CRISIS IN THE PERSIAN GULF : Soviets Back U.S., Won’t Rule Out Use of Force : Strategy: But Shevardnadze indicates that Moscow has far more patience than Washington.

With Secretary of State James A. Baker III looking visibly relieved by his side, Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze said Thursday that the Soviet Union agrees with the United States that military force cannot be ruled out in the Persian Gulf.

Shevardnadze made it clear that Moscow still has far more patience than Washington in awaiting a peaceful end to the crisis. But his agreement that Moscow would not stand in the way of military action gave Baker the minimum required at this stage of the U.S. campaign to convince Iraq that the world community is determined to reverse the invasion of Kuwait.

Baker and Shevardnadze spoke at a brief news conference after Baker met for more than two hours with Shevardnadze and Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev at Gorbachev’s secluded dacha outside Moscow. And the two men said their countries are determined to present a common front in the gulf--even if that means that either or both will have to compromise on issues of timing and tactics.

“As for questions of whether the use of force could be ruled out, well, probably this could not be ruled out,” Shevardnadze said. “A situation may emerge which effectively would require such a move.

“Any decision should be taken in the framework of the Security Council and the United Nations,” he added. “I think the Security Council resolutions have demonstrated enough maturity that we should not doubt the ability of the Security Council to take wise and mature decisions. I would advise against looking for some differences in the position between the Soviet Union and the United States.”

Baker, who had seemed to hold his breath when Shevardnadze started his answer, allowed himself a tightly controlled smile before the Soviet foreign minister had finished speaking.

He insisted that he got all he wanted in the Moscow stop of his weeklong tour of seven countries in the Middle East and Europe.

“This was not intended to be a decision meeting,” Baker said.

In the past, Gorbachev, Shevardnadze and other Soviet officials have expressed hope for a peaceful resolution of the conflict while glossing over the question of whether it may become necessary to use force if the U.N.-imposed trade embargo and other economic sanctions do not force Iraq to withdraw from Kuwait.

But President Bush, Baker and other U.S. leaders have warned repeatedly that military action will be used to end the Iraqi invasion if more peaceful methods fail.

According to a senior State Department official, a primary purpose of Baker’s trip to Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkey, the Soviet Union, Britain and France is to sound out world leaders on a proposed U.N. Security Council resolution to provide standby authority for the use of military force if the Iraqi occupation of Kuwait continues. The official said the United States would like action on such a resolution this month during its term in the council presidency.

But Shevardnadze said the Soviet Union is not yet ready to take that step. Instead, he said, the proposed resolution is “a possible future course of action which would be subject to further consultations and discussion. It is too early to discuss that right now.”

Asked if he took that answer as a rebuff, Baker said, “I do not consider that a ‘no.’ ”

Such a resolution would require extensive consultation among the five permanent Security Council members as a first step, and Chinese diplomats indicated privately they had reservations about supporting the use of force while a glimmer of hope for a peaceful solution to the crisis through diplomacy remains.

The specificity of any use of force resolution also was delicate. One issue would be whether the resolution would give broad authority for action or whether it would be more limited in scope with conditions written into the document by the Security Council.

The United States and Britain say authority for military action already exists under Article 51 of the U.N. Charter, which establishes the right of individual or collective defense until the Security Council acts.

But in order to ensure the preservation of the coalition it has built, U.S. diplomats would prefer the council to pass a resolution authorizing collective force.

U.S. Ambassador Thomas R. Pickering is president of the Security Council for November, and Western diplomats see this month as a timely period to seek to put additional U.N. pressure on Hussein. The president of the council in December is the ambassador from Yemen, which initially was skeptical of council action against Iraq.

Baker and Shevardnadze met for a total of 11 hours at the Foreign Ministry’s ceremonial meeting room in Moscow, sandwiched around their trip to Gorbachev’s dacha, located in a birch and fir forest about 10 miles west of the capital overlooking the Moscow River.

Although Gorbachev is believed to do much of his work in the two-story, mustard-colored, stucco house, he seldom receives American guests there. It was believed to be the first visit by a secretary of state, although former President Ronald Reagan was entertained there during the 1988 summit in Moscow.

At the dacha, reporters admitted to the first few minutes of the meeting asked Gorbachev if he believes the world community should set a deadline by which Iraq must end its invasion or face additional action. The Soviet president replied, “Thank you for a good question”--but he made no attempt to answer it.

Ever since Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait on Aug. 2, the Bush Administration has tried to make Iraqi President Saddam Hussein believe that every night when he goes to bed, he could be awakened by the blast of American bombs. So far, Washington’s actions have not matched its bellicose rhetoric, but the United States has moved more than 230,000 military personnel to the gulf and made other preparations for possible combat.

Although the Soviet Union has voted for all 10 Security Council resolutions condemning Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait, Gorbachev and his aides have been far less belligerent in their rhetoric.

Nevertheless, Baker and Shevardnadze said they consider U.S.-Soviet solidarity on the issue to be far more important than any specific strategy.