Regional Outlook : Freeing Kuwait: Will It Be Too Little, Too Late? : Bush and many of the allies have another issue on the agenda--driving Saddam from Iraq. What are their chances of doing that?

With Iraq apparently on the verge of either pulling out of Kuwait or being pushed out militarily, the topic of the hour in the Gulf War has suddenly become whether freeing the tiny sheikdom will be nearly enough to satisfy the United States and its allies.

It’s a question which has been nagging at U.S. strategists since allied forces began their war against Iraq just over a month ago, and it was forced into the open after Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein’s failed “peace” offer late last week.

Had Hussein been successful--that is, had he not loaded his proposal with conditions that he knew the allies could not accept--then the West would have faced its worst nightmare: An end to the war that left Iraq militarily intact and able to threaten its neighbors.

The irony underscores some of the ambiguities--and contradictions--that have haunted U.S. policy since the crisis in the Persian Gulf began last August.

For months, the Bush Administration has been describing the allied aim as an Iraqi withdrawal from Kuwait. The implication was that if Saddam Hussein were to turn his troops around and order them back to Baghdad, the allies would also step back, and peace would return.

But now that a fateful moment draws near--either an Iraqi capitulation or the onset of a ground campaign the allies are confident they will win--Washington and its coalition partners are furrowing their brows.

Whether the Iraqis withdraw or not, Bush and other allied leaders don’t want to leave Hussein in power under any circumstances, for fear that--like Egypt’s Gamal Abdel Nasser before him--he might turn the military defeat into a political victory and become an Arab hero. Nor do they want to leave the Iraqi army intact, capable of continuing to be a long-term threat to the region.

On the other hand, if the allies go too far in their military campaign, they risk leaving a power vacuum in Iraq that could provide fertile ground to nurture some new dictator.

It’s a situation that forces Bush to weigh whether the allies’ original war aims go far enough--or if new demands should be added at the last minute even at the risk of kindling anti-war sentiment both at home and abroad.

Moreover, the ability to tailor what the allies see as their inevitable victory to their own taste is a task that may still not be entirely within their power. Even if Saddam Hussein doesn’t come up with some new diplomatic wrinkle, they are for the moment, at least, operating under a United Nations resolution whose stated goal stops with the restoration of Kuwaiti sovereignty.

Virtually all the major scenarios for a quick end to the war have serious potential pitfalls:

If the Iraqi divisions that are deployed in Kuwait are decimated, but the portion of the Iraqi army that remains in Iraq survives--including much of the elite Republican Guard--then despite the huge allied war effort, Iraq can continue to threaten its neighbors.

If Hussein agrees to a withdrawal, but on terms negotiated with a country, such as the Soviet Union or Iran, that is not directly involved in the fighting, then the allies may be forced politically to accept an unsatisfactory solution.

If the Iraqi army fights to the death to hold Kuwait, suffering grievous losses itself but inflicting massive casualties on allied troops, the West will end up paying a higher price than it would like and may be forced to occupy Iraq--a costly and difficult undertaking that may also go well beyond the bounds of the U.N. resolution under which the multinational force is operating against Iraq.

From Washington’s standpoint, the best possibilities would be for the Iraqi military to overthrow Hussein or for the dictator to flee Iraq to save his own life. Both also appear to be unlikely.

Bush has made his own preference clear: “There is another way for the bloodshed to stop, and that is for the Iraqi military and the Iraqi people to take matters into their own hands to force Saddam Hussein, the dictator, to step aside.”

That would avoid the prospect that the allies--particularly the United States--would have to station a huge permanent garrison in the region, something that Washington wants badly to avoid, lest it undermine U.S. hopes for improved relations with the Islamic world.

But U.S. and allied officials in Saudi Arabia doubt that Hussein will be killed or overthrown. Assassination attempts by Iraqi dissidents have been brutally repressed in the recent past.

And, even if an assassination effort were to work, there is no clear successor to Hussein. The major opposition groups in Iraq are disorganized, and all of the potential military or Baathist Party heirs-apparent seem to offer more of the same.

Most experts believe that once the ground war begins in earnest, the Iraqi army will be forced to surrender eventually. From Washington’s standpoint, the best outcome would be brief and intense combat that destroys most of the Iraqi forces with a minimum of allied casualties. But there is no guarantee that the conflict will come out that way.

“If the Iraqi army in Kuwait collapses like the French army did in (Europe in) 1940, the reconquest of Kuwait would be quick,” said George Carver, a former deputy director of the CIA.

“But that would leave Saddam in control in Iraq with much of his army intact.”

Friday’s abortive Iraqi “peace” offer would have left Hussein with an even larger part of his military machine intact by enabling him to avoid the losses from a ground campaign.

