Enter the New World Disorder : Crises in the Persian Gulf and Lithuania rock U.S. foreign policy

The foreign policy of the United States now stands at a crossroads.

Taken alone, either the Persian Gulf impasse or the Lithuanian crisis would hang a heavy black cloud over the basic tenets of the American approach to the world. But taken in combination, the two crises not only challenge American foreign policy but put world peace at grave risk. Coming to a head at exactly the same time, it seems, are the United States’ relationship with the Soviet Union, with the Arab world and, indeed, with our closest ally in the Middle East: Israel.

The Soviet crackdown in Lithuania puts at risk next month’s planned summit meeting between President Bush and Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev. Before it can be held, Washington will want to know who ordered the military operation in the small Baltic state, but it’s hard to imagine an answer to that question that will offer the Bush Administration any comfort. If the decision was made by Gorbachev, then perestroika is in full retreat and Washington’s fulsome support of the Soviet leader will need to be replaced by a more wary policy. Worse yet, if it turns out Gorbachev was not in command and others ordered the crackdown, then the man who won a Nobel Peace Prize and who gained the confidence of so many Western governments may now be a paper president with whom it is pointless to conduct business. So much of the Bush Administration’s foreign policy achievement has rested on this special relationship.

In the Persian Gulf, the government of Saddam Hussein appears utterly unmoved and unmovable, and its people have been told to prepare for war. The fact that United Nations Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar apparently left Baghdad Sunday as empty-handed as Secretary of State James A. Baker III exited Geneva last week no doubt was well noted in Israel, which remains on full military alert. U.S. relations with our closest Middle East ally are now under new strain. Israel is being told to lie low as Baghdad hurls new threats and insults daily. That can’t be easy.

By voting Saturday to support the possible use of military force in the gulf, Congress did indicate support for the option the President says he needs. But the vote was without relish or bloodlust, and one hopes that some diplomatic way out can still be devised, and that a further application of patience by the anti-Iraq coalition will achieve the desired results, getting Saddam Hussein’s army out of Kuwait.

But even the possibility of America fighting a major war in the Middle East at the same time the Soviet army is fighting to preserve the Soviet empire through repression is a jarring note on which to open the new year of the so-called “new world order.”