The Future Now, Winning The Peace

By Lisa Beyer

The postwar era is suddenly upon us, arriving like a weekend guest on a Thursday train, sooner than expected. No longer are topics like collective security, political reform and assuaging popular fury in the Middle East the stuff of theoretical rumination. Instead, they are the pressing matters of the day, and their disposition will ultimately determine the region's shape far more than did last week's redrawing of the line that separates Iraq from Kuwait.

In the Middle East, political victories are as important as military ones, and often harder to achieve. Last week President Bush promised there would be "no solely American answer" to the troubles that bedevil the region, but his challenge is to devise a game plan for peacemaking that is as effective as Operation Desert Storm was in war. The partners in the coalition will be looking to Washington to provide a strong lead in securing what Bush also called "a potentially historic peace."

The allies' triumph in the field does make some things easier. The battle was quick enough to prevent the coalition from fragmenting and pro-Saddam passions from boiling over. Yet it lasted long enough to give the allies time to truncate Iraq's military, neutralizing its mischiefmaking potential for some time to come. And by forcing Saddam to swallow bitter terms for a cease- fire, the allies have stripped him of his appeal as an Arab he-man.

Still, this good fortune is not irreversible. When it becomes plain just how badly Iraq has been mauled, Arab rage may again threaten the calm. The coalition, no longer unified by the single aim of liberating Kuwait, will lose cohesion as its members compete to realize their own visions of the future, each guided by a unique set of interests that at some points must clash. Already differences are emerging: the Soviets, for instance, want a better deal for their old client Iraq than the West does, and the Arabs and Europeans want to be tougher on Israel than the U.S. does.

Nevertheless, all the parties to the war share an interest in grappling with key issues:

Regional Security. The immediate focus is to prevent Iraq -- or another Iraq -- from waging war again. Everyone favors some kind of regional security apparatus, and nearly everyone agrees it should be mainly Arab. The Western allies are emphatic about extricating their troops quickly to reduce pressure on the Arab partners from citizens angry over the presence of former colonialists and infidels. But the West will continue to lend silent support to the gulf regimes, leaving equipment behind in case allied forces need to return. The longstanding U.S. naval presence in the gulf will be increased, as will joint military exercises with regional states.

Yet the main safeguards will have to be local. To secure Kuwait, Washington's preliminary idea is to establish, at least temporarily, a demilitarized zone on the Iraq-Kuwait border. Arab forces, mainly Egyptian and Syrian, would police Kuwait's side, and U.N. peacekeeping troops would monitor the DMZ. One kink is that the border remains disputed, and an indignant Kuwait refuses to negotiate the matter with Iraq.

In one view, the region has already been made safer. "No one should underestimate the deterrent power of this war," says John Roper, military analyst at the Western European Union. "This victory is likely to make any other dictator think twice before he upsets the balance."

But for the gulf states -- ripe targets with their oil riches and sparse populations -- a doctrine of deterrence is not comfort enough. They intend never to be at risk again. In a meeting in Damascus this week, Egypt and Syria, which have emerged as regional strongmen, and the six gulf states will consider plans for creating an Arab security force to bolster the defenses of the gulf countries. They envision a semipermanent troop, made up mostly of Egyptians and Syrians.

A more basic source of the region's volatility, however, is its huge oversupply of arms. Israel has demanded that Iraq be stripped of all missiles and nonconventional weapons, but Baghdad is hardly the only possessor of a potent arsenal. Israel and Saudi Arabia have each obtained new high-tech weaponry during the war, and Syria, concerned that the strategic balance has tipped farther in Israel's direction, may seek to accelerate its military program.

The U.S. and Britain will continue to push for strict embargoes on military sales to Iraq. But an arms-control agreement for the entire Middle East is not high on anyone's agenda -- and even if it were, it would be unlikely to be realized. As long as Arabs and Israelis believe another war is inevitable, neither side is at all disposed to reduce arms.

The Arab-Israeli Conflict. Everyone agrees this is the No. 1 problem, the throbbing wound at the heart of the Middle East, which must be healed before the region can truly find peace. Expectations are high that the new bonds between the U.S. and moderate Arab states offer the best opportunity yet for a comprehensive settlement. If only there were as much concord on the answer.

There are few new ideas, but there is fresh interest in pursuing some of the familiar ones. France and the Soviet Union are urging the U.N. Security Council to convene an international conference, but nothing has altered Israel's refusal to attend such a gathering. Washington is proposing instead that the Arab states negotiate directly with Israel on state-to-state peace treaties, just as Israel and Egypt did in the late 1970s. If its Arab neighbors indicate a willingness to live in peace with the Jewish state, the argument goes, Israel might be willing to make concessions to the Palestinians.

But prospects for a resolution of the Palestinian problem are as dim as they have ever been. Yes, the U.S. is committed to pushing extra hard for Israeli flexibility, to pay back Arab governments for their support of the coalition and to cement American credibility in the Arab world. But even Israel's No. 1 patron cannot make Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir budge unless he chooses to. And he does not. "We shall stand firm," says Shamir, against "attempts to establish a new pattern of Middle East arrangements."

