baghdad a mob of 2,000, led by students, flaunted Nasser portraits and shouted: "Down with the monarchy. Long live Abdel Nasser, leader of all the Arabs." Nuri proclaimed martial law, closed the schools, suspended Parliament, and ordered hundreds of Iraqis thrown in jail. His police also arrested three Egyptian officers on charges of plotting the Pasha's assassination. "The man has not been born who can assassinate me." growled Nuri, who totes a pistol on his hip whenever he goes out in society. Before taking off last week for the Karachi meeting, Nuri at last lifted the martial law: the crisis was safely past.
Nuri makes a much easier job of ruling than younger, flashier strongmen. In Baghdad he rises at 6 and downs grapefruit and coffee while listening to the Voice of America morning news. After a first round of conferences with ministers on scrambler phones, he breakfasts again, on eggs, and takes off across the Tigris bridge to his office in a Chrysler (with a carload of plainclothesmen trailing along behind).
After telling aides how to answer his mail (the only letters he writes himself are weekly notes to two grandsons at school in England), he bustles home to catch the BBC's 2 p.m. newscast before lunch and a long nap. If the weather is right he may then take tea by the Tigris, tossing food to a dozen black ducks that paddle up when he calls. He dines at home almost always with the same friends—Propaganda Boss Khalil Ibrahim, Development Chief Dhia Jafar, and Finance Minister Khalil Kenna, 47, a gifted ex-leftist who is often touted as the minister most likely to succeed. Nearly all his old cronies have died, most of them violently.