Setbacks Widen U.S. Role in Gulf Security

Efforts to build a new postwar security alliance in the Persian Gulf have been dealt a series of setbacks in recent weeks, dividing the moderate Arab coalition forged during the Gulf crisis and threatening to drag the United States even deeper into volatile Middle East politics.

The Bush Administration, already hip-deep in flagging efforts to broker a settlement to the long-running Arab-Israeli conflict, now finds itself with an indefinite commitment of U.S. troops in northern Iraq and perhaps also in the Gulf, where plans to establish an all-Arab peacekeeping force abruptly collapsed last week with a new feud among the United States’ Arab allies.

Egypt’s unexpected announcement that it will pull its entire contingent of 38,000 troops out of Saudi Arabia and Kuwait may mark the end of U.S.-orchestrated efforts to build a new triad of power--centered on Egypt, Syria and Saudi Arabia--as the nucleus of both security in the vulnerable Arabian peninsula and a new “Arab order.”

Under a much-heralded pact signed in Damascus in March between the six Gulf states and their wartime allies, Egypt and Syria, at least half of the almost 60,000 Egyptian and Syrian troops participating in the 28-nation coalition were expected to remain in the Gulf to provide protection on the ground.

A limited number of U.S. forces could then have maintained a low profile, relying on pre-positioned warplanes and materiel in Saudi Arabia and a less visible naval presence in the Gulf, in case of future threats to the oil-rich sheikdoms.

But Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak’s announcement Wednesday that Egyptian forces will be withdrawn immediately appears to threaten the entire basis of the so-called Damascus Declaration and leaves in question who will provide protection to the world’s richest oil-producing region.

Although Iraq’s army and arsenal were seriously damaged during the 42-day Gulf War, Baghdad still has an estimated half a million troops and reserves, compared to fewer than 200,000 in all six Gulf states. The six are Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Oman, which together form the Gulf Cooperation Council.

The breakdown in the fledgling Gulf alliance appears to reflect a preference on the part of the wealthy, intensely private Gulf states to rely on proven U.S. military power for their future defense--even if it is limited to quiet pledges--rather than maintain contingents of Arab troops that many regard as expensive and inefficient and which may serve as volatile reminders of decades-old disputes and rivalries that have long divided the Arab world.

“The Saudis and the Kuwaitis would prefer Americans or British or French, because they will go home,” explained one Gulf diplomat. “They are not an influence, they’re isolated because they don’t speak the language, they don’t carry a lot of trappings with them. The Egyptians and Syrians do.”

A Saudi official familiar with defense policy-making said that the Saudis regard outside Arab forces as “more of a liability than an asset.”

“They cost so much money with very little benefit,” he said. “What happened is that people in the Gulf felt the Egyptians wanted to use the presence of the troops for a sort of blackmail, financial blackmail. And I think what happened was we said, ‘The hell with you, we don’t need you.’ ”

Syria’s ambassador to the United States, Walid Mouallem, said Saturday that Damascus will not make a decision on its 20,000 troops until a meeting of Arab foreign ministers scheduled for Wednesday in Cairo.

Although Mubarak provided no explanation for Egypt’s unexpected move, Arab and U.S. officials say Cairo was outraged by Saudi indecision and angered by Kuwaiti arrogance. Both countries had made Egypt feel “unwelcome,” according to a ranking Arab envoy.

“Pride is playing a very fundamental role in Mubarak’s policy. If we are not welcome, if we are not received as we should be, then we will go home,” said a source close to the Egyptian president. “It’s up to them to decide. If they want us, they can ask for us, the same way as they are asking for the Western powers.”

Egypt had initially wanted to maintain troops in the Gulf, both as a symbol of its importance in the Arab world after a decade of isolation for signing the Camp David peace accords with Israel and because of the expected Gulf aid for Egypt’s troubled economy.

But sources in Cairo said Egypt was irritated that it had received only a small share of the millions of dollars in contracts awarded for Kuwait’s reconstruction and was further incensed when a $15-billion aid program pledged by the Gulf countries to their poorer Arab neighbors was first reduced to $10 billion and then became the object of a proposal by several Gulf ministers that the funds be restricted to the recipient nations’ private sectors.

