The Alexandrian Strategic View

By Laurence I. Barrett, Gregory H. Wierzynski

Haig explains it to Congress

The lodestar of the Reagan Administration's foreign policy thus far has been a black-and-white-and-red-all-over principle: Soviet expansionism is all-pervasive, a force pitting good guys against bad guys in every region. Testifying before Congress last week on his $6.17 billion budget request for foreign aid, Secretary of State Alexander Haig conducted a tour of the horizon in which he reiterated that principle more sharply than ever. He defined virtually all of the world's problems, from the Middle East to Central America, in an East-West context, and with an anti-Soviet severity that was sure to discomfort further America's increasingly nervous European allies. Said he: "The emphasis today is on the Soviet problem."

Haig went so far as to suggest to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that concern over Soviet aggression might overcome the fierce internecine religious and cultural struggles in the Middle East and somehow loosely bind the countries there into a "consensus of strategic concerns." As part of that process, he urged that the ban on U.S. aid to Pakistan be lifted. Pakistan, which borders on Soviet-occupied Afghanistan, is prohibited from receiving American economic and military aid because of its nuclear armament program. A guarantee of regional security, he argued, would lessen Pakistan's "thirst" for its own nuclear weapons.

To induce Iran to join such an American-backed strategic "consensus" is a remote possibility at the moment, but Iraq, long an ally of the Soviet Union, is a conceivable candidate. Said he: "We see some shift in the Iraqi attitude, a greater sense of concern about Soviet imperialism in the Middle Eastern area." Despite Iraq's intense enmity toward Israel, and the fact that it has no diplomatic relations with the U.S., Haig said the situation should be reassessed because it is "not irreversible." In fact, an American envoy may be dispatched there next month to give Iraq's leftist government a report on Haig's forthcoming trip to Egypt, Israel, Jordan and Saudi Arabia.

When questioned in the House on the sale of range-extending equipment to Saudi Arabia for its American-made F-15 fighter jets, Haig also raised the idea of a Middle Eastern confederacy based on transcendent anti-Soviet interests. Said he: "It is fundamentally important to begin to develop a consensus of strategic concerns throughout the region among Arab and Jew, and to be sure that the overriding danger of Soviet inroads is not overlooked." In a shift from Carter Administration policy, he said that American troops might be stationed in the Sinai a year from now as part of an international peace-keeping force if a United Nations team cannot be organized to stabilize the area after Israeli withdrawal. Haig issued the sternest U.S. warning to date of the consequences of any pro-Soviet shifts in the Middle East. "A change of the status quo," he said in his own formulation of the so-called Carter Doctrine of protecting American interests in the oil-rich region, would be met "with the full range of power assets."

Haig used similar terms when he turned to Latin America, the Administration's other publicized battleground in its struggle against Soviet expansionism. If Cuba did not halt the flow of arms to rebels in El Salvador, Haig warned, pos sible U.S. responses "include consideration of a whole range of American as sets." Cuban and Soviet bloc intervention in Latin America, he contended, is part of a "four-phased operation" that began with "the seizure of Nicaragua," a country whose new government Carter courted but Reagan seemed almost prepared to write off. Said Haig: "Next is El Salvador, to be followed by Honduras and Guatemala ... A hit list, if you will." The next day, Haig slightly backed off his extreme view on Nicaragua, saying there are "a number of very important democratic elements seeking change" there.

The Administration last week continued its policy of downplaying human rights when dealing with anti-Communist regimes. After meeting with Argentina's President-designate, Lieut. General Roberto Viola, Reagan said he looked forward "to efforts by both governments to further our relations." Military aid to Argentina was cut off in 1978 in response to reports of the disappearance of several thousand opponents of the regime. The domestic situation there has improved, and the Administration has asked Congress to repeal the ban.

The U.S. also reacted last week to Cuban and Soviet bloc involvement in Africa. The White House asked Congress to lift the ban on aid to Angolan rebels fighting the Soviet-backed government there, a move that antagonized black African nations, because Angola supports guerrillas in neighboring Namibia righting to break free of white-ruled South Africa. The Administration also suspended food assistance to Marxist Mozambique in retaliation for the expulsion of four American diplomats. The State Department said the eviction was instigated by Cuban intelligence agents.

South Africa also clashed with these same two countries last week, but rather more violently, sending bombers deep into Angola to attack Namibian rebel bases and engaging in its second border clash in a week with Mozambican troops. Despite sympathy between the new U.S. government and South Africa on a number of issues, the Reagan Administration indicated it is not ready to forge closer ties with Pretoria. It emphasized last week that four South African military officials, whose visits to the U.S. have long been severely restricted, had been given visas "inadvertently" for a trip they made to Washington this month. At the same time, the White House quickly squelched a rumor that Prime Minister P.W. Botha would become the first South African leader ever invited to Washington.

The hard line on the Soviet Union was reflected in a White House decision to postpone, until May, next week's scheduled meeting in Geneva of a U.S.-Soviet committee that discusses compliance with arms control agreements. Only once in seven years has such a session been postponed, and then for only two days. The Administration has not even nominated a director for the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency. Edward Rowny, 63, who retired in 1979 as an Army lieutenant general to campaign publicly against the SALT II agreement, felt so certain of the appointment that he was boning up for confirmation hearings. But he learned last week that the job will probably go instead to Yale Law Professor Eugene Rostow, 67, a hawkish Democrat.

The Administration, meanwhile, is pursuing a careful course with China. Reagan and Haig held an unpublicized meeting with Ambassador Chai Zemin of China last week. Chai assured the U.S. that China would not resort to force to resolve the Taiwan problem, the first time Peking has made such a pledge.

Left ringing in the ears of Senators and Congressmen was the firmness of Haig's anti-Soviet rhetoric. But he did offer a caveat at the very beginning of his visit to the Hill. Any policy, he said, that "suggested total preoccupation with the so-called Russians-are-coming syndrome" would have to be labeled "ster ile." That may or may not have sounded soothing to Haig's congressional critics. -- By Walter Isaacson. Reported by Laurence I. Barrett and Gregory H.

Wierzynski/Washington

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