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Russia now faces the West's old dilemma of trying to keep friendships in balance within the area. For years the Soviet Union has pursued two easily defined aims in the Middle East: 1) the immediate one of ending Western-sponsored defense pacts and neutralizing the area, and so creating what Leninists call a "zone of peace"; 2) the ultimate, but much more ambitious aim, of turning the Middle East into a "zone of socialism." Last summer's sudden overturn of the pro-Western regime of King Feisal and Nuri asSaid in Iraq radically changed Russian aspirations. An Iraqi Communist Party emerged intact from Nuri's jails and from underground and successfully joined with Kassem in opposing the merger of Iraq and the U.A.R. on Nasser's terms. Communism and Nasserism became locked in conflict.
Both Camps. For Khrushchev now to cut off his promised aid for Nasser's Aswan High Dam would be to show all Asia and Africa that Soviet aid is in fact tied with strings. Though the Communists were now in control of Baghdad's streets, did they dare bid for full control of Iraq? If they did, could they avoid a new revolutionary situation, in which powerful Arabic emotions would be turned against them? Dare they risk the West's mistake of opposing Nasser in such a way as to strengthen him?
Obviously the Kremlin hoped to keep its influence in both Arab camps. But could the Kremlin restrain its Iraqi partisans without in time destroying their enthusiasm? And was it enough for the Kremlin to remind Nasser sensibly of his economic dependence on Moscow? That unpredictable man had been known before to prefer pride to profit.