Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, February 10, 1991 TAG: 9102100160
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: The New York Times
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Long
Iran, Israel, the Soviet Union, Egypt, the Europeans, even the Palestine Liberation Organization, all signaled in recent days they have their own visions of a postwar order, and at first glance many of them appeared highly incompatible with Washington's.
That may explain why there is already something of a debate going on among administration policy makers over just how much Washington should aspire to accomplish beyond simply removing the Iraqis from Kuwait.
The doubters argue the Middle East is not a region of clay that can easily be reshaped, but more like a quarry that is highly resistant to change except with a sledgehammer. They say no one should presume that the alliances, and the radical changes in behavior that many Middle Eastern nations exhibited to confront the threat of Iraq, will continue after the war.
"Let us not exaggerate the vast changes that will be produced by this war," said Fouad Ajami, an expert on Middle East politics at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.
"This is not the collapse of the Ottoman Empire we are seeing. We will find, sooner than we expect, yesterday's evasions and complexities, old friends who can't deliver and old foes who will patch up their grievances."
For now, such advice is being rejected, and administration experts are busy drawing up peace plans, precisely because that is where the president's heart is.
President Bush said last week that "when we prevail, there will be a renewed credibility for the United States," adding, "I think we then have an enormous potential to be joined with others in being the peacemakers."
A day later, Secretary of State James Baker sketched the administration's initial vision for the postwar Persian Gulf.
He called for a new security structure, including the American military, to stabilize the gulf; new arms control arrangements to constrain weapons of mass destruction from going to the Middle East; economic development programs and a renewed effort to create "real reconciliation" between Arabs and Israelis.
Even before the administration's vision was off the drawing board, though, key parties in the Middle East began jockeying to stymie certain aspects of the American proposal.
When Iranian President Hashemi Rafsanjani put himself forward as a mediator between Iraq and the United States last week, he was putting everyone on notice that his country intends to have a major say in the postwar order, experts on Iran say.
Baker tried to put the Iranians at ease by declaring they should be part of any future gulf security structure. But the Iranians take that for granted; it is the United States they do not want around.
"They don't call it the Persian Gulf for nothing," said Mark Heller, a visiting Middle East military expert at the Canadian Institute for International Peace and Security.
"Whatever future blueprint the Iranians have it doesn't have the United States on it. They are the natural hegemonic power in the region. I don't think they are interested in going on any crusade against America, but they are going to want our military presence to be as limited as possible."
Rafsanjani declared as much himself last week when he said, "Creating security in the region, without securing Iran's views, is not possible." He backed that up with a seven-point peace overture to Iraq.
The Israeli government of Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, for its part, let the Bush administration know last week that it does not intend to resume the peace process where it was left off before the war, with the United States trying to persuade Israel to enter into talks with Palestinians from the occupied territories who were tacitly approved by the PLO.
Shamir said Israel would not attend any international peace conference, would have no dealings with the pro-Iraqi PLO and would not move toward a settlement with the Palestinians - who have applauded Iraq's Scud missile attacks on Israel - until the Arab nations end their state of belligerency with Israel.
The problem is that the Arab nations are highly unlikely to recognize Israel without a simultaneous Israeli gesture toward the Palestinians.
The PLO's vision of a postwar order, administration experts say, is the opposite of Shamir's. The PLO is expected to use diplomacy, persuasion, intimidation and assassination to prevent any alternative Palestinian leadership from emerging and representing the Palestinians at the bargaining table.
As for the Soviets, it is a real mistake to believe that after the war they will continue to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the United States in the gulf, said Stephen Meyer, an expert on the Soviet military at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
"I think we are already seeing an increasingly stronger call for a more assertive, independent Soviet foreign policy than in the Shevardnadze era," Meyer said, referring to the tenure of Eduard Shevardnadze, who in December resigned as Soviet foreign minister as his country's political turmoil mounted.
"It doesn't mean they will return to ideological struggle with us, but I think it will mean that the Soviets will go out of their way to differentiate themselves from us, more like the French, who can be a real pain," Meyer said.
Both Britain and France also indicated last week they would like to see an international Middle East peace conference after the gulf war is over - with them in attendance. But that is not what the Bush administration has in mind.
Some officials say it wants instead to have Moscow and Washington act as co-sponsors for any negotiations, hoping in this way to finesse Moscow's demands for a conference and to cut the Europeans out.
by CNB