Troubles with a Prickly Ally

By Barrett Walter Isaacson.

Shocks from Israel as Reagan tries to clarify his foreign policy

"They are trying to drive a wedge between us and the Arabs." That was the way one frustrated State Department spokesman summed up the latest dispute between the U.S. and its prickly ally in the Middle East. All week long, the Administration had been gearing up toward a formal announcement that the shipment of advanced F-16s to Israel, which had been embargoed after the attack on Iraq's nuclear reactor last month, would be resumed. In fact, some of the F-16s had been flown to Pease Air Force Base in New Hampshire for the trip to the Middle East. But then on Friday word reached the White House of the shocking Israeli bombing of Beirut that killed at least 200 and left some 600 wounded (see WORLD). The announcement about resumption of F-16 deliveries was abruptly canceled.

The Administration refused to link the postponement to the Beirut raid. It even refused to admit that there had been any postponement at all. After reading a statement, written at the White House, that "the U.S. deplores this intensified violence" in the Middle East, State Department Spokesman Dean Fischer insisted that no decision on the F-16s had been made, and none would be announced until Tuesday. But that was not the full story. President Reagan had summoned his top foreign policy advisers shortly before 10 that morning to discuss the Beirut raid. The weapons that the U.S. supplies to Israel are, by law and contract, to be used only for "defensive purposes" --which was why F-16 shipments were halted after the Iraq raid.

There was a consensus that the U.S. would lose credibility throughout the Arab world if it announced a resumption of F-16 deliveries on the very day that Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin had once more escalated the stakes in the Middle East, and used U.S. weapons to do it. Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger took a hard line in the discussions, arguing that the U.S. could not continue to have its nose tweaked by Israel.

Reagan, whose foreign policy calls for strong support of Israel, would clearly prefer to release the F-16s, assuming nothing else goes wrong. The President last week sent his special Middle East envoy, Philip Habib, to Jerusalem to press for a ceasefire in Lebanon. If the raids end, and Habib is not rebuffed by Begin--as he has been in recent shuttle diplomacy trips to Arab capitals--Israel presumably will get its F-16s. If extensive Israeli raids continue, Reagan may have to freeze deliveries of the fighters until things settle down.

Whether or not Begin had deliberately intended to embarrass the Administration, Reagan and his advisers were clearly not prepared for the Beirut raid. Israeli officials predictably objected when the U.S. delayed delivery of the F-16s* following the attack on the Iraqi reactor. Yet Begin and his Cabinet apparently assumed that the delay was only symbolic and saw no need to pay attention to U.S. concerns about Israeli military actions. They were more interested in demonstrating that there were no strings attached to their use of the F-16s. Indeed, late last week Israel condemned as "unfair" the latest delay in F-16 deliveries. Said Israeli Foreign Minister Yitzhak Shamir: "If this is the price Israel has to pay to defend its people, then we don't regret anything."

Reagan and his aides did not expect the Israelis to apologize for the Baghdad raid, or publicly pledge strict new restraints on their military operations, when State Department Counselor Robert McFarlane met with Begin last week to discuss the use of American weapons. But the Administration was dismayed that the Prime Minister offered not even symbolic concessions in the five-hour session. Said Begin afterward: "If anyone should think that one sovereign country should consult another about a specific military operation to defend its citizens, that would be absurd." Begin neither intimated that Israel would engage in soul searching before undertaking such a raid again nor signaled any possible movement on the stalled negotiations with Egypt about Palestinian autonomy. McFarlane left with nothing more than a limp, almost meaningless, joint communique that said: "Any misunderstandings that might have arisen have been clarified."

Even though McFarlane returned to Washington emptyhanded, top Administration officials had agreed last Wednesday night that the planes should be released as planned. Among the reasons: the Administration did not want to pick a fight with the influential Israeli lobby in Congress while it is trying to pass its economic program. In addition, many of Reagan's foreign policy advisers felt that despite the formal protests from the Arab world after the Iraqi reactor had been destroyed, many moderate leaders in the area were secretly pleased by what Israel had done. This comforting illusion also exploded last week: King Khalid announced that Saudi Arabia would pay for reconstruction of the Iraqi reactor (original cost estimate: $260 million).

