Rapidly Diminishing Returns of Using Economic Sanctions to Tame Hussein : Iraq: By the time it is evident that the sea and air embargo alone cannot succeed, a credible military option will probably no longer exist.

The United States is approaching the point in the Middle East crisis where a choice must be made. It simply cannot afford to let its first post-Cold War act of global leadership drift into a stalemate between a war of controversial purpose or the abandonment of goals adamantly reiterated by both President George Bush and the international community.

The U.S. objectives--unconditional Iraqi withdrawal from Kuwait; restoration of its legitimate government, and unconditional release of all hostages--have been affirmed repeatedly in U.N. resolutions. Yet the Administration has been strangely reluctant to explain in what way these objectives reflect U.S. national interest.

Americans must not be given the impression that they have a duty to go to war against every evil leader in the world and against every transgression of the international order. The American people need to understand why this specific aggression by this particular leader, if unchecked, will threaten their own security and pose ever more difficult choices down the road.

The reluctance to define the U.S. national interest has been matched by vagueness on what means are required to reach the objectives. According to official pronouncements, the U.N. goals are to be achieved by sanctions leading to negotiations, if possible, but, as a last recourse, by military means. These approaches have been presented as if they were successive phases of the same policy. In fact, they will prove mutually exclusive--because by the time it is evident that sanctions alone cannot succeed, a credible military option will probably no longer exist.

To achieve the proclaimed objectives by sanctions, at least six hurdles must be overcome: The sanctions must bite; they must be maintained throughout any negotiations; compromise proposals cannot be considered; once the U.N. terms are achieved, arms-control objectives must be addressed; the military option must remain intact psychologically, technically and diplomatically during negotiations, and there must be no other upheavals to deflect the United States or to rend allied cohesion.

To state these hurdles is to set forth the practical impossibility of clearing them. Upheavals in the Middle East, for one thing, are a way of life. In one recent week, Egypt’s second highest-ranking official was assassinated, Syria battled Christian forces in Beirut, and 21 Palestinians died in Jerusalem.

If the sanctions do bite in time to be politically relevant, Iraq is more likely to offer to negotiate. In that case, pressures to ease the sanctions will be difficult to resist. Which democracy will want to be responsible for starvation in Iraq and Kuwait once negotiations are under way?

The fundamental dilemma is that the U.N. terms leave no real room for negotiation--except perhaps the staging of the Iraqi withdrawal. Thus, all so-called diplomatic solutions effectively dilute the U.N. objectives, while maintaining Iraq’s war-making potential.

For example, even if Saddam Hussein accepts the principle of withdrawal from Kuwait, he has already hinted--and Soviet presidential aide Yevgeny M. Primakov has confirmed--that he would define Kuwait as excluding a strip of land containing a major oil field as well as two islands controlling access to the Shatt el-Arab. Would the United States or the United Nations be prepared to go to war over such a distinction, especially in light of the hints we seem to have given to Hussein before his invasion that we had no strong views about his border dispute with Kuwait?

Hussein’s Arab neighbors will surely note that none of the publicly discussed proposals would reduce Iraq’s military pre-eminence or restore Kuwait completely. If they conclude that, they will be condemned to live with a dominant Iraq, these countries will begin their own negotiations. Recent remarks by the Saudi defense minister suggest that the haggling has already begun. But will the psychological basis for a military option still exist after months of such inconclusive maneuvering? And without a realistic military threat, how can the U.S./U.N. objectives be achieved?

Many who had urged the sanctions route seem to have accepted that their strategy cannot reach the stated goals. But rather than re-examine the strategy, they are watering down their objectives. President Francois Mitterrand, for example, has suggested that as soon as Iraq accepts the principle of withdrawal--in other words, before it actually withdraws--its grievances against Kuwait could be negotiated.

The common feature of the schemes is that they undermine the military option by consuming time, exact no penalty for aggression, looting a country or taking hostages and leave as the only disputed issue the extent of the aggressor’s gains.

