A New World

By GEORGE J. CHURCH

It was certainly nothing that Saddam Hussein intended, but his invasion of Kuwait bore its most significant fruit on Sunday. For the first time since World War II, the leaders of the U.S. and the Soviet Union met each other not as cold war adversaries or even as wary rivals to make their competition more manageable, but as partners cooperating against a common enemy: Saddam. Presidents George Bush and Mikhail Gorbachev arrived in Helsinki fully agreed on their objective: an unconditional Iraqi pullout.

As the summit began, Gorbachev presented Bush with a cartoon showing the two as boxers, with a figure representing the cold war knocked senseless at their feet and a referee with a globe for a head raising their hands in joint triumph. Most of the session was devoted to the gulf; Bush aides asserted that neither the presence of Soviet military advisers in Iraq nor Moscow's call for a Middle East conference that would discuss not only Kuwait but the Israeli- Palestinian impasse and the civil war in Lebanon as well posed a major impediment to cooperation. En route to the summit, Bush declared himself in favor of technical help that would enable the Soviets to increase oil production and replace some of the output cut off from Iraq and Kuwait.

Day before yesterday, such superpower cooperation against a nation that had long been an ally of the Kremlin's would have been inconceivable. But their new quasi alliance is the most striking, though very far from the only example of a proposition that has gathered force over the past six weeks: Saddam's power grab and the U.S.-led opposition to it have so shaken up global political and power calculations that the world will never be the same.

Bush and his aides talked about the showdown leading to a new world order. "If the nations of the world, acting together, continue as they have been, we will set in place the cornerstone of an international order more peaceful than any that we have known," said Bush in Helsinki.

The eventual course of many of the changes may not be determined for months or even years. The efficacy of sanctions and embargo, the future constellation of power in the Arab world, the ability of the United Nations finally to become the peacekeeping organization its creators envisioned -- all hinge heavily on when and how the crisis is finally resolved. But at least the main areas of upheaval are becoming clear:

U.S.-SOVIET RELATIONS. Moscow so far has played a role that looks as if it might have been scripted in the White House. It has been fully supportive of U.S. efforts -- cutting off arms to Iraq, voting for U.N. resolutions establishing a worldwide embargo -- without claiming any major part for itself. And it has rebuffed all attempts to drive a wedge between itself and Washington. In what was officially described as a "frank" (diplospeak for stormy) meeting in Moscow with Baghdad Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz, Gorbachev repeated his insistence that there is only one way to end the crisis: unconditional Iraqi withdrawal from Kuwait.

There are differences, of course. At a minimum, though, the days when every Third World clash threatened to bring on a confrontation between nuclear superpowers backing rival clients seem to be over. At best, there is hope for continued U.S.-Soviet collaboration to maintain international order. The gulf crisis, says Georgi Arbatov, a leading Soviet Americanologist, "will make quite a few people -- those who may also have adventurous desires and who would act in a reckless way -- aware that they won't be able to play the U.S. and the Soviet Union against each other anymore. Instead they will probably face cooperation between the Soviet Union and the U.S."

THE U.S. ROLE. The crisis has proved that now there really is only one superpower -- at least if a superpower is defined as a country able and willing to send a major fighting force halfway around the globe to uphold world order. But even the U.S. can act most effectively only as the leader of a world coalition painstakingly cobbled together. And that places restraints on U.S. freedom of action. Says Richard Murphy, senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations: "There are a number of silken ropes around us."

Administration officials fear that they may come under pressure from allies who care a great deal about their oil supply but very little about Kuwaiti independence to effect a compromise allowing Saddam Hussein to save at least some face. Bush aides recognize they may have to settle for an arrangement % under which Iraq disgorges Kuwait but Saddam stays in power, still a menace armed with chemical and, in not too many years, nuclear weapons. To contain him, Secretary of State James Baker last week put forward a rather vague idea for a Middle Eastern regional security alliance. That could sanction a long- term American military presence in the area, though possibly one composed of naval rather than air or ground forces.

