October 1990, Page 5, 81

Three Scenarios

What America's Arab Allies Need to Know About U.S. Responses to Events in the Gulf

By Andrew I. Killgore

There are very important long-term implications for the United States and its Arab friends flowing from the present crisis in the Gulf. For the U.S., it becomes imperative to settle the Palestine problem if it is to maintain a strong position in the Middle East. For its oil-producing Arab friends, it means devoting larger portions of their incomes to help the poorer Arab states.

Getting from the present tense situation without bloodshed to the point where all parties can devote themselves to these essential long-term considerations depends on how the United States reacts to each of three possible scenarios.

Scenario #1: The U.N. Embargo Forces Iraq to Seek a Way Out

The underlying assumption of all three scenarios is that under no circumstances can President Bush tolerate Iraq remaining in control of Kuwait. If Iraqi President Saddam Hussein succeeded there, his combination of vaulting ambition and military strength might tempt him later to seize physically the oil fields of Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the UAE, and thus dominate the 60 percent of the world's oil reserves that lie in the Gulf. And Washington believes that domination of that oil by any one country in the Gulf would endanger U.S. vital interests. The two countries in the Gulf potentially strong enough to dominate the whole Gulf, of course, are Iran and Iraq. Happily for the United States, all other countries in the Gulf, including Iraq and Iran, share our conviction that their own interests would be jeopardized if any one country, other than themselves, became predominant.

Although the United States is today the pre-eminent economic/military power in the world, our freedom of action in the Gulf crisis is circumscribed by deep Arab resentment of our double standard of always favoring Israel. When Saddam Hussein charges the U.S. with opposing his occupation of Kuwait but supporting Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, millions of ordinary Arabs applaud. While these masses do not necessarily admire Saddam as a person or favor his aggression, their resentment against the United States bursts forth when he symbolically shakes his fist at Israel and the United States.

In the current crisis, the United States must live with Arab resentment built up over four decades of Israel-above-all American policy. We also have to recognize that this resentment rubs off on Arab governments now cooperating with us against Iraq, and that there is a political cost to them for seeming to be too close to the Americans. That is why, after this crisis is resolved, it becomes categorically imperative for the United States to settle the Palestine problem if we are to maintain our position in the Middle East and the position of our friends in the area.

Facing current realities, the United States seeks to settle the Kuwait issue without war not only to save American lives but in recognition, so far unarticulated by President Bush or the American media, that the spectacle of Americans attacking and killing Arabs could so inflame the Arab masses as to weaken Arab governments supporting our stand against Iraq. President Bush could also eventually face an internal crisis if American forces have to stay too long in Saudi Arabia, or if too many months pass and the economic embargo against Iraq still has not induced Saddam to evacuate Kuwait. But present policy is based on the confident expectation that economic sanctions will eventually force Iraq to withdraw.

The U.S. faced and still faces pressure from Israel and its lobby in the U.S. to somehow let Israel have a hand in the crisis. Israel fears losing its "strategic standing" in Washington as its uselessness to the United States in the present crisis gradually becomes apparent to the American public, and as the indispensibility of their Arab friends finally dawns on the American people.

The U.S. has warned Israel to stay out of the Gulf crisis and not to exploit it for an attack on Jordan, which some of Israel's Likudniks seem eager to do. So far President Bush's popularity remains so high that israel is unlikely to risk jeopardizing its standing in Washington by flouting U.S. desires. The administration would do well, however, to repeat its warnings to Israel. Unilateral Israeli action would throw all of the scenarios out the window, with potentially catastrophic results.

Options for the Arab World

Meanwhile the Arab states should do everything possible to encourage the positioning in Saudi Arabia of more troops from Arab and Muslim countries, so that American forces can gradually be drawn down. They already are pumping more oil to make up for the loss of Iraqi and Kuwaiti supplies. And, as they support the emargo on Iraq, they must make it very clear that they expect reciprocal support from the United States to settle the Palestine problem.

Scenario #2: Embargo Fails to Produce an Iraqi Withdrawal

Although this scenario seems unlikely, no one can guess how long Saddam can hold out. Keeping American military forces in Saudi Arabia for a long period of time will be detrimental to the U.S. and its Arab friends. So, after the heavy initial buildup, some U.S. forces may be drawn down and replaced by Arab troops and detachments from Muslim countries.

As months pass, public pressure in the United States will build on President Bush to "do something." The president does understand the Middle East and the predictable negative reaction in the area to Americans fighting and killing Arabs, including Iraqis. Eventually, however, he may be forced by U.S. public opinion to initiate limited military action if the embargo of Iraq seems not to be working. The purpose would not be to destroy Iraq, but to drive home to Saddam Hussein that the U.S. will never permit him to retain Kuwait.

