Is Iraq Another Lebanon? The Huge Odds’ Against It : Gulf: Two factions are fighting against Saddam Hussein for control of Iraq, but neither has enough outside support to succeed.

Iraq contains at least two separate factions, each fighting to control its own destiny--the Kurds in the north and the Shiites in the south. The apparent parallels with a splintered Lebanon is a haunting concern of the United States, European leaders and of governments in the region.

But prospects of a Lebanonized Iraq are unlikely. To compare the situation with Lebanon is more of a fantasy than a parallel.

Lebanese chaos has been sustained not merely by the much larger number of dissident factions within the country but by the fact that each has been supported by a foreign sponsor seeking to gain its own tactical advantage by intervening whenever it sees an opportunity. These include the Syrians, who have used their influence with the Shiite minority; the Maronite Christians, who for a long while were supported by Israel and who still have valuable dealings with the French; the Israelis, who maintain a mercenary force in a southern enclave; the Druze, who draw strength from their opposite-member community in Syria, and the Sunnis, who have close relations with the Gulf states.

Of the two Iraqi factions that oppose the current government in Baghdad, the Kurds present far less danger than the Shiites, since they have no close ties with other nations.

In spite of the sympathy the Kurds have evoked as a homeless people, their political emergence is opposed by all countries with substantial Kurdish communities. Not just the government of Iraq but also that of Turkey, Syria and Iran--as well as the Soviet Union, with 500,000 Kurds in its territories--have recently agreed not to permit the Kurds to build a state of their own, and so set a dangerous precedent. Despite the admiration of Americans for the Kurds’ seemingly endless heroism in their heartbreaking struggle for independence, the United States and its Western allies all appear to have decided the creation of a Kurdish state would be exorbitantly disruptive.

It is against this background that one should examine the proposal, primarily pressed by British Prime Minister John Major, to create a protected enclave within the boundaries of Iraq that the Kurdish refugees might be returned to. Desirable as this might be as a temporary compassionate solution, it will probably not prove feasible. Both Turkey and Iran would certainly oppose it--since it would provide at least the menacing vision of a Kurdish government that might well fuel existing insurgencies in both countries.

The other chief opponents to the Iraqi government, the Shiites, do not even evoke the sympathy the Kurds engender. Unlike the factions in Lebanon, the dissident Shiites in Iraq have few friends; but they do have many enemies who fear that any support for the Shiites would have harmful repercussions with their own populations.

In spite of the continuing temptation for expansionism caused by the amorphous borders in the region, most nations feel constrained to operate largely by subversion, since the major Western powers--and the Soviet Union--are opposed to any breakup of Iraq. Turkey and Iran have agreed to forgo using the current crisis as an excuse to annex any Iraqi territory. Even the nations of the Gulf fear that the spread of Islamic fundamentalism among their large Shiite minorities could greatly increase the role of Iran in the Gulf.

There are several reasons why the most somber apprehensions may have been exaggerated. Though many observers thought the beleaguered Iraqi Shiites would receive substantial help from their Iranian co-religionists, help did not materialize. This confirmed the probability that the ties between Iraqi and Iranian Shiites are overstated.

Though sharing similar religious beliefs, the Iraqi Shiites are Arabs who do not wish to become a part of an Iranian religious state. Moreover, the Iraqi Shiites are speak Arabic, not Farsi. They have their own hierarchy of ayatollahs and mullahs, who would strongly resist being supplanted by Iranians. That point was made clear in the Iran-Iraq War, when Iraqi Shiites docilely furnished the bulk of forces fighting for Iraq.

This is one reason why Iran, for its part, is reluctant to get too deeply engaged with the Iraqi Shiites. The Iranians have already fought one disastrous war with Iraq, and have no desire to get engaged in another major conflict.

In the end, the member nations of the coalition that fought Iraq in the Gulf War would all resist the idea of an Iranian-associated Shiite faction dominating Iraq for essentially the same reasons that many of them, including the United States, opposed Iraq’s control of Kuwait. Adding Iraqi oil production to that of Iran would give a new, Iranian-dominated Shiite regime not only a large part of the world’s oil supplies but might, by subverting the Arab Shiites from Kuwait to Qatar, lead to a takeover of the Gulf states. The result would give Iran--a country hostile to the United States--control over 57% of the world’s oil production and resources.

At the beginning of the Gulf War, the United States demonstrated its ability to move, overnight, massive quantities of men and materiel, and the world was greatly impressed. The most the United States can now do to help the Kurds is the repeat the brilliance of that performance in the movement of the necessities of life, while directing the Kurds to sanitary and protected camps in Turkey and Iran--at least until the Iraqis produce a change of regime that enables them to return home without excessive danger.

That is all we can do at the moment, for it is too late to resume a major war with the Iraqis without the danger of committing the United States to an endless task in a terrain inhospitable both for physical and political reasons.

Sooner or later, it seems likely that Hussein will be overthrown. But the probabilities are that his successor will be equally unsavory, while commanding a united and weakened, if potentially formidable, nation.