PERSPECTIVE ON THE PERSIAN GULF : Beware Timidity in the Endgame : It is lightly stated that the United States would be isolated in a military crunch. I do not believe this.

From the initial deployment of U.S. forces to the skillful weaving of international support, the Bush Administration’s management of the Persian Gulf crisis has been flawless. But foreign policy is remembered for its endgames.

For economic and political reasons, I doubt a stalemate can be sustained, either by our associates or by the United States. The rise in oil prices has already reduced growth projections in the industrial democracies by 1% and greatly increased the danger of inflation. No one can know at what oil price support for sanctions would erode. But it would be reckless to ignore the prospect.

On the political front, a prolonged stalemate is likely to undermine the domestic stability of our Arab associates. Large numbers of foreign forces on Saudi soil--however well-meaning--must be grating to a population carefully shielded heretofore from contact with the outside world. Radical propaganda labeling foreigners as occupiers will become increasingly plausible. Harassment and sabotage will increase.

The same factor that led to the rapid U.S. deployment--the need to sustain moderate governments in the gulf--makes it imperative to create the right conditions for an equally rapid withdrawal.

The key decision before the Administration is thus to define what constitutes a tolerable outcome. But this is muddled in the current debate, which treats diplomacy as a self-contained exercise equated with compromise and with saving the other side’s face. These slogans, drawn from the experience of a society that has rarely known irreconcilable differences, are irrelevant to Saddam Hussein’s Iraq.

Iraq’s use of hostages, for example, is without precedent. When hostages were first taken two decades ago, the culprits were outlaw groups unavowed even by governments that encouraged them. Terrorism then evolved into tacit government support targeted mostly on government personnel. Hussein has now escalated it to a head of state taking action against thousands of innocent civilians from all over the world.

In these circumstances, saving Iraq’s face is the exact opposite of what is needed. For it would enable Hussein to claim some gain from his aggression, while the goal of gulf strategy must be to demonstrate its failure.

The test of that demonstration will be how the outcome is perceived by actual or potential victims. Early on, there was some argument over whether U.S. vital interests justified the deployment in the gulf. That debate has since been overtaken by the scale of our deployment and the number of countries that have followed U.S. leadership.

This international support can only be due to two factors: The other nations either agree with the United States about the need to stop Iraqi aggression; or they consider whatever reservations they have outweighed by their need for America’s long-term support. The perception of U.S. failure would therefore shake international stability. Every moderate country in the Middle East would be gravely weakened. Egypt, Morocco and even Turkey would face a tide of radicalism and fundamentalism.

President Bush is right in insisting that no compromise of the U.N. resolutions--Iraq’s unconditional withdrawal from Kuwait, the unconditional release of all hostages and the restoration of Kuwait’s legitimate government--is possible. Any modification would amount to an Iraqi gain and a defeat for the United States and its associates.

It is important to keep this in mind in view of the facile argument that the United States must not run risks on behalf of the emir of Kuwait. By insisting on a restoration of pre-invasion conditions, neither the United Nations nor the United States is passing judgment on the emir’s qualities. They are asserting that the most repressive regime in the region does not have the right to sit in judgment over the domestic legitimacy of its neighbors. Of course, these traditional governments will, in time, change. But their evolution should be guided by their own dynamics.

The U.N. terms, in one respect, already represent a compromise with what is needed for peace and with what is compatible with the massive international deployment. Were Hussein suddenly to accept them, he would preserve the essence of his power, although it would represent a huge loss of prestige for him. It might even bring home the need for a more moderate Iraqi leadership--especially if Hussein were replaced as a consequence.

But this could easily turn out to be wishful thinking. The strategic relationship that encouraged Iraqi aggression would remain. Iraq would retain its chemical and nuclear capabilities. Iraq’s large standing army would preserve its capacity to overwhelm the area. Reducing Iraq’s disproportionate military capacity is especially important if U.S. forces are to be withdrawn rapidly, as I believe they should be.

To think that the area can be protected by multilateral security treaties is a fantasy. The experience of the defunct Baghdad pact and of the Southeast Asian Treaty Organization shows the fragility of multilateral arrangements in regions where the nations involved have no coherent objectives or means of mutual support and frequently shift allegiances.

Paradoxically, it would be undesirable to reduce Iraq’s armed forces below what is needed to maintain equilibrium with its neighbors, especially in light of their demonstrably low threshold of resistance to the temptations of a military vacuum. The democracies’ support for Iraq during the war with Iran was a reflection of their commitment to Iraq’s territorial integrity. What they are resisting now is having their economies and their peace held at ransom by a megalomaniacal ruler.

For all these reasons, I would feel more comfortable if the United States sought to strengthen the U.N. resolutions by insisting on internationally monitored reductions of Iraq’s military capabilities. But were Hussein to yield to sanctions without war, Bush might well decide that he could not go beyond the existing U.N. resolutions, without which the sanctions would never have been implemented. Such an outcome would be as understandable as it would be precarious. It must be entered into--if at all--with the knowledge that it would require a much higher degree of continued vigilance and a larger U.S. presence in the area than is desirable. If a military clash occurs, the United States should seek an outcome more consistent with long-term stability.

The Administration must therefore decide how long it is prepared to wait for sanctions to work and how far it is prepared to go without unanimous international support. I do not know whether the decision must be made in October or November. I would be very uneasy were it to be delayed into the new year, for I believe the entire enterprise might then begin to unravel.

It is lightly stated that the United States would be isolated in a military crunch. I do not believe this. The moderate Arab states would welcome a decisive U.S. move if it were demonstrably the only alternative to Hussein’s succeeding. As for our allies, conditions are unusually favorable for a U.S. initiative. In short, the United States is not likely to find itself isolated were it to decide, after an appropriate testing period, that sanctions are not working; indeed, the most likely road to isolation is by way of a protracted crisis.

In the flush of rediscovered multilateralism, the United States must not subordinate all long-range policy to the heady glow of internationalism or to the tactics of the moment. Even though I have consistently urged the inclusion of Syria in the Middle East peace process, I cannot repress my uneasiness at the eagerness with which the United States welcomed the movement of a Syrian armored division to Saudi Arabia. Do we know how to make it leave?

In overcoming the current crisis, the United States must not emerge as the permanent defender of every status quo. But the path to peace and progress resides in success in the gulf. Afterward, the United States, together with its Arab partners, can demonstrate the benefits of cooperative action in promoting the well-being of the Arab peoples. Also, it should energetically seek to make progress toward a settlement of the Arab-Israeli conflict, especially now that looming disaster might have brought all sides second thoughts about the nature of a peace and suitable participants in peace negotiations.

Sometimes platitudes turn out to be true. This is the test of the post-Cold War era. It remains for the Administration to reap the benefits of its courageous efforts.