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INNER OMAN AND ZUBARAH 245
Members of the Arab League, called upon the Security Council in a
letter, dated 13 August 1957, to debate ‘urgently’ what they termed as
British ‘armed aggression' against Oman.1 The Arab States’ request
to convene the Security Council was made under Articles 34 and 35
of the United Nations Charter. But when the question was debated
in the Security Council on 20 August 1957 it failed to receive the
seven affirmative votes required for its inscription on the agenda of
the Council.2
The British Government’s argument before the Security Council
was to the effect that
The military action taken by the British forces was taken at the request
of the Sultan in order to assist him in restoring order in the face of a revolt
against his authority which had been encouraged and supported from
outside.3
But when the question of British military intervention in Oman
was debated in the House of Commons and the Foreign Secretary,
Mr Selwyn Lloyd, was asked ‘whether outside intervention has yet
been formally established, and if so, from where’, he replied that
‘certain arms have been smuggled into the country from outside',
but he declined to accuse specific outside countries of supplying arms
to the forces of the Imam.1 There were two reasons for the British
Government's intervention in Oman. These were, in the words of
the British Foreign Secretary:
First, it was at the request of a friendly ruler who had always relied on
us to help him resist aggression or subversion. Secondly, there is the direct
British interest involved and I have no need to stress to the House the
importance of the Persian Gulf.5
However, the problem was complicated, from the British view-point,
by the fact that Her Majesty's Government had no treaty obligations
to defend the Sultan against aggression.6 Therefore, some Members
of both the House of Commons and the House of Lords took the
view that
intervention by a foreign State in a country where there are civil disturbances

1 Sec U.N.S’.C., op. cit., S/3865 and Add. 1. Letter of 13 August 1957, from
Permanent Representatives of Arab States.
2 U.N.S.C., op. cit., 783rd mtg, pp. 1-2, and 784th mtg, pp. 1-18.
3 Ibid., 783rd mtg, p. 7.
4 House of Commons Debates, op cit., col. 36, 22 July and cols 231-2, 23 July
1957. Recently, the Report of the Ad Hoc Committee on Oman, op. cit., p. 215,
revealed that the military assistance received by the Omanis was not ‘of such a
nature as to affect the character of the Imam’s struggle and convert it into a
forcign-controllcd action being carried out essentially in the interest of a foreign
Power’. 6 House of Commons Debates, op. cit., col. 872, 29 July 1957.
8 Ibid., col. 875, 29 July 1957.