Decolonization risked replacing Western with Soviet domination of the Middle East

Evidence

But, of course, the great dilemma of such a policy of “masterly inactivity” is how to leave the Middle East alone and at the same time insure that others also will leave it alone. … Western rule in Asia has indeed gone, and a distinguished Indian scholar was right in speaking of the end of “the Vasco da Gama era” in Asian history. It would be both tragic and ironic if it were to be succeeded by a Khrushchev and Bulganin era, which some future historian might also date from a voyage of exploration to the East. — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans, 1199

Categorization

• XREF: The ‘Vasco da Gama era’ framing connects directly to the reader’s Said-adjacent cluster on how the West and later superpowers scripted the region’s legibility — the same representational machinery (era marked by an explorer’s voyage) applied by a new hegemon.
• QUESTION: The framing assumes Soviet hegemony would replicate Western extraversion rather than build indigenous autonomy — worth checking what the subsequent record showed.