SADDAM’S INSTANT LEGACY : With All The Talk About War And No-War, No One Is Thinking About The Unprecedented Dangers In A Post-Crisis Middle East.

Whatever the denouement of Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait--through war or diplomacy, confrontation or compromise--the political map of the Middle East is almost certain to be redrawn, and many of the region’s key issues redefined. In the first three months of the standoff in the desert sands, traditional alliances have already been ruptured, political statuses reversed and economies devastated. The long-term fallout of the Persian Gulf crisis, however, includes some unprecedented dangers lost sight of in the obsessive debate over war or no-war.

Four key issues offer a sampling of the “unexplored realities,” the possible byproducts and potential political flash points in the Middle East, post-crisis: the future of Iraq, the political costs for Saudi Arabia, the state of Arab unity and the status of the Palestine Liberation Organization.

First, what happens to Iraq after it’s all over? None of the potential outcomes is very hopeful.

If diplomacy resolves the conflict and Baghdad withdraws from Kuwait:

--Saddam Hussein is still in power.

--He still has his deadly arsenal.

--Iraq still has a million men under arms.

--And Baghdad is still a threat to the gulf.

Under these circumstances, talk of a regional security alliance to keep Baghdad in check is an illusion. The world simply can’t afford to pay for the kind of force now in the Persian Gulf, or anything resembling it, on an indefinite basis. Nor is there any truly regional alliance that could counter Iraq, unless maybe Iran and Israel were included, a very unlikely possibility.

Speculative talk of renewed impetus behind an international ban on chemical weapons or beefing up the biological treaty to make it viable is also an illusion. All the factors that originally led various countries in the Middle East to acquire these weapons are still in play. That’s unacceptable.

Another alternative is taking out Iraq’s arsenal and defanging the world’s fourth largest army in a military confrontation. But again, Hussein is still around. More important, so is “Saddamism,” the magnetic appeal of a strongman who promises to unite the Arabs, address their problems and confront their enemies. A military setback might keep him in check, particularly in light of his heavily indebted economy and his recent humiliating concessions to Iran that left Tehran the de facto winner of their eight-year gulf war. But the political undercurrents of Saddamism would still be one of the most disruptive forces in the region.

Even a massive economic and diplomatic offensive to eliminate the flash points that have made Saddamism so popular among frustrated Palestinians, Jordanians and others could backfire. That offensive involves the superpowers moving to resolve the Arab-Israeli dispute over a Palestinian homeland. It also involves the gulf states injecting billions of dollars into the poorer Arab nations to counter criticism that Arab oil wealth was being provided to the West on a preferential basis.

With some justification, Hussein would claim credit for creating a catalyst for both initiatives. So that’s unacceptable.

The third scenario is a military conflict that includes the elimination of Hussein’s regime--either physically or politically--and its military machine. But then what happens to Iraq?

Most of the alternatives from the Baath Party, the Revolutionary Command Council or the military are likely to do little to end the “regime of fear.” A new leadership in Baghdad from these quarters would be unlikely to encourage or implement moves toward democracy. Hussein’s legend might even survive. Secondly, since opposition either at home or in exile has a limited power base, at best, any others are political wild cards. In a vacuum, long-standing divisions among Sunnis, Shi’as and Kurds could resurface and create friction.

The short-term danger of uncertainty, instability, even chaos in one of the gulf’s most important, most populous, most literate and most oil-rich nations is very high. That’s also unacceptable.

Another unexplored reality is the future of Saudi Arabia when the crisis is over. All the sheikdoms face some tough issues.

The first is military. The crisis has shown that all that oil money can’t buy might. Saudi Arabia may have the title “Guardian of Islam,” but it is in no position to guard anything. Just as it had to bring in foreign troops when it faced an internal threat--regaining control of the Grand Mosque seized by Sunni extremists in 1979--the House of Saud was also forced to rely on others’ might to protect it against an external threat this time around. The royal family is equally unlikely to be able to guard itself or the region’s Islamic landmarks for the foreseeable future.

Saudi vulnerability has been underscored by its military reaction. Despite the magnitude of the perceived challenge from Iraq, there was still no draft or mass mobilization in the kingdom. A few thousand volunteers were trained as a sort of local militia. But the operational premise seemed to remain that the government could hire or rent foreign armies.