A more immediate restraint is that the U.S. is an odd combination of superpower and beggar, pressed by both its gargantuan budget deficits and domestic public opinion to solicit heavy allied contributions toward the cost of confronting Iraq with a huge, and overwhelmingly American, military machine. Baker and Secretary of the Treasury Nicholas Brady hit the road last week to drum up pledges totaling about $25 billion in cash or kind (i.e., troops and logistical support) from Europe, Asia and the Middle East. A substantial part of the $25 billion will go to help out the economies of the states hit hardest by disruption of commerce with Iraq, including Jordan and Egypt. Reporters flying with Baker to Saudi Arabia presented the Secretary with a begging cup inscribed NOTHING LESS THAN A BILLION, PLEASE.

Baker filled his cup in the Middle East: he got a Saudi commitment to pay almost all "in-country costs" (transportation, water, fuel) of maintaining the U.S. forces defending the kingdom, and a pledge from the Kuwaiti government in exile to kick in an additional $5 billion, at least half of which would go to Desert Shield. Britain, though financially strapped, promised a further contribution in the form of additional troops rather than cash. Japanese officials told Brady they would put up more than the $1 billion they had pledged but did not specify an amount. West Germany, which has yet to contribute anything much and whose legislators are squawking at the idea of offering anything significant, is in for some arm twisting when Baker visits Bonn this week.

In any event the gulf crisis poses a make-or-break test for America's tenure as sole superpower. For now the public is solidly united behind Bush's policy. But that could change if the crisis has an unhappy ending: a prolonged stalemate combined with deep domestic recession, a settlement allowing Iraq to keep some fruits of aggression, a bloody and inconclusive war. Some experts fear that any such outcome would inspire a resurgence of isolationism that would put a speedy stop to any ideas of building a New World Order.

SAUDI ARABIA AND THE GULF STATES. No longer can the Saudis exist in semifeudal isolation; they must open themselves externally and internally. Inviting U.S. military forces to defend them was only the first step. King Fahd took another last week by urging Saudi women as well as young men to assist in the national defense effort. This week authorities will begin registering women volunteers for work in hospitals and medical services. That may gradually open the way for greater female participation in the kingdom's public life. Saudi women remain severely restricted; they are forbidden by law to drive, and so far they have been limited to jobs such as teaching in girls' schools, where they do not come into regular contact with men.

Eventually, Saudi Arabia and the equally feudal emirates, sheikdoms and sultanates of the gulf (Oman, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates -- and Kuwait, if Saddam Hussein lets go) will also have to share more of their oil riches with the poorer Arab states, through investment and development aid. The bitter resentment of their wealth and isolation, fanned but not originated by Saddam Hussein, has come as a salutary shock to their rulers. Some may be realizing too that it is unhealthy for as much as 60% of their populations to be composed of foreign workers (Palestinians, Pakistanis, Egyptians, Filipinos) who are excluded from citizenship or any other role in public life. They may even feel obliged to broaden the participation of their own citizens in government and politics.

ARAB UNITY. The facade (it was never much more than that) of Arab unity has been irreparably shattered by the necessity for Riyadh and the gulf states to ask for Western protection against their supposed Arab brother Saddam. The deepening division was underlined by the resignation last week of Chedli Klibi, a Tunisian, as secretary-general of the 21-member Arab League; he had been heavily criticized for balking at Egyptian attempts to get the league to authorize the sending of Arab troops to defend Saudi Arabia. Some observers speculate that the league may split in two: an anti-Saddam faction based in Cairo and a pro-Saddam grouping based in Tunis. That might be all to the good; it would leave the moderates free to pursue their own interests without the necessity of trying to reach some sort of consensus with Saddam's supporters.

