A House of Cards Falls, and Aid May, Too : El Salvador: If the Bush Administration hopes to sustain the bipartisan consensus, it must do more than insist that the policy is working.

The guerrilla offensive on the capital city and other urban areas of El Salvador failed to defeat the military and produce a popular uprising against the government. It succeeded, however, in seriously weakening the bipartisan consensus in Congress that has allowed U.S. military aid to continue flowing to the government of Alfredo Cristiani.

The Democratic majority in both houses was never enthusiastic about supporting Cristiani. But, initially, there was little alternative. The Salvadoran president was elected in March by more than 50% of the vote in a fair election certified by international observers. Although many members of Congress were unsure if Cristiani would be able to control right-wing death squads linked to his Arena party, they had to give him a chance to prove himself. The fact that Guillermo Ungo, the candidate of the left-wing coalition tied to the Marxist guerrillas, won only 3% of the vote also called into question rebel claims to represent the will of the Salvadoran people.

Furthermore, U.S. policy aimed at creating a democratic alternative to a right-wing or left-wing dictatorship seemed to be working. The March elections produced El Salvador’s first peaceful transition to an opposition party government, despite guerrilla sabotage and death threats against potential voters. The guerrillas also were allegedly in decline--from a peak of 12,000 fighters to half that number. They supposedly had lost the ability to mount a serious military challenge to the government.

Finally, human-rights abuses and death-squad activity had decreased substantially. As a result, U.S. government claims that Cristiani would and could control the right wing of his party, led by the infamous Roberto D’Aubuisson, seemed credible. The return to El Salvador of left-wing civilian leaders Ungo and Ruben Zamora, and their participation in the political process, reinforced the impression that democracy was indeed taking root.

Two weeks ago these achievements collapsed like a house of cards with the cold-blooded murder of six Salvadoran priests. Strong circumstantial evidence points to the right-wing death squads. Given the rise in death-squad activity immediately preceding the guerrilla offensive, and the still unsolved murders of four American churchwomen in 1980, the impression is growing that El Salvador has come full circle since 1981, and that $4 billion in U.S. aid has gone for naught.

These developments have made it difficult for the Bush Administration to focus congressional attention on the fact that it was the guerrillas, and not the Cristiani government, that broke a promise and walked away from the negotiating table. Washington’s observation that the guerrillas violated the Central American peace plan by continuing to arm and stockpile weapons during the negotiating process has also been largely ignored. The same can be said of the crash of a plane carrying weapons, including sophisticated anti-aircraft missiles, from Nicaragua to the Salvadoran guerrillas. Finally, although the rebels put the lives of San Salvador’s urban poor at risk by hiding in their homes, American public opinion holds the military, which in reaction bombed and strafed guerrilla strongholds in heavily populated urban areas, more responsible for the 1,000 civilian deaths that have occurred since the guerrilla offensive began.

If the Administration hopes to sustain the bipartisan consensus behind its El Salvador policy, it must do more than insist that the policy is working and that it will not tolerate a congressional cutoff of American military assistance. It must tell the Salvadoran government that the priests’ murderers must be found and prosecuted within a reasonable period of time or continued military aid will be politically unsustainable. The Cristiani government must also be urged to return to the negotiating table, however unreasonable the guerrillas’ demands may seem, since Congress will not continue to arm a government that appears unwilling to negotiate a solution to the war. And, in view of the weapons find and the subsequent breaking of relations between El Salvador and Nicaragua, President Bush needs to stress to Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev at the Malta summit that prospects for U.S.-Soviet cooperation in other areas will become problematic if Moscow insists on resupplying Cuba with Soviet arms to replace those that Havana ships to the Salvadoran guerrillas via Managua.

U.S. policy toward El Salvador has been on the right track until now. Nevertheless, if Washington fails to take these steps now, the policy will derail.

The result would be a repressive dictatorship of the right or the left. Neither outcome would serve the interests of the American or the Salvadoran people.