A second problem is domestic political reaction. To what degree will Saudi Arabia’s weakness cost the House of Saud long-term support at home? Will dependence on U.S. and Western armies eventually undermine rather than strengthen the gulf monarchies? The answer could well be a resounding “yes,” especially if the crisis is settled by arms--notably Western arms invited in by an Arab nation to fight other Arabs. That grabs the soul of every Arab, not only in the gulf.

Yet another unexplored reality is the fallout within the Arab world. The truth of the pivotal Arab League vote in Cairo on Aug. 10 is that it squeaked through. Twelve of 22 hardly represented a consensus. The organization has been left in disarray. The new tensions and divisions evident on a score of different fronts could play out post-crisis. One telling example has been Saudi relations with Jordan.

The long and solid links between Riyadh and Amman, two of the Middle East’s premier monarchies, faced the first serious threat of rupture. King Hussein of Jordan, who confronted a most lamentable no-win dilemma, masterfully straddled the fence during the first phase of the crisis. But the outbreak of war could make his position almost untenable. His already-troubled economy was forced to accommodate hundreds of thousands of refugees and to absorb the losses from vital trade with Baghdad.

The Saudis were less than understanding of either the king’s economic dependencies or his domestic political problems, particularly at a time Jordan’s democratic experiment is blossoming in some sensitive directions. The Saudi reaction--to cut off oil--was bound to have a lasting and bitter impact among Jordanians and Palestinians.

There is also a serious threat that a war could endanger a split between Arab regimes and Arab masses--ironically, in the case of Syria, at a time Damascus was finally, albeit slowly, opening up politically at home and repairing relations with the West. The use of Syrian troops in a war against Iraq--Arabs against Arabs--carries the potential of destabilizing Syria and fueling the flames of opposition. Although further from the front-lines, the same is true of Morocco and even, possibly, Egypt, both of which have troops in the gulf.

Last but not least, there is the unexplored reality of the PLO and Yasser Arafat. All the laboriously slow progress made since Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon--including Arafat’s renunciation of terrorism and recognition of Israel as well as the start of a dialogue with the United States--was deeply hurt if not obliterated by Arafat’s decision to side with Baghdad.

That may have been politically expedient, short-term. But it also carried obvious and damaging long-term political costs for Arafat, for his organization, for relations between the PLO and pivotal Arab nations, and for the Palestinians’ future. It will be a long time, if ever, before Israel--and perhaps also the United States--will accept Arafat’s word as a guarantee.

But the unexplored reality is that the gulf crisis cannot ultimately end until the Arab-Israeli crisis has also been resolved. The Bush Administration and the United Nations rightly refused to link the two. Saddam Hussein, however, successfully ensured that the tension throughout the Middle East will not even begin to be defused until the issue of a Palestinian homeland is, at last, addressed. That was made even more painfully clear during the October clash at the Temple Mount, in which more than 20 Palestinians died.

But can there be resolution without the PLO and Arafat as a major player? That is unlikely. So while there is a new and unprecedented interest in the West in resolving the Arab-Israeli conflict among the key players, the chasm among the principal players in reality is as deep as ever.

Taken together, all these trends indicate, first, the threat that a new wave of radicalism will survive whatever happens over Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait, endangering experiments with democracy in the region. Second, there is the potential for future instability in regimes that the United States needs most to ensure what President Bush calls “the American way of life.” Finally, today’s trends point to fractures between moderate and long-standing allies necessary for united action on other Mideast flash points.

Despite all the dangers, however, there was still some good news to emerge out of gulf crisis that could, in turn, shape the the post-crisis Middle East in a positive direction. The most obvious good news was the unprecedented unity at the United Nations in a host of resolutions on the gulf that carried the potential to establish a framework for a “new world order.” And the international coalition built to confront Iraq in the desert sands was also unprecedented.

At the superpower level, the United States and the Soviet Union were no longer competitors for influence and allies. More than any other joint effort--in Angola, Cambodia or Nicaragua--the gulf crisis cemented the blossoming partnership between the superpowers on the issue of solving regional conflicts.

These tangible successes were fragile, however, because they were largely based on the premise of diplomacy and sanctions forcing Iraq’s hand and because they did not take into account the fallout inside the region, specifically those unexplored realities.

Whatever the Bush Administration claims, or hopes, there is no returning to the status quo in the Middle East before the Iraqi invasion. Kuwaiti sovereignty may be restored and Saudi security ensured. But the cost-benefit ratio over the long term on a host of other fronts is almost certain not to favor U.S.--or even Saudi and Kuwaiti--interests. In other words, the unexplored realities promise a volatile period in the aftermath of the gulf crisis.