Moreover, the Egyptians were said to be annoyed with what they perceived as foot-dragging on the part of the Gulf states in deciding on the precise terms of the future security arrangements. In more than two months since the March 6 signing of the Damascus Declaration, they said, no meetings with senior Egyptian leaders had been scheduled, save the upcoming Arab League meeting in Cairo.

“I’m sure the Egyptians probably expected there would be some kind of payment for maintaining their troops in the field,” said one diplomat based in the Saudi capital. “That’s to be expected. And when the Saudis sat down and thought about it, they probably decided it was more in their own interests to spend their money in terms of building up their own defenses, rather than trying to support an Egyptian force.” “Look at it this way,” he went on. “Everybody’s sort of sitting around waiting for somebody to do something, and finally Mubarak said, ‘. . . I can’t keep my guys there in the field for nothing. They haven’t promised me anything. I’d be a fool leaving them sit there and foot the bill myself.’ Perhaps he felt it might precipitate a request.”

Indeed, an Egyptian Foreign Ministry official said in an interview that Cairo does not regard the alliance envisioned by the Damascus Declaration as dead and is ready to participate in any security arrangement for the Gulf that is finally determined.

“We Egyptians are very proud people. We are very sensitive, and we hate to impose ourselves on others,” he said. “The countries concerned are still thinking about the mix of the security arrangements that they would like to see, and until they get their act together and they make up their minds, we decided to retreat and wait until we see what they will come up with.” But if the Gulf states have decided to rely exclusively on American protection for the future, the Egyptian Foreign Ministry official said, “It would be very regrettable indeed. I don’t think any one of them would ever dare to tell us this.”

A senior U.S. official, speaking in Damascus on Saturday, said it seems clear that the six Gulf nations are concerned that the Egyptians, or even more likely, the Syrians, might become something of a permanent army of occupation, much as the Syrian army has done in Lebanon.

Instead, the U.S. official said, the six Gulf nations have decided to upgrade their own military forces by purchasing additional modern weapons and increasing their manpower substantially.

U.S. officials still claim that American forces will be withdrawn as quickly as possible from the Middle East and warn that the Gulf countries should not expect any permanent American troop presence. But a senior Administration source admitted that the Egyptian withdrawal might require some “rethinking” about the U.S. military role.

Arab officials appear to be banking on the expectation that trouble is far from view, and should it appear on the horizon, U.S. forces will be only a telephone call away--and perhaps better prepared to respond quickly.

“There is absolutely no threat in the very near future,” said one Saudi close to defense policy-making, “and in any case, the ability of the U.S. to add more forces in a short time is obviously superior to (that of) the Egyptians.”

The second setback to the Bush Administration’s postwar strategy was Baghdad’s refusal to allow a U.N. police force to replace the United States in northern Iraq, formally relayed by U.N. Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar to President Bush on Thursday.

The Iraqi refusal could indefinitely delay withdrawal of U.S. and European forces involved in Operation Provide Comfort to repatriate Kurdish refugees who fled to Turkey after their failed uprising in March.

Although Kurdish leaders are engaged in talks with the regime of President Saddam Hussein about autonomy to formally resolve Kurdish disputes with Baghdad, they have stipulated that any agreement and the return of up to 2 million refugees would be contingent on a U.S. or U.N. presence.

U.S. officials reject a permanent presence in the Kurdish region, but an Administration source admitted that Baghdad’s rejection puts the United States in an awkward position.

For the time being, both developments leave the Bush Administration groping for a strategy to get U.S. forces out of the three Gulf states as well as to heal the new rifts within the Arab world--even as Secretary of State James A. Baker III begins a new round of shuttle diplomacy in an attempt to resolve the region’s oldest dispute.

Murphy reported from Egypt and Israel and Wright from Washington. Staff writer Norman Kempster contributed to this report from Damascus.