Closer . . . Ever Closer

Early next week the 401,000-ton Kuwaiti crude oil carrier al-Rekkah, renamed the Bridgeton, flying the American flag and escorted by U.S. warships, is scheduled to steam into the Persian Gulf. With that event will be launched an apparent open-ended U.S. commitment to defend selective friendly shipping in the gulf against attack by Iran. With it will commence a new chapter in what is already shaping up as a textbook study of how not to make foreign policy.

That policy, with its explicit assumption of new military obligations and new risks, was prompted by two considerations, neither of which has anything to do with the actual level of threat that exists against non-belligerent shipping in the gulf. The first was a determination not to be outdone by the Soviet Union, which at Kuwait’s invitation has modestly expanded its naval presence in the gulf.

The Reagan Administration responded to this gesture by ominously warning that the United States would not stand by while the gulf became a Soviet lake. And so, with hardly a word to Congress, the Administration assured the delighted Kuwaitis that anything that Moscow might do for them Washington could do better. So far that means putting 11 Kuwaiti tankers under the U.S. flag, and assigning an armada to provide them protection.

The second consideration was equally political in motivation. Kuwait, like nearly every other Arab state, was appalled when it learned about the Administration’s scheme for peddling arms to Tehran. Confronted with Arab wrath because it had been caught arming an enemy state, the Administration foolishly tried to make amends for one blunder by promptly commiting a second--putting itself de facto on the side of Iraq in its war with Iran.

Congress clearly has no enthusiasm for U.S. involvement in the Persian Gulf war, but at the same time it seems to feel that things have gone too far now to be reversed, that backing off could entail a costly loss of face. Four years ago that same assessment was being heard as the United States wondered how it could extricate itself from Lebanon. In the end, it will be recalled, much more than face was lost in that debacle.