Next Step : A New World Order Finally Plays the Middle East : * The release of the last American hostages reflects a regional attitude shift that is not likely to be reversed.

The release of the final three American hostages in Lebanon last week is the latest signal that the Middle East may finally be joining the “new world order.”

Although the quantity and quality of change in that most troubled and volatile region still lags far behind other parts of the world, U.S. officials and private analysts believe that most states are now engaged in processes--economic, political or social--that cannot easily be reversed.

“There’s been a big earthquake around the world and it’s also shaking up the Middle East,” said William B. Quandt, a National Security Council specialist in the Jimmy Carter Administration now at the Brookings Institution.

“Political liberalization has made better progress than real democratization. But the attempt to close off Mideast societies is pretty much at an end, with few exceptions.”

Most of the changes augur well for the United States, which already has virtually unchallenged influence in the region. The atmosphere is growing ripe to improve or upgrade diplomatic relations with some countries, such as Lebanon, Syria and Yemen, or to move toward restoring ties with others, such as Iran.

Washington is also better positioned to put the squeeze on the last militant holdouts, notably Libya and Iraq, without an Arab backlash, while budding cooperation on counterterrorism is expected to slowly expand to include former rivals and state sponsors, specifically Syria.

With an added boost from the Soviet demise, new markets could open for American and Western consumer goods, technology and arms in every country that can afford them.

U.S. analysts caution that many of the shifts will take considerable time to fully take root. Washington should also not assume that the budding pluralism in these countries will always lead to the evolution of pro-American parties. Elections in Algeria and Jordan have resulted in Islamic groups emerging as the leading opposition force.

The release after almost seven years in captivity of Terry A. Anderson, the last American hostage, underscored the dramatic shifts in two of the region’s most militant and controversial nations--Iran and Syria.

In Iran, the decision to use the Islamic republic’s leverage over the Lebanese captors was, in fact, only one of the smaller changes over the past month. In November, Iran announced plans to overhaul its economy and shift foreign policy priorities.

To establish a free market, Tehran said it will lift controls on foreign investment, production and currency rates; deregulate banking; expand private ownership, and open a stock exchange. Iran’s latest five-year development plan calls for $25 billion in foreign investment.

Instead of emphasizing export of its revolution, President Hashemi Rafsanjani told delegations from 128 countries attending a summit in Tehran that Iran’s foreign policy will now be centered on “respect for territorial integrity as well as the social and religious values of other peoples.”

Parliamentary elections scheduled for 1992--the fourth since the 1979 revolution--are expected to be the liveliest and most open to date.

The Islamic republic’s slate is still far from clean. It has not yet severed ties with extremists, especially Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement, although aid has dropped significantly during the past two years.

And in August, a French judge handed down an indictment against an Iranian government official for a role in this year’s assassination of Shahpour Bakhtiar, the last prime minister to Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, who had been living in exile in Paris for more than a decade.

But U.S. analysts and Administration officials believe that the revolution has altered its course. “Iran will now be much more of a normal state and less of a revolution,” said Quandt. “It was bound to come, but it took a long time.

“That doesn’t mean Iran will be a paragon of virtue, but it will play more by the normal rules of diplomacy and engage in less of the revolutionary stuff of the past.”

After years of being the U.S. nemesis in the Mideast, Syria has done a more visible about-face, which was most evident in the participation of its troops under U.S. command against Iraq during Operation Desert Storm.

But Syria’s willingness to sit down across from Israel in U.S.-orchestrated peace talks--rather than play the role of spoiler, as Damascus has done so often in the past--is widely interpreted as a more convincing sign of changing policies.

This year, U.S. counterterrorism and intelligence officials also held their first formal discussions in Damascus with their counterparts on a host of contentious issues. Among them were the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 that killed 270, Syrian support for Palestinian hard-liners, the operation of terrorist training camps in Lebanon’s Syrian-controlled Bekaa Valley and, of course, the American hostages.

The talks were a byproduct of the Gulf War, when Damascus was credited with having warned a variety of extremist groups about terrorist attacks against the 28 nations in the multinational force.

Although Syria played only a bit part in the release of Western hostages, the recent changes are expected to lead to the removal of its name from the State Department’s list of state sponsors of terrorism.

But the changes have not, so far, been matched by significant moves toward political pluralism. Only last month, President Hafez Assad, who has ruled since 1969, was reelected in an uncontested parliamentary vote.

According to Administration sources, events in Damascus reflect how many of the changes in the Mideast are a reaction to events in the outside world rather than an internal initiative in response to domestic demands.

“A lot of what we’re seeing isn’t coming from their hearts. It’s often because they can’t afford their old policies anymore or because they’ve lost the props that held them up,” said a senior Administration specialist.

In the case of Syria and the region’s other socialist states, the demise of the Soviet Union and the Eastern European revolutions have been a catastrophic political and financial loss, giving it few options but to warm up to the West.

