ABSTRACT
The Middle East, and especially bases in Egypt, had played a part in Western military planning in late 1940s, although, before the Korean War, the Americans rejected a major defense role in the area, relegating that to the British and local forces. In 1953, Secretary John Foster Dulles had realized that defense arrangements with the Middle East must be based on the non-Arab "Northern Tier"—Turkey, Iran, and Pakistan. There might be a few exceptions, but, at best, the Arab states could only be kept neutral in Cold War. The Dwight D. Eisenhower Administration estimated that there was now a "power vacuum" in the Middle East. From the summer of 1957, American policy began to collapse. A key secret element of it was a renewed attempt to overthrow the Syrian government—another misfire. Muslims, poorer than the Christians, were strongly attracted by Gamal Nasser and pan-Arab message, and Lebanon played part in Middle East out of proportion to its size and population.
