PERSPECTIVE ON THE PERSIAN GULF : It’s More Than Hussein Can Chew : The international response, if solidly maintained, might end naked authoritarianism in Arab politics.

Saddam Hussein is not going to stride the Middle East like a colossus. In his crude aggression against Kuwait, he probably has bitten off more than he can chew, and it may cost him dearly. A variety of factors are working against him.

Hussein is no longer beneficiary of the old superpower trade-offs that effectively hindered concerted international action in situations like this. It is astonishing to see how much “easier” international crises can be when the East-West factor ceases to be a major complication in the U.S. policy equation.

And Hussein is no Nasser. In all his international posturing, bombast and bold calculations, Nasser had his finger on the pulse of Arab politics. In everything that Nasser did--including his threats to legitimate Arab regimes--he knew how to couch his actions in the broader context of the anti-imperial crusade and the struggle with Israel to win Palestinian rights. Nasser embodied “the Arab cause.” Hussein has not been able to do this. He has been incapable of clothing his power grab in ideological terms that would give it resonance throughout the Arab world. Because he is so clearly serving his own narrow interests in seizing Kuwait, Hussein has not succeeded in dividing the Arab world in any meaningful sense, as Nasser invariably did. Jordan and the Palestine Liberation Organization have been conspicuously--and sadly--absent from the Arab League’s condemnation. But even the Gulf States and Saudi Arabia--usually fearful of confrontation and anxious to accommodate--have recognized now that there can be no safety in compromise when the wolf is at the door.

Hussein will prove unable to maintain a puppet regime in Kuwait. Baghdad is not Moscow, with a credible international ideological movement behind it that facilitates the establishment of puppet regimes skilled in knowing how to take, hold and justify power. Saddam Hussein’s desire to raise the price of oil is no justification in anybody’s eyes for supplanting a Kuwaiti regime that, by regional standards, is relatively progressive as a monarchy and one that ensures a reasonable standard of living for its citizens. How will Hussein hold Kuwait, short of maintaining a permanent military presence, which the world sees committed to denying to him?

Ironically, Hussein had achieved most of his goals on oil policy the day before the invasion. But he overreached.

The impetuousness of that move demonstrates that Hussein has learned nothing since his ill-starred attack against Iran in 1979, which launched an eight-year war that Iraq very nearly lost. Under anything but the brutal authoritarian regime that the ruling Ba’th party of Iraq is, a ruler like Hussein would have been overthrown quickly at the war’s end for having squandered Iraqi blood and treasure so wantonly. We can only hope that once Saddam’s Kuwaiti gambit is perceived in Baghdad as the serious political blunder that it is, perhaps Iraq will be less willing to maintain this tyrant at the helm.

Lastly, it would be a mistake to think of Iraq as the permanent hegemonic power of the Arab world, or even of the Gulf. With the backing of nearly the entire world in the long Gulf war, Hussein barely made it. His “victory” over Iran, when it finally came, was a close call. Iraq emerged on top, but within a few years, Iran may be strong enough to start to regularly check Iraqi adventurousness.

While an Iranian resurgence, too, may not sound reassuring to the West, there is a reasonable chance that Iran by then will have continued to make progress towards moderation. It is already more democratic by far than Iraq. The world may once again come to welcome a balancing role by Iran in the Gulf.

There is a major strategic question latent in the Kuwait conflict: the unfortunate failure of both King Hussein of Jordan and Yasser Arafat to condemn Saddam’s move. Instead they have felt the need to remain within the shadow of Iraqi power, despite Saddam’s aggression. Their joint reaction suggests their even deeper fears of the destabilizing and explosive quality of the uprising in Israel’s occupied territories where resentments now run extremely deep. Bereft of other options, both Jordan and the PLO unwisely feel they cannot afford to alienate a major Arab power in what may be very bad days ahead with Israel. One can only hope that Israel will decide to move toward land-for-peace on the all-critical Palestinian issue. Saddam Hussein’s truculent power must not be taken by any serious Arab leader as a necessary phenomenon on the Arab scene for any reason.

An international riposte to Hussein’s aggression in Kuwait could foretoken the creation of a new international order. It could also represent a move in the Arab world itself toward an end to naked authoritarianism as the guiding feature of Arab politics, which has brought the Arabs to grief for so long.