“The collapse of the Soviet Union has had a tremendous impact on a whole generation of people for whom that experiment represented the alternative to Western liberal democratic values. Given their prior political experience with colonialism, there was a strong interest in finding an alternative,” Quandt said.

“The Soviet model was great for consolidating power, but lousy for developing economies. The inability of that model to address the fundamental socioeconomic problems forced a lot of people to start down the path of economic reform and grudgingly accept that it meant political change as well.”

Little Lebanon, where more than 130 foreigners from at least 22 countries have been held captive since 1982, has virtually been transformed over the past year. A cease-fire imposed by an Arab League mediation team in October, 1990 has actually held, allowing the war-ravaged country to begin rebuilding after 15 years of civil strife and tens of thousands of deaths.

Politically, a more equitable division of power between minority Christians and majority Muslims has defused tension. The government of President Elias Hrawi is now preparing for next year’s parliamentary elections, the first since 1972.

The situation is still far from normal. Chunks of Lebanon remain under foreign control. Syrian troops control the east, and Israel has maintained an enclave along the southern border since 1978.

But most of the local militias have been disarmed, at least for the time being, and Iran recently announced that it would withdraw its Revolutionary Guards. Once the last two German hostages are freed, U.S. officials predict the renewal of foreign aid and assistance in Lebanon’s reconstruction--and possibly even the return of Western personnel.

Even more important long-term than an end to the hostage drama is the Mideast peace process, scheduled to open a new round today. Despite the Administration’s deep frustration with niggling over procedures at the expense of substantive talks, U.S. officials contend they still believe that all the major parties are, for the first time in 43 years, willing to compromise to end the world’s longest ongoing conflict.

Among the major changes reflected in the talks is the Palestinian movement. Just a year ago, Palestine Liberation Organization Chairman Yasser Arafat was embracing Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. In February, Palestinians from the West Bank cheered as Iraqi Scud missiles fell on Israel.

During the past five weeks, West Bank and Gaza political leaders have eagerly shown up in Madrid and Washington for talks with Israelis--with Arafat’s full endorsement.

“The Palestinians have perhaps come the longest way over the past year,” said a U.S. official. “It’s no less than a reversal.”

Jordan has also reconciled with its longstanding Western allies after the strains of the Gulf War. Its 1989 national elections, the first in 22 years, were also widely considered a model for the conversion to pluralism.

In North Africa, after almost three decades of socialism, Algeria has held its first free, multi-party elections for municipal and regional offices. National assembly elections are scheduled for Dec. 26.

The process underwent a serious setback during confrontations between the fundamentalist Islamic Salvation Front, which swept local elections, and the government of President Chadli Bendjedid. A state of siege was imposed and hundreds of Islamists arrested.

Most of the Islamists, including their leadership, are still detained, but the state of siege was lifted in October. And the first free presidential election is scheduled for next year.

In Egypt, after years of delays, President Hosni Mubarak’s government is sticking to the difficult economic reforms mandated by the World Bank. The Arab world’s most populous and economically troubled country is moving to reduce its deficit, eliminate the black market and remove subsidies.

Cairo did get some relief, in the form of debt forgiveness, during the Gulf War against Iraq. But Egypt was also suddenly burdened with hundreds of thousands of workers who had worked in the Gulf--and whose remittances had been one of the country’s top sources of foreign exchange.

“Instead of backing down this time, when he hit a difficult moment, Mubarak kept on going,” Quandt said. “Contrary to expectations, he remained on course,” despite the history of social disturbances and unrest when subsidies were lifted in the past.

Besides militant Libya and unrepentant Iraq, the Gulf states may be the most disappointing areas of change, especially after the impact of Operation Desert Storm.

Despite expectations both inside and outside Kuwait, the tiny city-state has not undergone political liberalization since the ruling al Sabah family was restored to the throne. U.S. envoys continue to prod the recalcitrant and reclusive emir, most recently on allowing women to vote. Legislative elections are not scheduled until October, 1992.

But the Arabian Peninsula is not devoid of activity. The merger in May, 1990 of North and South Yemen is a signal event as important to the Arab world as the merger of the two Germanys, U.S. officials say. The reunification also brought together two equally disparate political systems.

The result has been the removal of one of the Mideast’s three most radical states, South Yemen, and the flowering of the most open system in the peninsula--complete with a free press and a multitude of political parties.

Although separately the two Yemens had limited influence, their combined populations, totaling more than 9 million, make a single state more populous than all the sheikdoms combined.

And in Saudi Arabia, King Fahd last month announced plans to form a national “consultative council” to introduce a written body of laws and to provide greater autonomy to the provinces--all by January.

The ruling House of Saud made a similar pledge a decade ago, then reneged, leaving U.S. officials somewhat cynical about the extent of real movement this time around. And the measures only amount to token reforms that would do little to change the scope of political debate or the tightly regimented social structure.

But the U.S. officials said that, if the reforms are enacted, the pace could pick up. “As we’ve seen in most of these countries, even small openings set precedents.”