PERSPECTIVE ON THE MIDDLE EAST : Taking Away Saddam’s Toys : The aim is worthwhile, if limited: to destroy his instruments of provocation.

As compared with the international negotiations on the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, affecting the world economy, Saddam Hussein’s 90%-disarmed Iraq is certainly not a grave problem. As compared with the Bosnian tragedy, with all its possible repercussions in the region and across the world, Hussein’s latest violations did not amount to an urgent problem.

But while the liberalization of world trade is very complicated, and our closest allies themselves block all serious remedies for Bosnia, a military response was ready and waiting in the case of Iraq. For some time, a powerful U.S. Air Force “composite air wing” has been based in Saudi Arabia. In effect a complete tactical air force in miniature, with F-117 and F-15E bombers, F-16 and F-15C fighters, electronic countermeasures and radar-attack aircraft, this air wing is complemented by the Kitty Hawk carrier task force--less powerful but more heavily publicized, because of the usual Saudi reluctance to advertise the fact that its territory is being used to attack another Arab country.

This is, moreover, a purposeful military response. By now, nobody seriously hopes that air bombardment can bring about the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, or even persuade him to tone down his behavior for very long. But there is nevertheless a worthwhile if limited aim: to destroy the very instruments of Hussein’s various provocations.

Because SAM-2 and SAM-3 anti-aircraft missile batteries were used for last week’s feints into the southern “no-fly” zone, SAM batteries were high on the list of targets. As of this writing, it is not clear if Iraq’s few reconstituted air squadrons on as many air bases are also being attacked, but because Iraqi fighters figured in earlier violations, they are logical targets.

Rather unexpectedly, it therefore seems that the incoming Clinton Administration is inheriting not only an unresolved Hussein problem, but also a low-cost and effective way of dealing with him. To destroy weapons each time that the same class of weapons has featured in a violation achieves both the long-term strategic aim of cumulatively weakening Iraq (which cannot export oil and therefore cannot evade the import ban), and also the immediate aim of showing that each violation earns not glory but punishment.

Iraq is no longer the Great Power of the Persian Gulf. It can no longer either seriously contribute to U.S. policy by balancing Iran, or harm U.S. interests by attacking U.S. allies. That is precisely why the Clinton Administration would be well-advised to keep the air wing in place (it costs no more than at home), and to adopt a systematic tit-for-tat bombing policy.

It is only by reducing U.S. military action to an undramatic routine response that Hussein can be prevented from distracting the Clinton Administration from far more important matters.