PERSPECTIVE ON EL SALVADOR : Wilted Carrot, or Stick With Teeth? : Congress may halve military aid to prod negotiations. Acceptance of a U.N. settlement would be better.

The Senate is about to vote on whether to join the House in cutting military aid to El Salvador by 50%. Congressional liberals, with the support of many moderates, see such a cut as a message to the Salvadoran military: Stop the repression and begin negotiating a solution to the war with the leftist guerrillas. Sadly, the message is unlikely to be heard and it could backfire, embarrassing its congressional proponents. Only if the Bush Administration also gets Congress’ message might things be different.

The Dodd-Leahy amendment to the foreign appropriations bill is a compromise between those who want to cut all aid and those who fear that cuts will aid the guerrillas. It calls for $42.5 million in military aid, about 50% of last year’s level, but provides for sending another $42.5 million if the guerrillas won’t negotiate, or if they receive significant foreign arms shipments, or, most important, if they mount an offensive that threatens the government.

These well-intentioned cuts are perhaps the best that can be done politically, but the measure is based on two fundamentally flawed premises about the military and the guerrillas.

First, it assumes that the aid cut will persuade the military to reform--stop the blatant murdering, disappearing, torturing and arresting of the unarmed opposition; bring to justice military criminals, starting with the authors of the Jesuit killings; restructure itself with an officer corps respectful of human rights, loyal to any elected government and obedient to the law and the courts, and negotiate seriously with the guerrillas.

But the military has proved itself resistant to American calls for reform. In early 1989, for example, Vice President Dan Quayle told the military that continued U.S. aid was dependent on the prosecution of soldiers and officers involved in the massacre of 10 peasants in San Sebastian. This was a line drawn in the sand, and the military crossed it with impunity, as it has crossed others in the past decade: Nine men were arrested--and eight were then released. In late September, Quayle again expressed concern to President Alfredo Cristiani, but no serious consequences have followed from the defiance of U.S. wishes.

Worse, the Bush Administration opposed the aid cutback in Congress, sending the Salvadorans an entirely different message.

The second assumption in the aid-cutback strategy is that the guerrillas will temper their offensive actions and make concessions at the bargaining table to avoid triggering the release of the other $42.5 million. But the guerrillas can read the Administration’s waffling as well as the military can, and they know that $100 million in U.S. military aid is still in the pipeline. They want to see significant progress on reforming the military before they will agree to a cease-fire. After all, they argue, if the military will kill priests in cold blood and defy prosecution, what can guerrilla fighters expect if they lay down their arms?

Given the military’s intransigence to date, it would seem rational to the guerrillas to go ahead with an offensive to try to force the army’s hand at the negotiating table. Conservatives will pay no political cost for the military’s intransigence, but if the guerrillas mount a major offensive, the liberals in Washington will take the heat for having “encouraged” it and “trusted” the guerrillas.

If there is one slim hope for this bill, it is in the possibility that the Administration will accept Congress’ advice to change the direction of U.S. policy.

If the Administration faced reality, it would see that the only way to forestall further bloodletting and negotiate a solution in El Salvador is for the State Department to put its full weight behind negotiations mandated by the United Nations--and to do so with other regional powers. A solution must be crafted that makes it rational for the guerrillas and the unarmed opposition to participate in nonviolent politics--and it must protect the lives of their conservative opponents as well. That means a U.N.-monitored demilitarization on both sides and institutional guarantees of security and law enforcement.

Now that we no longer have to fear a Soviet beachhead in the region (if we ever did), there is no vital security interest that prevents the Administration from making an ultimatum to the generals: If you don’t shape up, you’re on your own.