Canceling Egypt’s $7-Billion Defense Debt

America is now taking on the dubious mantle of maintaining the status quo in the Arab world that was once the exclusive domain of the leading European colonial powers. Due to the diminishing role in the recent past played by these same powers, we are now assuming the role of “hired gun” to preserve that old order.

For the millions of impoverished Arabs, the rise of Saddam Hussein to military and economic power is seen by them as a chance to redress the wrongs so long endured. Much as we may deplore the tactics deployed by Hussein, he appears to these same Arabs as a charismtic leader. Much in the same tradition of Mao Tse-tung, Gamal Abdel Nasser and Ho Chi Minh: leaders in their respective countries who threw off repressive foreign domination.

Certainly the Saudi and Kuwait governments are hardly the type of regimes that the Western world endorses. But that is exactly what we are being asked to uphold. Divested of the high-flown rhetoric, principles and lofty ideas, cheap Persian Gulf oil is the catalyst that triggers the action we are about to take.

M. H. DYKSTRA

Arroyo Grande, Calif.