REGIONAL OUTLOOK : How Hussein Changed the Mideast

In swallowing tiny Kuwait, Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein has both redrawn the political map of the Mideast and thrown to the winds conventional wisdoms that shaped regional policies for decades.

If he goes unchecked, the new “Saddamism” that is already emerging threatens to radicalize the political environment by cultivating a climate of fear and popularizing militancy. The sands are literally shifting daily as the fallout spreads from Tehran to Tel Aviv and as far as Cairo.

Among the new trends: While the international community has demonstrated unprecedented unity in trying to force President Hussein to retreat, the 22-member Arab bloc is in confused disarray. Hussein’s surprise aggression has effectively challenged every friend and deepened fears among old foes--often as much by whipping up the potential for internal unrest in several nations as by implicit military threats from Baghdad. The Iraqi leader’s defiance of the West may be attractive to many Arabs frustrated by what they see as a lack of gains from policies of deference to the United States.

Many of America’s closest allies in the Middle East--and their potential for helping solve regional disputes--have been eclipsed by Hussein’s military bravado. Jordan’s King Hussein, for example, who has for decades been central to all Western regional peace initiatives, has now been left on the political sidelines. The very concept of moderate monarchies has been endangered.

While the agenda has shifted away from the Palestinian problem, Israel also faces a graver, long-term military threat. And, in one of the most unexpected shifts, the West may now hope that Iran re-emerges as a regional power.

Hussein has so effectively built up Iraq as a dominant regional power during his 11-year rule that even eliminating him would not fully eradicate the new realities.

Militarily, Iraq now has more tanks than Eisenhower, Montgomery and Rommel deployed in World War II and more than Britain and France have today. Economically, it has crude oil reserves estimated at 100 billion barrels--equivalent to current U.S. needs for a generation. Iraq also has one of the world’s better-educated populations, with 89% literacy.

After its march into Kuwait, few are likely to again underestimate Iraq’s importance in this vital region--particularly its neighbors. Here, through the eyes of those neighbors, is what’s at stake in the days, weeks, and years ahead.

SAUDI ARABIA

Riyadh faces the most immediate threat in the Persian Gulf, and it’s not only from Iraq’s war-hardened military. Like other sparsely populated gulf sheikdoms, Saudi Arabia faces the danger of internal opposition from budding radical groups who will see the demise of Kuwait’s ruling Sabah family as a golden opportunity to challenge the strongest monarchy in the gulf.

The House of Saud is a relative newcomer on the block, after all. The Sabahs, who were selected by leading Kuwaiti clans in 1756 to lead the city-state, had a longstanding claim to legitimacy. In contrast, Ibn Saud founded the Saudi monarchy only six decades ago after seizing territory and consolidating rival tribes.

The House of Saud faces a no-win situation. Calling in a foreign army or allowing a foreign blockade in the gulf to help counter an Iraqi threat would be unpalatable at home. But its credibility would also be undermined if it succumbs and allows Iraq to directly or indirectly absorb Kuwait.

Riyadh’s domestic and regional credibility is also undermined by the de facto collapse of the Gulf Cooperation Council, an alliance of six sheikdoms formed after the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq’s 1980 invasion of Iran. Among its basic functions was to protect any member state in the face of a military challenge.

IRAN

Iraq’s aggression against Kuwait has overnight changed perceptions about Iran--mainly in the West, but possibly among some Arab countries as well. For the first time since Islamic revolutionaries forced Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi from the Peacock throne in 1979, Tehran is no longer the chief pariah in the region. Indeed, Washington and Tehran now share a major foreign policy threat.

Historically, Iran has been the counterbalance to Iraqi adventurism, but Tehran’s de facto defeat in the eight-year gulf war with Iraq opened the way for Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait by leaving Baghdad without serious military challenge in the region.

Ending the Islamic Republic’s political and economic isolation, which has in turn limited Iran’s ability to rebuild its devastated army, now appears to be an almost attractive option for the West. The theocracy’s inability to recoup economically since the war ended--which has fueled domestic discontent--could also make the ruling mullahs more amenable to warmer relations with oil-consuming Western nations.