Many Administration officials and experts outside the government believe that an unconditional Iraqi withdrawal would frustrate Bush’s determination to neutralize the Iraqi army and de-claw Hussein.

And although an Iraqi pullout could spare the allies a ground assault, it could cause severe long-range problems.

“Any outcome which leaves Saddam in control of Iraq and Iraq’s military machine is a victory for him and a defeat for the United States and will be perceived as such throughout the world and especially on the Arabian Peninsula,” said Carver, now a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

To be sure, a cease-fire, on the surface,looks tempting to many Americans. Secretary of State James A. Baker III promised to abide by such a pledge if the Iraqis were to begin a credible, concrete withdrawal.

Still, the reality could be different. Historically, combatants sometimes agree to cease-fires to avoid additional bloodshed while searching for political solutions to a dispute. A cease-fire is supposed to freeze each army in place, providing no advantage to either side. But in this case, only one side would really stand to benefit--the Iraqis haven’t been doing much effective firing on the allies, anyway.

“If you have a simple withdrawal, if he were able to successfully withdraw and keep his infrastructure and military leadership as it currently stands, I would say it would not be the most desirable situation in terms of a longer-term threat,” said oneWestern official in Saudi Arabia.

“He has to be humiliated,” added an Arab official. “Leaving two-thirds of the Iraqi army is not removing the threat.”

And a Gulf-based diplomat said: “Every member of the (anti-Iraqi) coalition’s approach is something above and beyond a simple withdrawal.”

U.S. officials say that unless Hussein withdraws unconditionally--and soon--the United States and its allies plan to go ahead with a ground assault intended to drive Iraqi troops out of Kuwait. If that happens, experts both in Washington and in the Persian Gulf believe that an allied military victory is inevitable.

But there is a range of ways in which that military victory can be played out, with widely differing implications for the United States and its allies.

Joshua M. Epstein, a military expert at the Brookings Institution in Washington, says there are 24 Iraqi army divisions deployed north of Baghdad that presumably could escape unscathed from the war in Kuwait, for example. Also, much of the Iraqi air force is undamaged. “The question is are we prepared to live with an Iraq like that?” Epstein asks.

And if the Iraqi army fights to the death in Kuwait, it will certainly inflict substantial casualties on the United States and its allies. Some experts believe that Bush might tire of the carnage and sue for peace--though most specialists think that is unlikely.

“The worst case is the ground war is bloody and long,” said Geoffrey Kemp, the National Security Council’s top Middle East expert during the Reagan Administration.

Kemp believes that if the war is protracted, Hussein will be tempted to use chemical weapons. “We can’t allow him (Hussein) to survive after that,” he says, “but in the course of pursuing him we will develop all sorts of new problems.”

One example: Will the allied troops have to track Hussein to his bunker in Baghdad? And, if a relentless allied attack makes Iraq ungovernable, will the coalition be prepared to occupy the country until civil authority can be restored?

“You don’t want a successor installed by foreign bayonets and backed by foreign tanks,” Carver said.

Epstein agrees. “Outside countries like Syria and Iran would support the internal resistance to an imposed government,” he adds.

Allied officials in Saudi Arabia are aware of this problem and say they will avoid an invasion of Iraq if that is at all possible. But they concede that it may be tricky to inflict just the right amount of punishment on Hussein and his regime.

“In essence, you’re not going to bomb it back to the Stone Age,” said a Western official in Saudi Arabia. “If you do, another dictator could emerge.”

Added another: “There’s just too many possibilities out there, and some of them could be negative. You do not want to see Iraq weakened to the point it falls into anarchy. You do not want to see the emergence of somebody even more troglodytic than what you’ve got.”

Some allied officials do leave open the possibility of occupying some small area in southern Iraq, at least for a time--a communications center, for example. But they do not envision taking over an entire city, such as Basra.

“When you start occupying population centers with a million people, you’re going into substantial operations,” said an allied official.

Both in Washington and Riyadh, there is a lingering fear that even in defeat, Hussein can depict himself as the underdog who stood up to the West, at least for a while. Incidents such as the U.S. bombing of the Baghdad facility last week enhance Hussein’s ability to depict the war as a conflict between the West and the Arab world.

This is why most of Washington’s Arab allies believe that Hussein must be humiliated as well as defeated.

“There is a certain element in the Arab world that will always regard Saddam Hussein as a hero,” said Kemp. “But the Arabs are no different from other people. They know a loser when they see one.

“For the first time, the press will get into Kuwait,” he said. “There will be a treasure trove of horror stories about how the Iraqis behaved. In that case, the propaganda war will turn in our favor.”