PERSPECTIVE ON THE PERSIAN GULF : Booms Over Baghdad : Shake the confidence of Hussein’s officers in their ability to deal with U.S. power, and full-blown war may be averted.

When Saddam Hussein attacked his small and defenseless neighbor, Kuwait, he made the world face up to a number of unpleasant realities.

But Hussein may also have opened a door onto something both new and promising. The allies do have options, some of which can go beyond the conflict itself.

-- Can we reach a “modus vivendi” with Hussein? To do so presupposes a reasonable degree of confidence in the other fellow’s world. It would be foolish indeed to trust Saddam Hussein. In this case the historical precedent is, “No peace with Bonaparte.” Do we want to leave Hussein in place and wait for him to fabricate his first nuclear warhead? I think not.

--Sit tight, and wait for the trade embargo to work. But do we have the patience for this? We should, of course, but do we? The media’s demand for instant stories and instant reaction creates an atmosphere in which doing nothing--often the proper course of action--looks like weakness, and since political leaders cannot allow themselves to be seen showing weakness (there are elections this year), they might be forced into action that common sense would ordinarily avoid.

--A power demonstration. One thing we keep forgetting is that war is above all an exercise in psychology. Armies are rarely broken physically. They break because they perceive themselves to be beaten. Creating doubt in the mind of an army commander has more effect than crushing one of his divisions. What if a flight of F-117A Stealth fighters trolled across Baghdad at a fraction over Mach-1, trailing sonic booms in their wake? If our technology works as well as the contractors and the Pentagon think, then we have the ability to negate much of the Soviet technology upon which Iraq depends. If we shake the confidence of Hussein’s professional officers in their ability to deal with American power, we will have the psychological upper hand.

--Take the initiative and begin limited offensive operations. Eliminate the Iraqi air force, then identify vital economic and military targets, and begin eliminating them. Next, select an isolated Iraqi army unit, and destroy it in place. There is more to combat than tanks and guns. More important is communications. Most important of all is the quality and training of the individual soldier. Iraq has a literacy rate of 50% at best. How good can its soldiers be? And the American military is still flush from Reagan’s buildup. The quality of our people is something that must be seen to be appreciated. If the government has the wisdom to employ them properly, they will win for us. Some of those kids will be killed and maimed. This is not an option to be undertaken lightly, but what we call civilization has been bought in blood, not oil.

--Full-blown war. One hopes that this is not necessary, but if Hussein begins to mistreat his hostages, it is more than a possibility. The same is true if Iraq launches a large-scale chemical strike at American and other allied forces. Though definitive, this option will be very costly to all concerned.

The ultimate objective of any conflict is a peace whose characteristics are more favorable than those which preceded it. If there is any consistent failure in American history, it is the failure to plan for what comes after conflict.

This conflict offers the most remarkable opportunities--and dangers--of recent history.

The destruction of Iraq as a regional military power will inevitably leave Iran as the biggest kid on the block. We need to think very hard about that. We have learned that the energy reserves upon which the world depends are in countries with populations so small that they cannot translate economic muscle into sufficient defense forces. At the same time, it would be a historically immoral act to hold these countries hostage to our economic needs. A permanent American land force in the region may ultimately prove to be necessary, but to demand or impose such a force would be wrong.

Western perception of the Islamic world comes from terrorist acts, or grows from the Arab-Israeli conflict now two full generations old. What if the world judged the Christian faith by terrorist activities in Northern Ireland? And while America cannot allow Israel to suffer harm, there is more to the Middle East than Israel. By preserving some Arab regimes and restoring another, and perhaps also placing something akin to a just government in Iraq, we have an opportunity to exert the finest sort of influence and earn genuine goodwill in a region so often bereft of both. Islam is not a religion of barbarians. It has its own noble traditions of religious and racial tolerance. It has often been misused and blasphemed by its own adherents, but the same is true of Christianity. We share far more values than differences with the Muslim world.

Realpolitik is a word crafted by cynics to justify the action of mediocrities. Such people do not solve problems, but maintain them. Principle is the only thing that matters in international affairs. Woodrow Wilson observed that small countries, treated as equals, make the most loyal of allies. We are dealing with people who have pride and tradition in addition to their economic assets. If we remember that, we may yet find in war the greatest opportunity for peace in living memory. The good influence of America might guarantee the peace of the region, including Israeli security, once and for all.

The likelihood of a world-ending conflict is nearly gone. If we can next show in the Persian Gulf that petty wars will not be tolerated, the dream of all human history--the elimination of war as an instrument of policy--will become something more practical than a dream.