Changing Rules of a Deadly Game : New Mideast Weaponry Needs Response, Not Finger-Pointing

The United States is shocked to learn that Saudi Arabia has secretly acquired a number of Chinese intermediate-range ballistic missiles that can reach any point of the Middle East. Coming at the same time as Iraq’s massive use of poison gas weapons and its new “war of the cities” with Iran, the Saudi step is transforming military calculations in the region.

Although the Middle East is one of the most heavily armed areas on Earth, for many years there has been relative stability in the region’s two key military struggles: the Arab-Israeli conflict and the Iran-Iraq war.

Since the signing of the Egypt-Israel peace treaty nine years ago, a major war has been unlikely. If Arab states could not defeat Israel when Egypt was part of the military equation, surely they would be foolhardy to try doing so while Egypt sits on the sidelines. Thus Israel was able to invade Lebanon in 1982 without producing a wider war.

In the Persian Gulf, the Iran-Iraq war has produced appalling casualties that bring it to the front rank of carnage in our time. Yet it remains a bloody stalemate: Iran’s often-promised “grand offensives” have never materialized, and Iraq, even with its so-called tanker war, has not been able either to cripple Iran or drive it to drawing Western powers into the fray by attacking their naval vessels plying the gulf.

Nor has the influx of weaponry into the region’s Arab states upset the central military balance in either conflict. Even Saudi Arabia’s profligacy in buying high-performance weapons has not led to basic instability: It keeps its powder dry with regard to Iran, and it has been careful not to deploy its forces in places that would prompt Israel to take action.

Introduction of the Chinese DF-3 missile, however, changes the rules of the game. China fits the DF-3 with a nuclear warhead (2 megatons), but the Saudis don’t have nuclear weapons and deny wanting them. Configured for conventional explosives, the DF-3 has a range of more than 1,000 miles, but it is so inaccurate that it is useful only against cities, as a terror weapon, and not against military targets. The Saudis have aircraft that are much more of a military threat to their neighbors.

The danger posed by the DF-3 comes from chemical weapons. Missiles don’t have to be especially accurate to do a great deal of damage--civilian or military--with a chemical warhead. Iraq has now crossed that particular threshold and shattered a long-standing taboo.

Syria is widely believed to have a significant chemical weapons program, and it has the highly accurate Soviet SS-21 ballistic missile. Unconfirmed reports indicate that Iran could make chemical weapons, and Libya may have gained access to them.

Suddenly, the military picture changes. For example, in light of Syria’s missiles-and-chemicals capability, Israel must rethink its tactics. It has always relied on having enough warning time of conflict in order to mobilize. Its superiority in the air has been vital. In any future crisis, however, Israel must beware of a “bolt from the blue” that could cripple its airfields. The Syrian-Israeli military balance is becoming less stable.

This fact largely explains why Israel recently conducted a military exercise that resembled preparation for a preemptive attack on the new Saudi missiles. It is not particularly concerned with this new threat, especially because Saudi Arabia has sat out previous Arab-Israel wars. But it is worried about its other neighbors--primarily Syria, but also Libya and Iraq--and was sending a signal to them.

In the region at large, the new sanction for chemical weapons and long-range missiles is muddling military calculations. Stability is becoming much harder to define. It will also be harder for outside powers--even if they have the political will--to impose new limits on weapons in the region.

In Washington, there is now much finger-pointing. One camp criticizes Israel for developing its own missile program--the Jericho 2, with a range of about 1,000 miles--and for at least appearing to have nuclear weapons. A related camp blames Israel’s supporters in Congress for constraining U.S. arms sales to the Saudis, thereby driving them to other suppliers. An opposing camp blames the Pentagon for encouraging the Saudis and other regional states to want modern military “toys.” And a final camp characterizes the Saudis as simply perfidious.

This finger-pointing is less helpful than recognizing that the United States, along with many other nations, has been warned. Always dangerous, the Middle East is becoming more deadly. Thus trying to halt the Iran-Iraq war and make peace between Israel and its neighbors can no longer be a leisure-time activity. Developing a coherent policy that demonstrates America’s continuing security role in the Middle East cannot be put off to next year. Today’s technology will not wait for tomorrow’s politics.