Fanciful to Believe the U.N. Might Help? : In this very risky atmosphere, anything is worth trying

It is easy to underestimate the United Nations, and until very recently it was quite safe to do so. More often than not, this underperforming world bureaucracy has been a source of infuriation rather than inspiration. If the UN has achieved a level of esteem in the eyes of many Americans not much higher than, say, a failed savings and loan, it has done so through virtue of its own ineptitude.

Few problems could pass through its portals without coming out the other side virtually unchanged and unimproved. Even the Office of U.N. secretary general, which in the hands of a courageous man like Dag Hammarskjold had been shown to have considerable potential, lost its luster under the administrations of smaller-than-life figures like U Thant and Kurt Waldheim--who reminded the world anew of his limitations when he surfaced this weekend in the Iraq crisis. Predictably, Waldheim cut a deal for Austrian hostages with Saddam Hussein.

But the winds of change may be sweeping over the U.N., too, what with the waning of 45 years of polarization between Moscow and Washington. The world body has been on a bit of a roll lately--with the Security Council voting to approve the use of minimum force to back up U.N.-approved sanctions against Iraq and with the Middle East peace mission planned for later this week by Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar.

THE MISSION: Even if its odds of success are at best 1,000-to-1, this is a mission that deserves to have been launched--and which, if there is any justice, needs desperately to succeed. For the risks of escalation in an armed clash between the forces in the Persian Gulf are great. That many innocent Iraqis, Kuwaitis and Western hostages--not to mention soldiers--would be killed is a given. What’s uncertain is where a conflagration would stop: the region, sometimes ferociously anti-American, not to mention anti-Israel, is a powder keg.

The support of the American people for the defense of Saudi Arabia is impressive. So is the world consensus against Hussein. President Bush on Monday was right to say that “there is no flexibility on Iraq getting out of Kuwait.” But that goal is best achieved through world pressure--diplomatic and economic--as well as the multinational military buildup.

THE SETTLEMENT: The contours of a negotiated settlement aren’t that hard to envision. While it was appropriate for President Bush at this stage to insist that “there is no room for compromise or negotiation” on an Iraqi withdrawal, the timetable for, and the modalities of, a retreat by Hussein’s army to Iraqi territory are appropriate issues for diplomacy. So is the future shape of the government of Kuwait. And it is not inconceivable that an end to the embargo and security guarantees might be given Baghdad in return for disarmament of its chemical-weapons arsenal and other concessions.

But, as the military buildup on both sides continues, power shifts--as inevitable as sand falling through an hourglass--to the warriors. And it’s possible that Saddam Hussein, caught in the eerie psychosis of the tyrant who has gone too far out on the limb of ambition and ego, is incapable of recognizing what is best for Iraq.

THE HOPE: The world has needed a more active peacekeeping role from the heretofore low-profile secretary general, and now there’s a chance it will get one. Better late than never. But as Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev told the Egyptian foreign minister Monday, “The countdown is quickening.” Is Saddam Hussein beyond talking to? Maybe. But it is just possible that a man who almost overnight upended an eight-year-war with Iran may also be a man who can quickly fold his hand in a crisis but 26 days old. Perez de Cuellar should stay in the Middle East as long as it takes to find out if Saddam will listen to reason.