A Desert Battle And a Deadline

Jordan's King Hussein has intermittently rubbed the Syrian military regime the wrong way ever since he began his repression of the Palestinian guerrillas in earnest. Last month's final drive, which all but extinguished the fedayeen presence in the Jerash woods of northern Jordan, so upset Damascus that Syria closed her border with Jordan. The decision disrupted the usual heavy road traffic between Amman and Beirut and forced Jordan to route its phosphate exports and all imports through its only port at Aqaba.

Last week the crackle of machine-gun fire and the dull thud of mortars rent the still, dry air along the border. Rival communiques were, as customary, completely contradictory. According to Damascus, a Jordanian armored unit raked a Syrian observation post with machine-gun fire; in retaliation, Syrian gunners destroyed five Jordanian tanks. According to Amman, an "unidentified force" started the action, and Jordan retaliated by destroying five Syrian tanks, a gun position, and an observation post. In any event, by week's end Syria had broken relations with Jordan, following similar action taken by Libya and Algeria in the last two months.

Battle of Destiny. Despite the deployment of troops, a blowup of the conflict between Syria and Jordan is still an extremely remote possibility. Far more worrisome would be the revival of hostilities at another Middle Eastern battleground, the Suez Canal. Last week Editor Hassanein Heikal wrote in Cairo's authoritative Al Ahram that Egypt's President Anwar Sadat had given Washington until early this week to produce diplomatic results with the Israelis. Did that mean Egypt would resume its "war of attrition" if decisive results were not forthcoming, particularly concerning an Israeli pullback from the canal's east bank? Not likely, given Israel's continuing military superiority. Rather, the article seemed part of Sadat's attempt simultaneously to put pressure on Washington and placate Egypt's increasingly restive army officers. As part of that campaign, Sadat personally donned an army general's uniform last week (for the first time in years) to give an audience of military intelligence officers a pep talk on the coming "battle of destiny and honor" against Israel.

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