Over the weekend, Tehran Radio announced that President Hashemi Rafsanjani has instructed his Foreign Ministry to work toward re-establishing relations with Britain, which were broken off in March and have been strained since the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s issued a death sentence against author Salman Rushdie for his book “The Satanic Verses.”

Shortly before the invasion, Tehran had also improved relations with Kuwait, which had bankrolled Iraq during the war and provided Baghdad with a port for transshipment of war materiel, foodstuffs and other supplies.

Helping Iran get back into the gulf game as a means of containing Iraq, however, is considered a long-term option. Bilateral relations between Iran and several nations will hinge on the release of 14 Westerners held hostage by pro-Iranian groups in Lebanon and settling disputes over Iranian assets frozen by several countries in 1979.

Nor will a dramatic policy shift be smooth sailing for the year-old Rafsanjani regime because of an ongoing domestic power struggle with hard-liners who had opposed ending the war with Baghdad.

The PLO

Iraq’s emergence as the chief Middle East power could mark a crucial turning point for Yasser Arafat, chairman of the Palestine Liberation organization, reversing three years of gradual moves toward moderation.

U.S.-orchestrated efforts to end the Arab-Israeli conflict are almost certain to be undermined, at least in the short-term, as attention shifts from the Mediterranean to the gulf.

And any imminent hopes of restoring the U.S.-PLO dialogue, which the Bush Administration broke off after a foiled May assault on Israel’s coast by a tiny, radical PLO faction, have probably been short-circuited.

Just a week ago, Arafat could have taken disciplinary action against Abul Abbas, who masterminded the attack, to meet U.S. requirements for further talks. The repercussions then would have been tricky but manageable. Today, however, Arafat dare not move against Abbas, whose Palestine Liberation Front represents the pro-Iraqi faction within the PLO.

For Arafat, Iraq’s bold move could not have come at a worse time. The intifada , or Palestinian uprising, which began in Israel’s occupied territories at the end of 1987, has lost steam in recent weeks, its perpetrators increasingly divided. And without the clout of an independent relationship with the United States, Arafat may again become dependent on patronage--specifically Saddam Hussein’s.

Forced from Jordan in 1971, Beirut in 1982, and northern Lebanon and Syria in 1983, Arafat now has only Baghdad and Tunis as bases. The first sign of a possible shift toward Baghdad-style radicalism and militancy came at last Friday’s Cairo summit of the 22 Arab League members, when the PLO opposed a resolution demanding that Iraq withdraw from Kuwait.

EGYPT

Though far from the gulf’s front lines, Egypt is among the biggest losers from the events of recent days.

President Hosni Mubarak’s achievements over the past year have dissipated overnight. These achievements included restoring Cairo to a major leadership role in the Arab world and becoming the centerpiece of U.S. peace efforts on the Arab-Israeli dispute.

In a struggle that dates to ancient clashes between Egypt and Mesopotamia--today’s Iraq--Cairo now appears to have lost the leadership edge to Baghdad. And with it goes the trend toward moderation rather than militancy in the Arab world.

Mubarak’s regional role had also helped placate an increasingly restive--and rapidly growing--domestic audience at a time of serious economic troubles.

Having lost face after reassuring the gulf sheikdoms that Baghdad was only saber-rattling when troops massed on the Kuwaiti border, Mubarak now may face new challenges to his credibility at home. The main dangers are from hard-liners or Islamic fundamentalists disillusioned by Mubarak’s inability to translate his close relationship with the United States into either economic or diplomatic gains.

Although Egyptians are generally warm towards the United States, they have also historically been attracted to strong rulers and ideologies. Before the emergence of Saddam Hussein, the only other Arab leader in the post-independence era to gain a regional following was Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser.

Being duped by Hussein is all the more embarrassing because, like Kuwait, Mubarak played a major role in helping Iraq survive the eight-year war, providing technical aid, military advisers and war materiel.