Those ambiguous signals fired off concerning the Middle East crisis provided fresh ammunition to critics who ask whether the Administration has a unified foreign policy or is simply lurching from one headline problem to another, improvising responses as it goes along. The Administration's answer is that a clarification process is under way. Speaking before the World Affairs Council, Assistant Secretary of State Thomas Enders declared that the U.S. favors a negotiated settlement, international mediation and political solutions to the civil war in El Salvador. Enders condemned violence by the right as well as the left, which he said were "inextricably linked" in a tragic cycle. True enough, the U.S. has consistently favored a democratic solution to El Salvador's problems, involving free elections. But conspicuously missing from Enders' speech was any mention of "a well-orchestrated international Communist campaign to transform the Salvadoran crisis into an increasingly internationalized confrontation" between the U.S. and clients of the Soviet Union. The words were those of Enders' boss, Secretary of State Alexander Haig, last February.

Haig was making major foreign policy statements of his own last week. At a United Nations conference on Cambodia he attended with U.N. Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick, he attacked the Soviet Union and its "puppet regimes" in Southeast Asia. He also gave a speech designed to reassure NATO allies that the U.S. is seriously committed to resuming talks with the Soviets, before the end of the year, on limiting medium-range nuclear weapons in Europe. Said Haig: "The charge that we are not interested in arms control or that we have cut off communications with the Soviets is simply not true." But he also said the Administration would insist on linking strategic arms negotiations to Soviet conduct around the world: "A policy of pretending there is no linkage ends up by saying that in order to preserve arms control we have to tolerate Soviet aggression."

Defense Secretary Weinberger, meanwhile, reiterated his customary harsh assessment of Soviet intentions and capabilities in a speech he gave at Fort McNair, in Washington, D.C. Charged Weinberger: "It is neither reasonable nor prudent to view the Soviet military buildup as defensive in nature." Both addresses got Soviet attention. TASS dismissed Haig's pledge of arms talks and assailed Weinberger's saber rattling. The Soviet news agency called the former an attempt to "whitewash the present aggressive course of the Washington Administration" and said the latter "can be qualified only as a call to war."

The difference in tone between the speeches reinforced a perception in Washington that relations between the two men, once warm colleagues, are strained. That at least is the way their aides perceive it. At the Pentagon, Haig is seen as being overly sympathetic to the Europeans, despite their reluctance to commit sufficient funds to beef up NATO. At the State Department, Weinberger is regarded as clumsy and even downright crude in his approach to military issues that have diplomatic overtones, such as deployment of the neutron bomb and the upgrading of Theater Nuclear Forces in Europe.

A larger problem, with serious consequences for the formulation of policy, is the unstable truce between the volatile Haig and the White House staff, particularly National Security Adviser Richard Allen. The Secretary's staffers convey the impression that their boss is a man under siege, subject to criticism and sniping that goes well beyond the expectable vying for power between State and the White House. Reagan's top aides insist that Haig has plenty of friends and admirers in the White House, that his counsel is trusted, and that he has won more battles than he has lost. In a speech to the National Press Club last week, White House Chief of Staff James Baker interrupted a litany of the Administration's achievements to observe: "All of us, from the President on down, would have been far happier if we had seen fewer stories about squabbling and turf fighting on foreign policy."

Reagan, who has little toleration for infighting, clearly hopes that the feuding will end. He also may finally be ready to do something about the Hatfields and McCoys of his Administration. At a recent meeting of the National Security Council, he sternly admonished all present, including the top White House staff, to refrain from leaking criticism of other members of the Administration--at the risk of getting fired.

--By Walter Isaacson. Reported by Laurence I. Barrett and Gregory H. Wierzynski/Washington

* In 1977 Israel ordered 75 of the modern fighters (cost: $18 million each), financed by longterm, low-interest U.S. loans, and has taken delivery on 53 of them. Four were held up after the June raid, and six more are now awaiting delivery.

With reporting by Laurence I. Barrett, Gregory H. Wierzynski

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