IRAQ: The Meaning of Ally

For the first time, Premier Karim Kassem publicly jostled President Nasser for his place in Arab leadership.

"We are out of foreign alliances," the gaunt, black-browed Iraqi general told a press conference, after his victory over army rivals who favored a merger with the United Arab Republic. "The Baghdad Pact is less than a shadow. The word 'ally' applies only to Arab sister countries in our eyes."

Then he went on to take positions on the two problems that currently most agitate Arabs everywhere: "Had I been able to do so, I would have joined the Algerian liberation army. Every week one or two Iraqi aircraft carry arms and ammunition to the Algerians, and we shall send them more." Of Israel: "Be sure that every foot of usurped territory will be restored by Iraq in cooperation with the Arab sister states."

In Kassem's tussle with domestic Arab nationalists who favor one big Arab nation, he had won the first round. But so had his Communist allies. The sole political party left in Premier Kassem's Cabinet is now the Communist-backed National Democrats. The leading pro-Communist among the Iraqi Cabinet ministers announced that he was off this week for Moscow to work out details of the new economic deal, which would put Western oil royalties to work on a development program in which Communist advisers will have the most say.

In the countryside the struggle between Communists and their opponents has not been resolved. Matters came to a head in the holy city of Najaf when party militants tried to turn a Soviet embassy official's courtesy call on a Shia Moslem leader into a Communist rally. Outraged, Moslem monks and youths, holding aloft copies of the Koran, fought a pitched battle against them. Scores were hurt.