SYRIA

President Hafez Assad has long been among Saddam Hussein’s fiercest rivals, but he is too weak today to put up much of a challenge--diplomatically, economically or militarily. His impotence also could open the way for new political challenges to his authoritarian regime.

Ironically, Assad also tried to emerge as the region’s strongman by military means--in Lebanon, in the 1980s. The Syrian leader failed, however, and about 35,000 of his troops are still embroiled in the Lebanese quagmire, making it difficult for him to challenge Hussein on their mutual border.

Although Assad was the first to call for an Arab League summit to mobilize opposition after last week’s invasion, he alienated the Arab world by supporting Iran during the gulf war and no longer has the political clout to put together an effective anti-Iraqi coalition.

Economically, he has already gone as far to check Baghdad as his troubled nation can afford. In the early 1980s, he cut off Iraq’s pipeline to the Mediterranean, which is in part why the Saudis built a connection for Baghdad’s oil to the Red Sea.

Indeed, the biggest danger to Damascus is that the gulf sheikdoms, which have helped Assad out of financial difficulties in the past, may decide to forgo further help--especially if Hussein so dictates.

The Syrian-Iraqi rivalry, which evolved out of different interpretations of a common Baath Socialist ideology, has played out in Lebanon in the past. Iraq has most recently armed and aided right-wing Christian forces while Syria sided with Muslim militias. Alhtough Assad might once have tried to copy the precedent established by Iraq’s invasion and claim control over Lebanon, he is too weak today to pull it off.

JORDAN

King Hussein, who built a reputation during almost four decades on the throne as the “plucky little king” for his political daring, may have met his match. Iraq’s invasion has left him in an intolerable bind. On two strategic borders--with Iraq and with Israel--he faces the region’s two most formidable armies. Any future conflict between the two could be played out on Jordanian killing fields.

Although the Jordanian monarch has been an enduring ally of the United States and a longtime advocate of peace with Israel, his defense of Saddam Hussein’s invasion and opposition to outside intervention has led U.S. analysts to charge that he is a virtual quisling.

The king has few alternatives. His economy is in trouble, and turning against the powerful Iraqi ruler might endanger repayment of the hundreds of millions of dollars in aid and equipment he provided Baghdad during the gulf war. Unlike the gulf states, his impoverished nation could not absorb the losses without potentially dangerous fallout at home.

The king’s phased move toward political pluralism has already opened a Pandora’s box of long-suppressed opposition, especially among Islamic fundamentalists who last year won the largest share of parliamentary seats in the country’s first democratic elections in 22 years. More than half of Jordan’s population is also Palestinian, and their frustration over the lack of progress on the Arab-Israeli conflict has always been a potential flash point.

ISRAEL

For the hard-line regime of Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, Iraq’s invasion brings both good news and bad news.

Short-term, the shift in the outside world’s attention to the gulf will ease pressure to begin talks with Palestinians on a scheme to conduct elections in the occupied territories.

The right-wing coalition government now has time to deal with its domestic agenda: settling Soviet Jews, quietly increasing settlements on the occupied West Bank and consolidating its hold on power. Each will deeply affect the political reality on the ground and make any eventual revival of peace efforts even more difficult.

After a year of strained relations, Israel could also use the new fears about Iraqi intentions to try to repair strained relations with the United States, stressing once again its appearance as an island of political stability in a volatile Arab sea.

In the long term, however, Israel faces the same forbidding problems that now face the gulf sheikdoms--the existence a relative stone’s throw away of the world’s most powerful Arab army, equipped with the deadliest weapons, led by an unrestrained and unpredictable dictator.

Also, some analysts think that Western support for Israel over time might prove more fragile now than it was in 1973 should oil again turn into a Mideast weapon and supplies tighten.

Although Kuwait may be his first conquest, many Israelis fear that retrieving Jerusalem may be the ultimate goal of Saddam Hussein, who fancies himself to be a modern Saladin, the 12th-Century Muslim conqueror who drove the Crusaders from the Holy Land.