Whether or not there is a formal split, many Middle Eastern experts expect | power and influence in the Arab world to flow to a new axis of Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Syria. Some glimmerings of this alignment surfaced last week when Egypt and Syria agreed to send as many as 50,000 more soldiers to help defend the Saudis. The new grouping would not be entirely reassuring to the U.S. unless Syria's leader, Hafez Assad, completely abandons support of Palestinian terrorist groups. But the U.S. would benefit if Egypt developed political influence to match the cultural clout it already wields as a supplier of films, books, newspapers and teachers to much of the Arab world.

The big loser in the Arab realignment is Yasser Arafat of the Palestine Liberation Organization. His support of Iraq has earned him the enmity of Egypt, as well as Saudi Arabia and the gulf states that had been the P.L.O.'s principal financiers. Abu Dhabi would not even let Arafat's plane touch down on its territory last week. Dubai grudgingly permitted a landing when the aircraft ran dangerously low on fuel, but only on the condition that Arafat not set foot outside the plane.

ISRAEL. Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir told visiting U.S. Senator Alan Cranston of California last week, "I am sure that it will be easier to promote peace between Israel and the Arabs after the gulf crisis is over." Shamir did not explain his reasoning, but it is conceivable that Israel could be helped by a squelching of the implacable Saddam and by increased influence for the less hostile Saudis and Egyptians. On the other hand, the U.S. will be under greater pressure than ever from its Arab friends to lean on Israel for a solution to the eternal Palestinian problem. And the crisis demonstrates that Israel is no longer necessarily the No. 1 U.S. priority and the top U.S. strategic ally in the region. Ensuring the flow of oil has become an even more sharply perceived vital American interest, and the friendship of the Saudis and Egyptians accordingly seems all the more significant. One illustration: when Bush last week promised, Congress willing, to forgive Egypt's $7 billion military debt to the U.S., Israel could only wail, How come you're willing to do that for Cairo and not to erase our $4.6 billion foreign debt?

THE UNITED NATIONS. The organization, long derided as tangential at best, was quietly making a comeback by mediating settlements in such trouble spots as Namibia and Angola. In the gulf crisis it has functioned at long last as its creators hoped it would 45 years ago, focusing world condemnation on an aggressor, authorizing a global embargo and even voting to permit the use of force to back up that squeeze. The Bush Administration would like to make the U.N. a cornerstone of its plans to construct a New World Order. The U.N. will continue to be effective, however, only so long as no proposed action runs counter to the interests of any of the five permanent members of the Security Council (the U.S., Britain, France, the Soviet Union and China). Otherwise, it will be hamstrung again by vetoes.

Conceivably, the U.N. could one day throw its umbrella over a new peacekeeping (i.e., Iraq-containment) force in the Middle East; it has already voted to dispatch 20,000 soldiers and civilians from various countries to police a prospective settlement in Cambodia. For some time, though, its primary tool to enforce its decisions will probably continue to be the embargo. Not long ago, such economic sanctions were considered useless. But that thinking is changing. British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, formerly the loudest voice in the sanctions-never-succeed school, stated last week, "It is just becoming obvious that some of them are beginning to work."

At the same time, one tactic that has worked all too well in past showdowns is failing so far. Saddam Hussein has taken hostages by the thousands. But the U.S. and other Western governments -- paralyzed in the past by fear of harm to hostages, and willing to strike bad deals to get them freed -- this time have insisted that they will not be diverted from their fundamental policies. Up to now they have been as good as their word, and there has been surprisingly little outcry about rescuing the hostages first.

Many of these changes could be quickly reversed, most notably if the confrontation with Saddam should come to open war. But then there would be other changes, as hard to forecast as they are dreadful to contemplate. Win, lose or draw, Iraq's dictator made a mark on history by invading Kuwait Aug. 2; nothing will again look quite the way it did Aug. 1.

With reporting by Dean Fischer/Riyadh, Dan Goodgame/Washington and J.F.O. McAllister with Baker