To be fair, many who opt for sanctions-induced negotiations recognize this dilemma. They propose to protect a settlement with a new regional security system based on a significant U.S. military presence in Saudi Arabia. This is a dangerous mirage. If, after the adamant pronouncements from Washington and the deployment of a large expeditionary force, the stated U.S. objectives could not be reached, no gulf state would easily entrust its fate to a long-term U.S. presence.

Even if despair led some of the gulf nations to invite a continued U.S. ground presence, this would, at best, be temporary and, at worst, accelerate the mounting chaos. The issue in Arabia is not U.S. staying power but the host country’s domestic stability. A substantial U.S. ground establishment would soon become the target of radical and nationalist agitation. Once Iraq has faced down U.S. and U.N. terms, such a force would, sooner or later, become hostage to revolutionary Iraq, fundamentalist Iran and events substantially out of our control. And no Arab force is available to balance Iraq in the gulf in such circumstances.

Hussein’s intransigence may well reflect the calculation that every passing week erodes the likelihood that the forces assembled in the desert can be used against him; if war appears imminent, he can always defuse the crisis by opening negotiations along the lines sketched here. And he will be confirmed in these views by the many recent visitors, both official and free lance, searching to compromise what cannot be compromised.

In short, if the United States is to emerge intact from the Middle East, it must choose a strategy appropriate to its objectives or else choose objectives achievable by whatever policy the Administration is willing to implement. And there should be no illusions. In the immediate aftermath of Iraqi aggression, it was perhaps possible to limit damage by a policy of stabilizing the Kuwaiti-Saudi border. But after the deployment of a vast expeditionary force and the Administration’s unqualified call for unconditional withdrawal, merely stabilizing the Saudi-Kuwaiti border would undermine America’s relevance to the Middle East and shake moderate Muslim governments from the gulf to Morocco, including Egypt and even Turkey.

The Administration must decide at what point the sanctions will turn into an alibi to dilute our objectives. Choosing war will be neither easy nor attractive. This is, in fact, the President’s dilemma. But that such a decision might have to be made has been implicit in the Administration’s actions and pronouncements throughout. Precisely because the decision is so grave, it should not be generated by frustration or petulance.

Reports suggest that Washington is waiting for a suitable provocation. It is hard to see what more Iraq might do to justify military action than to engage in naked aggression, to systematically violate human rights, to loot and destroy the nation of Kuwait and take a thousand American hostages.

The diplomatic scenario by which military action can be implemented requires especially thoughtful preparation. Two methods are available: authorization by the United Nations and a unilateral invocation of Article 51, which defines the right of self-defense.

If we seek U.N. approval, we are likely to discover the limits of collective security. The debates are certain to be protracted, giving Iraq an opportunity to strengthen its defenses and perhaps to preempt. Any authorization would almost surely be hedged with restrictions that may defeat its purpose.

To invoke Article 51, the Administration needs to prepare the American people and involve the Congress. The President would have to spell out why he insists on the U.N. terms, why they may lead to military action and why an important objective of such a conflict would be to establish a stable balance of power in the gulf. None of this, he must make clear, will be easy or cost-free.

If the President decides on such a course, it is to be hoped that military strategy remains related to realistic political objectives. America has no national interest in weakening Iraq to a point where it becomes a tempting target for covetous neighbors. If war does prove unavoidable, our objective should be not to destroy Iraq, but rather to raise the cost of occupying Kuwait to unacceptable levels while reducing Iraq’s capacity to threaten its neighbors.

As the Administration makes its decisions, it deserves sympathy for the anguish of its choices and the fortitude with which it has managed events up to this point. It is to be hoped that it can find a way that avoids both a military strategy of total destructiveness and a diplomatic strategy committed to amassing U.N. resolutions. But whatever our destination, we must arrive at it by design rather than as captives of circumstance.