The perils of ambiguity: The United States and the baghdad pact

On February 24, 1955, Iraq and Turkey signed a military pact, which would later develop into a wider organization, encompassing Britain, Pakistan, and Iran. The Baghdad Pact (BP), as it came to be known, was devised to interlock with a chain of alliances already surrounding the Soviet Union, such as NATO, SEATO, and ANZUS. From a Western perspective, the role of the BP was to defend the Middle East from the Soviet “menace.” In many respects, the formation of the BP was a consummation of Secretary of State John Foster Dulles’ Northern Tier concept, devised following his Middle East tour as US secretary of state in May 1953. Though supporting it behind the scenes and joining some of its committees, the United States never formally joined the BP. Instead, in early 1957 it launched the Eisenhower Doctrine, which largely superseded the pact.