TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/060391/0603101.000

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                                                                                NATION, Page 18

DIPLOMACY

No Quick Fixes in Sight


U.S. dreams of helping build a new Middle East order are
frustrated by the realities of a troubled and troubling region

By LISA BEYER -- Reported by Michael Duffy and J.F.O. McAllister/
Washington and Lara Marlowe/Damascus


    Wearing a Saddam Hussein T shirt in a country recently
invaded and plundered by the Iraqi leader's forces is a
provocative thing to do. But is it worthy of a 15-year jail term
followed by deportation? That was the punishment a Kuwaiti court
handed last week to an Iraqi man accused of that offense. Later,
responding to international outrage over the sentence, the
Kuwaiti government claimed that the man had also worked for
Iraqi intelligence. But by that time the authorities had
precious little credibility as they tried to defend their brand
of justice. Among 10 people tried last week for collaboration,
some saw their lawyers for the first time in court. No witnesses
were called, no evidence was produced, and there was no right
of appeal.

    Those in the dock were not the only ones squirming through
the kangaroo sessions. The Bush Administration was chafing too,
embarrassed by the brutish behavior of a regime that it had
risked so much to restore to power. Embracing a government as
undemocratic as Kuwait's was awkward from the outset, but
expectations were high that the liberated country would march
briskly toward liberalization. Instead, the ruling band of
brothers and cousins that runs the country seems to have settled
comfortably into its old habits.

    In other ways, too, Washington's plans to help recast the
Middle East order have been frustrated. Iraq remains a source
of tension. Arab-Israeli peace efforts are foundering. And the
Arab states that pulled together against Saddam have returned
to quibbling among themselves. For all the brilliant clarity of
the allies' military victory, the peace has produced a murky
landscape. Among the reasons:



    The sanctions dilemma. The Administration, exasperated by
Saddam's continued hold on power, refuses to remove economic
sanctions against Iraq until Saddam is ousted. But accounts
coming out of Iraq of the deprivations suffered by the
population have raised questions about the appropriateness of
that policy. A Harvard University medical team reported last
week that health-care problems in the country were "desperate"
and worsening. The group predicted that at least 170,000
children will die this year because of problems brought on by
the war.

    Moral issues aside, there is considerable doubt whether a
continued embargo will speed Saddam's downfall. The
Administration hopes that popular resentment of the hardships
Iraqis face will help provoke a coup d'etat. That calculation
may well prove flawed. Would-be plotters, whether in the
military or in the government, are insulated from these travails
because of their privileged access to anything in short supply.
Besides, the resentment could be directed at the authors of the
embargo instead of toward Saddam.



    Kurdistan woes. When Bush first deployed U.S. troops to
Iraq's north to establish a safe haven for Kurdish refugees who
had fled from Saddam's forces, he swore it would be a very
short posting. Five weeks later, the 12,000 soldiers remain in
place, with no return date in the offing. Washington had hoped
that U.N. police officers now arriving in Kurdistan would
replace U.S. and European troops. But the U.N. cops are lightly
armed, and the Kurds have little confidence in them. To coax the
last 100,000 refugees still camping in Iraq's northern
mountains back down to their homes in Dahuk, which lies just
south of the safe-haven zone, the U.S. and its allies last week
reluctantly began to dispatch a small military force to extend
protection to the city.



    Obstacle to liberalization. The closest President Bush
came to publicly criticizing Kuwait for denying due process to
accused collaborators was to say last week that the government
should "extend the fair trial to everybody." U.S. officials
insist that they regularly raise human-rights complaints with
Kuwaiti officials in private. But Washington feels it can only
go so far in pressuring the Kuwaitis to reform their society --
particularly when it comes to holding elections, which the Emir
has promised in 1992. The Saudis, Washington's most important
Arab allies, are highly allergic to any agitation for elections.
"We're under a lot of pressure from the Saudis not to push
Kuwait too hard," says a well-placed staff member on Capitol
Hill.



    Arab-Israeli peace. Efforts to convene a peace conference
that would begin direct negotiations between Israel and its
Arab enemies remain deadlocked because of disagreements between
Syria and the Jewish state over the format for talks. Secretary
of State James Baker said last week that he saw an even bigger
impediment to the peace process in Israel's determination to
continue building settlements in occupied Arab lands. "Nothing
has made my job of trying to find Arab and Palestinian partners
for ((talks with)) Israel more difficult," Baker told Congress
in an unusually harsh blast at the U.S. ally.



    Gulf security. If the gulf states learned anything from
Saddam's cakewalk into Kuwait, it was that they must find better
ways to defend themselves. What appeared to be a consensus on
how to achieve that, however, has since disintegrated. Two
weeks ago, Egypt began withdrawing the 40,000 troops it had
dispatched to the gulf, apparently lighting a match to March's
Damascus Declaration, under which Egyptian and Syrian forces
were to help protect the gulf states in exchange for economic
aid. Syria's 19,000 troops are also quietly decamping. It is
unclear which side ordered those departures and why, but many
diplomats believe that the gulf states are sure the U.S. will
again rush to their defense if needed and thus see no need to
pay their Arab neighbors, whom they see as less trustworthy, to
stand guard.

    On the question of how to institutionalize their alliances
with the U.S., however, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia hold different
views -- neither of which coincides with Washington's. Kuwait
desperately wants the U.S. to leave behind a permanent force.
That is unacceptable to the Bush Administration, which
repeatedly pledged during the gulf buildup that the deployment
would be temporary. The Saudis are concerned about appearing to
be American lackeys and want their military ties with the U.S.
to be invisible. Senior Saudi officials have even expressed
misgivings at a Washington proposal to leave U.S. tanks and
other equipment behind in Saudi Arabia.

    Disappointment over the lack of rapid progress toward a
collective-security system -- or for that matter toward any of
Washington's Middle East policy goals -- is rooted in part in
the unrealistically high hopes that were raised by the war's
decisive outcome. Says Shireen Hunter, a Middle East expert at
Washington's Center for Strategic and International Studies:
"The impression was created that we could write our own ticket,
and that was bad."

    Bush himself created much of that illusion with his
constant talk of a new world order. Like the rest of the
country, his Administration has since been sobered by the
reality that things do not change so rapidly in the Middle East.