Regional Outlook: Mideast : Gulf States Taking New Look at Regional Defense Force : Living by goodwill is not enough, Gulf Cooperation Council officials say in wake of Kuwait invasion. The council may open its arms to Iran to help bolster political stability.

Even before a resolution to the crisis in Kuwait, the tiny, oil-rich emirates of the Persian Gulf are drawing plans for a major new regional defense force and quietly endorsing the idea of a larger permanent U.S. military presence in the gulf.

And key gulf leaders have become convinced that the Iranian revolution has “failed” and are ready now to admit Iran back into the gulf fold to bolster long-term political stability in the region.

“We have lived by goodwill,” said one government official of the hard lessons learned from the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. “We have discovered that living by goodwill is not enough. Diplomacy has to be based on force.”

In the weeks since the crisis erupted, the Persian Gulf states have begun charting a new course that will expand their base of political cooperation from Turkey to Pakistan, permit U.S. military equipment and access agreements in the gulf on a long-term basis and place the small oil sheikdoms in a position to deter future military assaults.

“We learned two things from this crisis. First, we never trust anybody. No matter how much his intimacy with us is. And second is we have to rely on ourselves,” said Abdullah Bishara, secretary general of the Gulf Cooperation Council, whose members are Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman, Bahrain, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. “Time will not forgive us, and God will not forgive us, if we miss this opportunity.”

The gulf states already are lobbying for a long-term multinational peacekeeping force under the direction of the United Nations on the border between Iraq and Kuwait after any withdrawal of Iraqi troops.

Talks are also under way about establishing a permanent council military defense force of perhaps 150,000 soldiers that would act as a deterrent to any future aggression. “We have to ingrain a fighting spirit in our people. This complacency has to be shaken off,” Bishara said. But while gulf leaders are determined to never again find themselves defenseless and begging for outside help, it is clear they believe that continued stability in the region is also an international responsibility.

Many gulf leaders are now prepared to accept a long-term expanded U.S. naval presence in the gulf and are also ready to offer permanent facilities for U.S. military equipment and trainers, several officials said in interviews over the past two weeks.

“This gulf is almost the palm of human heritage, it’s the heritage of mankind. . . . It is also a gulf of strategic importance, and we want those who benefit from the gulf, who have interests in the gulf, to be represented and demonstrate their commitment,” Bishara said. “In the stability of this area, everybody benefits, internationally. So the stability of the area, the continuity of tranquillity, is an international responsibility.”

In the wake of the Aug. 2 Iraqi invasion, gulf leaders found themselves in a daze of questions and recriminations about how one of the wealthiest regions of the world could have found itself so utterly defenseless.

What about the mutual defense pact that was supposed to send the gulf states rushing to one another’s aid in the event of trouble? What role was the gulf region’s 10,000-member Peninsula Shield defense force supposed to play against an Iraqi army of 1 million? Why had the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council, formed in 1981, failed to establish even a unified economic policy for the gulf? In a region where generous foreign aid had always bought relative security, why were some of the largest recipients of gulf largess--from Iraq to Yemen, Sudan, Jordan and the Palestine Liberation Organization--suddenly turning against their benefactors?

“Their mistake was they tended to believe in this myth of Arab unity, and somehow that vis-a-vis Iraq, they could defend themselves through cooing and billing like lovebirds,” said one Western diplomat long stationed in the region.

The problem, several gulf officials say now, was their failure to realize that even generous foreign aid checks were inadequate protection for the world’s largest petroleum reserves--and also their failure to realize the weaknesses in their own alliances.

Despite the formation of the cooperation council in 1981, the gulf countries, beset by constant squabbling over arcane border issues and other problems, made little progress on issues such as a common currency and passport and made virtually no headway at all on military cooperation.

Now, however, “we are determined to put all of that behind us,” Bishara asserts.

Several gulf officials believe the best way to project a new, stronger front is to develop new strategic alliances, in some cases with nations that as recently as months ago had been sworn enemies. Syria will now be welcomed into the gulf fold, Bishara said. So will Iran.

Gulf leaders held talks in New York with Iran’s foreign minister during the most recent United Nations session about joining a new strategic alliance in the gulf, and gulf leaders say they expect the talks to bear fruit soon--despite the fact that as recently as a few months ago, gulf countries were pouring billions of dollars into the Iraqi war machine to combat Iran, while Iran was aiming missiles at Kuwaiti ships.

