COLUMN RIGHT : Moscow’s Cynical Agenda : Soviet actions in Iraq cast doubt on all this ‘new world order’ talk.

In recent days, senior Bush Administration spokesmen and some non-governmental foreign-policy experts have served notice on the American people: A “new world order” is emerging to fill a vacuum created by the reputed demise of the Cold War. They suggest that, if the United States will join the Soviet Union in playing a constructive part in the ensuing arrangement, international affairs will henceforth be more stable and secure.

As evidence of the arrival of this new world order, proponents point to the recent series of U.N. Security Council resolutions condemning Saddam Hussein’s aggression and establishing an embargo on imports to and exports from Iraq.

But Soviet cooperation in the Iraq crisis has not been “superb,” as President Bush suggested on Aug. 22. Soviet advisers in Iraq are continuing to perform vital functions for the Iraqi military--notwithstanding the U.N. embargo on supplying goods and services to Baghdad. And there are enough reports of Soviet cooperation with Iraqi security agents and other forms of mischief to suggest that Moscow is pursuing its own agenda, even when doing so is at cross-purposes with stated Soviet policy, to say nothing of Western interests.

Bush Administration and foreign intelligence sources have tried to minimize the significance of these sinister Soviet activities--activities that are fundamentally at variance with the spirit (if not the letter) of the U.N. resolutions, the mandated sanctions and Mikhail Gorbachev’s public statements--by suggesting that they are the work of “rogue” military officers, unresponsive to civilian control.

Such an explanation is extremely troubling. If true, the contention that the Soviet military can and does act without regard for--even in direct contravention of--the wishes or commitments of the Kremlin’s civilian authorities calls into question the prudence of U.S. policies that stake American security to a considerable extent on the good faith of that Soviet leadership.

But if such an explanation is untrue, then Gorbachev and the other civilian leaders of the Soviet Union are party to a cynical double game, one in which they seek simultaneously to nurture improved relations with the United States and its allies--particularly improved access to Western capital and technology--while retaining great latitude to advance their own agenda at the West’s expense.

Soviet behavior at the United Nations appears to support the double-game thesis. The Soviets stalled Security Council approval of the “use of force” resolution for days, insisting on evidence that the sanctions were being violated before force could be used. They also demanded that any such military response be made under the rubric of the United Nations.

While the Soviet Union may have receded for the moment from these demands, settling for a more ambiguous formulation of the resolution and an affirmation that political and diplomatic measures would receive maximum use, the principal Soviet objective seems to have been served: to delay U.S. action and to increase the pressure against unilateral American military steps.

The Kremlin’s approach appears designed not so much to gain speedy resolution of the crisis as to strengthen its own potential hand as crisis mediator--in effect standing between the United States and Iraq, while resisting effective U.S. action. Such behavior belies the claim that the Soviet Union is contributing to the emergence of a new world order to which U.S. security interests can safely be entrusted. Put bluntly, the so-called emerging world order appears to be principally a vehicle for the Soviet Union and others to constrain the United States.

For its part, the Bush Administration’s determination to pursue partnership with Moscow (inside and outside of the United Nations)--seemingly at virtually any price--plays into Soviet hands. At the very least, such a policy is highly susceptible to Kremlin efforts to encumber vital American freedom of action. As a practical matter, it may even preclude the United States from properly defending vital U.S. interests.

Moscow’s double game is likely over the short run to embolden Iraq while constraining the United States, a formula for enormously increasing the stature of Saddam Hussein and the Soviet Union in Arab eyes while dangerously diminishing U.S. standing throughout the region. Over the longer run, Washington’s willingness to play along, in the misguided expectation that doing so will advance some new world order, will actually increase the prospects for instability and conflict.