While the U.S. has been fighting a ground war, the Israeli leader has been preparing for a diplomatic one. "There will be an effort to use political means to snatch from Israel what could not be snatched from us by force," Shamir told his party, adding that nothing would shake his refusal to cede land for peace. The Palestinians' feverish support for Saddam made any compromise over the West Bank and Gaza far more unlikely. And Shamir feels that the restraint he displayed in the face of the Scud barrage entitles Israel to freedom from Washington's heavy hand.

Palestine Liberation Organization chairman Yasser Arafat rendered Shamir's obstructionist policy all the more workable by alienating the West, his Arab bankrollers and the Israeli peaceniks. "The Palestinian path no longer goes through Arafat," says a senior U.S. diplomat. Some of the chairman's supporters suggest he may have to step down to restore the Palestinians' shattered credibility. Even that might not help. Though the Arab regimes pay lip service to their cause, blind attachment to Saddam has cost the Palestinians respect and sympathy everywhere. At the same time, the war has intensified the naked hatred between Palestinians and Israelis, making any mutual accommodation harder still.

Money and Democracy. Perhaps the rosiest of postwar propositions is that the oil-rich gulf states will share their treasure more generously with the oil- less poor ones. The idea would be to reduce the envy of, and the enmity toward, the rich while alleviating the poverty that is a constant source of instability.

It is a noble but naive notion. The Arab haves, which were threatened by Saddam, are not especially happy with most of the have-nots -- Jordan, Yemen, the Palestinians and the Sudan, all of whom cheered the Iraqi invader. The exceptions are Egypt and Syria, which are likely to receive rewards -- for their help in defeating Saddam, not for the misfortune of being impoverished.

With war costs to pay off and with low oil prices, the victorious gulf states are not much interested in sharing their wealth. At a recent meeting in Cairo, they asserted the necessity of "respecting the sovereignty of each Arab country over its own natural resources." Translation: Don't covet your neighbor's oil. The statement was evidence of just how worn the ideal of Arab unity is -- the notion that all Arabs are one nation so the gulf oil belongs to all.

Nor is democracy likely to follow in the wake of the war as a means of strengthening Arab societies against radicalism. The hope was that the new Kuwait would lead the way, but the royal family appears less keen about liberalization now than it did when it was courting international support from exile. For their part, Saudi Arabia's King Fahd and the Sultan of Oman, Qaboos bin Said, have promised to create only consultative councils, not parliaments. The U.S. is unlikely to push democratization, knowing fundamentalists are best organized to take advantage of it.

Jordan's Rehabilitation. The great survivor has survived again -- just barely. Washington will eventually welcome King Hussein back into the fold despite his pro-Saddam sympathies, though it is not yet prepared to restore his $55 million 1991 aid package, suspended last month. The Saudis are less forgiving. For them, says a U.S. diplomat, Hussein "has to pay a readmission price, perform some act of obeisance." In a newspaper interview last week, Prince Bandar said those who leaned toward Saddam "must openly admit they were wrong."

In a speech last week, the King did not bow so far, but he did make a plea for reconciliation. Mending bridges with the Saudis is vital for Jordan's shattered economy: in addition to cutting off aid, which amounted to $200 million last year, Riyadh has refused to resume preferential oil sales to Jordan.The U.S. will press the Saudis to be lenient toward the King lest he be toppled. Despite everything, Washington prefers Hussein to the more radical regime that might replace him.

Iran's Reintegration. A Western diplomat in Riyadh calls Iranian President Hashemi Rafsanjani's performance during the gulf conflict a "tour de force." By offering sanctuary to Iraqi planes, he mollified his troublesome right wing. By not returning them, he won points with the allies; he may also get to keep the jets as partial reparation for losses sustained by Iran in its own war with Iraq. In general, Iran's neutrality brought the country some international respectability, and even Washington is assessing the possibility of more cordial relations.

Like it or not, Iran will insist on a role in the region as payment for its restraint. Iraq's weakness makes Iran stronger, threatening the old balance of power among the big Middle Eastern states. A more confident Tehran could clash with Saudi Arabia over oil-pricing policy. But the country needs Western cooperation to resuscitate its economy, and the U.S. hopes that will encourage continued good behavior.

For all he had wrong, Saddam had one thing right -- that the Middle East was due for some major refurbishing. Religious hatred, excessive militarization, economic inequities and entrenched feudalism combine to make it a nasty neighborhood. The region has long been -- and remains -- violence-prone, politically archaic, oppressive. The jolt of the gulf war, however, may change the physics for a moment. "Maybe the shock," says British Foreign Secretary Douglas Hurd, "will enable people to think afresh, more constructively." Just as the allies seized the moment to finish off Saddam's army, so too should they seize the opportunity to make lasting changes in Middle Eastern politics.

With reporting by Christopher Ogden/Washington, Robert Slater/Jerusalem and Robert T. Zintl/Riyadh