For Saudi Arabia, the Islamic revolution in Iran has been one of the single most alarming developments in the region in decades and has been the primary motivation for much of Saudi Arabia’s military buildup in recent years. Yet late last month, Saudi Arabia’s deputy foreign minister, Abdul Rahman Mansuri, visited Tehran amid reports that the two nations may be close to re-establishing diplomatic ties. And Bahrain’s foreign minister, Sheik Mohammed ibn Mubarak al Khalifa, flew to Tehran several days later, expressing “the eagerness and decision of the Bahraini government to expand ties” with Iran.

“The government of Iran had a revolution. They tried to export the revolution and failed,” Bishara said. “There will never be another (Ayatollah Ruhollah) Khomeini, and there will never be the dynamism of the old revolution. It’s failed, and Iran is coming back to status quo. Iran’s interest is now in preserving the balance of power.”

However, the radical Iranian daily Jomhuri Islami, quoted by Iran’s official Islamic Republic News Agency, emphasized that relations could be restored only after Saudi Arabia ousts the U.S. and other multinational forces now in the Saudi desert and allows Iranian Muslims to stage political demonstrations during the annual pilgrimage to the holy city of Mecca.

Bishara ultimately envisions a new Islamic political alliance ranging from Egypt and Syria to Turkey and Pakistan, committed to maintaining the current political structure in the gulf, with Iraq, for the foreseeable future, excluded.

“In terms of their interests and ours, they are intertwined,” Bishara said. “In preserving the structure of the gulf. They benefit from the present structure of the gulf. The Iraqis wanted to challenge it, and they challenged by force and invaded. So the battle between us and Iraq is over the status quo.

“Iraq was never a gulf state, and will never be a gulf state. That’s the problem with Iraq. They want to be a gulf state,” he added. “They are rejected by the gulf, and they have no outlet to the gulf. They never had the gulf mentality. They are Levantine. The gulf mentality is pragmatism, realism, accommodation, peaceful settlement of disputes, respect for treaties, respect for international law.

“The Iraqi regime,” he said, “is parochial, provincial, a bunker mentality, it’s impervious to reason, unreceptive to logic. It manipulates facts and it manufactures lies. It’s a government of delusion.”

Details of a forthcoming military alliance are only beginning to emerge at discussion tables.

Some Kuwaiti officials have talked about a permanent U.S. troop presence in Kuwait once it is liberated, especially if Iraq withdraws from Kuwait with its military capability intact. Other Arab countries say Egyptian troops could do the same job without igniting the anti-Western hostilities elicited by an American military presence.

“I think the Kuwaitis would be happy to see a huge American troop presence. I think the question is whether the U.S. really wants that,” said one Western diplomat.

Instead, he said, it is likely that Kuwait will be asked to provide things like port facilities, refueling stations, opportunities for shore leave for sailors and prepositioning of U.S. military equipment. Saudi Arabia will probably be asked to stockpile U.S. equipment and host an expanded cadre of American military trainers, officials said.

Saudi officials expect to at least double the size of their present 67,500-man armed forces, and the Saudis say that overall the gulf countries can expect to expand their total troop strength to as much as 300,000, with another 100,000 to 150,000 men in reserves. The cooperation council’s talk of a separate, 150,000-member force is “baloney,” said one Saudi official, but he said the council should be able to mount a deterrent force of about 30,000 troops.

In addition, the official said, “you will see more compatibility of equipment, a single command and control structure, joint exercises, that kind of thing,” among the armies of the gulf.

The gulf will face any future military threat with a decidedly more muscular arsenal, thanks to proposed U.S. deliveries of up to $20 billion in new F-15 fighter aircraft, Apache helicopters, M-1 battle tanks, Bradley armored personnel carriers, the Patriot air-defense system, Stinger anti-aircraft missiles--the list goes on long enough to make even the edgiest emirates feel more secure. Along with the arms sales go pledges for training, maintenance and construction projects that could keep large numbers of U.S. military personnel and experts in Saudi Arabia for years.

A Small Police Force for the Gulf The Gulf Cooperation Council, which comprises Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman, Bahrain, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, has contributed at least 17,000 front-line troops to Operation Desert Shield. They are supported by 125,000 troops from council members and other Arab states plus 800 tanks, 330 combat aircraft and 36 naval units.