The president might elect to destroy the Iraqi air force and its bases to "blind" Iraq and its military command. Attempts to limit Iraqi casualties would accompany this action. With no "eyes" in the sky the Iraqis would be unable to see the disposition of forces against them.

If destruction of Iraq's air force did not induce Saddam to withdraw from Kuwait, military pressure would gradually be stepped up by hitting communications facilities and supply concentrations from the air. Land confrontations would be held to the last, but these will be employed if ultimately necessary to drive Saddam from Kuwait. Obviously, attempts to eliminate the Iraqi president physically could be expected.

Both air and land fighting would involve non-American forces to the extent possible.

Perhaps the main point to emphasize is that President Bush is in a strong position at home. The no-questions-asked supporters of Israel are unhappy with him, but they cannot challenge him openly at this point. The situation Bush faces is worrisome, but one way or another the United States and its friends will get Iraq out of Kuwait.

It is frequently said that the situation in the Middle East will never be the same, but rarely are these predictions made specific. To my mind, a fundamental change is that the United States now cannot fail to see its unpopularity with the Arab masses, and the cost of this unpopularity to Arab governments cooperating with us. Nor can the U.S. and the American public fail to understand that our irresponsibility in not solving the Palestine problem is the basic cause of the bitterness against us. It follows, and this is the good news, that President Bush and Secretary of State Baker will be obliged to force a solution to the Arab-Israeli dispute.

In the Middle East, the unpopularity of Kuwait and its rulers must now be apparent. They are widely regarded in the area and in the United States as being arrogant and selfish in not doing more to help the Arab have-nots. If the Al-Sabah family is restored to power, as is the assumption now, it will have to systematize a more generous giving to the other Arabs. The other Arab oil producing states must do the same, in their own long-term interests.

Scenario #3: Iraq Invades Saudi Arabia

With every passing day this scenario becomes less likely, but it cannot be entirely ruled out, given President Saddam Hussein's ruthlessness and unpredictability. He may correctly assume that the economic blockade, sustained for a long period of time, as it will be if necessary, will in any case cost him his regime and ultimately his life. So to leave a "legacy" of struggling heroically to the death for what he will say is "the Arab cause," he could opt to go down fighting by sending his tanks into Saudi Arabia.

Some say that the U.S. overreacted, because Saddam never intended to attack Saudi Arabia. Even if originally true, however, an American reaction to the invasion of Kuwait limited to verbal reproval might have led the opportunistic Iraqi president to invade the Saudi Kingdom. A strong reaction to Saddam's aggression by the U.S. and its supporters was therefore an urgent necessity for President Bush. Imagine the crisis the U.S. would face today if the president had not reacted and Iraq were already in occupation of the Saudi oil fields.

As matters stand now, the Pentagon believes, and is advising the president, that if he attacked at this juncture, Saddam's air force would have no chance at all against the U.S. Air Force, with its more sophisticated technology. Thus the Iraqis would quickly lose control of the air over both Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. Iraqi tanks would suffer devastating attacks from the air, and could no longer mount a successful land attack against either Riyadh in central Saudi Arabia or the Saudi oil fields along the Gulf coast.

Even if Iraq did belatedly attack Saudi Arabia, the U.S. would probably still not need to risk vital petroleum production facilities by mounting a land attack against Iraq or its forces in Kuwait. The embargo on Iraq, especially on the export of Iraqi oil, supplemented by diplomatic and political pressure on Iraq from the rest of the world including the Arab League, could inevitably force Saddam to withdraw from Kuwait.

Options for the Arab World

While Arab and some Muslim countries continue to send defensive land forces to Saudi Arabia, the Gulf Cooperation Council and the Arab League must search diligently for a diplomatic route to enable Saddam Hussein to retreat from Kuwait without launching a suicidal military effort. He realizes by now that he has overplayed his hand and that the world will not tolerate his conquest. His sudden agreement to all of Iran's conditions for peace, especially including his agreement to share control of the Shatt Al-Arab River, reflects Saddam's weak position. His concessions to Iran now reveal to the Iraqi people that all of their sacrifices in Saddam's war were in vain.

The Arab League should offer the Iraqi president some face-saving token to obviate the possibility that he would destroy Kuwaiti production facilities before withdrawing. There is much to gain and little to lose by facilitating his peaceful withdrawal.

Possibilities of long term Iraqi leases on Kuwait's Bubiyan and Warba Islands to facilitate Iraqi access to the sea, and Kuwait's financial "compensation" to Iraq for earlier Kuwaiti pumping from the Rumaila field, should be considered. While Saddam might initially survive pulling out, the hope, indeed the expectation, is still that eventually his own people will bring him down. If it happened that way, he would forfeit his role as a "martyr" for the Arab cause.

Andrew I. Killgore, a former ambassador to Qatar, is publisher of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs.