A Year of Debacle?

MIDDLE EAST

An Egyptian sniper with a keen eye and an impulse to start a new war could easily have done so last week. Atop a Suez Canal embankment, only 250 yards from peering Egyptian soldiers across the waterway, stood Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Dayan; Major General David Elazar, the new chief of staff; and a cadre of other ranking officers. On an inspection visit to Israel's Bar-Lev Line, Dayan and his commanders seemed to be almost daring the Egyptians to start something. The remarks of various Israeli leaders during the week suggested that too.

"The Arabs would be smart not to put us to the test," the normally mild-mannered Lieut. General Haim Bar-Lev, the retiring chief of staff, told a meeting of Israeli mayors. "We do not now need as many months as during the war of attrition to break them."

Final Hours. Perhaps that boast was on the mind of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat last week as he held a series of strategy meetings in Cairo with visiting Arab leaders and politicians of his own Arab Socialist Union. "The year of decision," which Sadat had called 1971, was fading into its final hours, and he still had not carried out the threatened military moves to recover captured Egyptian territory. More likely, though, Sadat was occupied with Egypt's frustrations in the unproductive diplomatic negotiations for peace. In the latest round, Foreign Minister Mahmoud Riad traveled to the United Nations to seek a General Assembly censure of Israel for aborting the U.N. peace mission of Swedish Diplomat Gunnar Jarring. In the anti-Israel Assembly, Riad obtained an expectable vote (79-7 with 36 abstentions). But the world publicity that Egypt had hoped for disappeared behind the India-Pakistan War headlines.

In his own way, Sadat has been able to climb out of his "year of decision" corner, without taking any action. Simply because a decision has been made, he now tells visitors, does not mean that it must be implemented immediately. Nevertheless, in talks last week with Syrian President Hafez Assad and Libyan Leader Muammar Gaddafi, Sadat appeared to be psyching himself for an inevitable battle.

The Israelis' confidence that they can handle any attack seems well founded. Egypt can easily put commandos across the canal by helicopter and assault boat. But they probably could hold only until Israel moved up reserves; the Israelis, moreover, have the capacity to retaliate massively by knocking out Egypt's rebuilt air force and its missile defenses west of the canal. An all-out Israeli assault would surely kill some of Egypt's Russian military advisers. But the Soviets, Washington feels, are not likely to overreact for fear of a U.S. response.

Egypt and Israel, on the other hand, could very well provoke another full-scale war between themselves. Neither seems to want that; even if the Jarring talks get nowhere, both governments are apparently amenable to another round of U.S.-sponsored talks aimed at reopening the Suez Canal. But if peace discussions bog down now, the Middle East's indecisive year of decision could easily be followed by a year of debacle.

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