From the end of the second World War until 1990--a full forty-five years--American foreign policy in the Middle East had one steady point of reference: curbing the expansion of Soviet influence in an area judged to be of vital interest to the United States and its allies. Each president, from Harry Truman to George Bush, and each secretary of state, from George Marshall to James Baker, viewed the Middle East through a lens at least partly colored, if not distorted, by Cold War rivalry. Then, suddenly, toward the end of 1989, the Soviet empire in eastern Europe crumbled, the full magnitude of the Soviet internal crisis became apparent, and Americans realized that the Cold War was over--and they had won.

The Soviet Union, of course, will continue to be an actor in the region as a provider of sophisticated armaments to some countries, an economic partner for a few, a source of diplomatic support for others, and a neighbor to a crucial group of Middle East states, including Turkey, Iran and Afghanistan. But this Soviet Union, acting as a normal large power, without an ideological thrust to its policy, and with few incentives to engage in risky competition with the West, will hardly resemble the Soviet Union that contested for influence in the region in an earlier period.

Indeed, the first major crisis of the post-Cold War era, that sparked by Iraq's invasion of Kuwait on August 2, 1990, showed the two major powers eager to cooperate with one another. Washington and Moscow joined forces to condemn Iraqi aggression and to call for economic sanctions. The Soviet foreign minister, addressing the United Nations in late September 1990, implied that the Soviet Union might even go along with the use of force to expel Iraqi troops from Kuwait. A few days later, President Bush, speaking at the same rostrum, stated:

"The U.S.-Soviet relationship is finally beyond containment and confrontation, and now we seek to fulfill the promise of mutually shared understanding.... The Soviet Union has taken many dramatic and important steps to participate fully in the community of nations, and when the Soviet Union agreed with so many of us here in the United Nations to condemn the aggression of Iraq, there could be no doubt, no doubt then, that we had indeed put four decades of history behind us."

In brief, the United States found itself leading an international coalition against Iraq with the full support of the Soviet Union. Even President Bush's decision to order the use of force in mid-January, 1991 to expel Iraqi forces form Kuwait was accepted as legitimate by the Soviets. And when the fighting finally stopped in March 1991, Moscow joined Washington in voting for a resolution in the U.N. Security Council that imposed stringent disarmament conditions on Iraq.

Some might conclude that the restrained Soviet role during the Gulf crisis reflects the demise of Soviet power generally and therefore opens the way for a Pax Americana of sorts in the Middle East. Indeed, a certain amount of popular commentary has already raised such a prospect, strengthened, no doubt, by the impressive display of American military power in the Gulf war. But the United States, with fresh memories of the Iranian revolution, the Lebanon fiasco of 1982-84, and the Iran-Contra affair in 1985-86, is unlikely to assume the costly, and ultimately unsustainable role of unilaterally trying to bring order to the untidy affairs of the Middle East. The Gulf crisis shows that multilateralism is the order of the day, if only to help pay the bills.

There are, of course, neo-isolationist voices calling on the United States to pull back from its commitments in the region, to concentrate on the home front, to cut military deployments and expensive aid programs. While a distinct minority, these views have a certain impact, particularly if overseas commitments seem likely to be costly in American lives and treasure, and if they are designed primarily to benefit our allies. Therefore, despite the retreat of Soviet power from the Middle East, presidents in the years ahead may have to persuade a skeptical public that national interests require a continuation, and probably even an increase, in the high level of American involvement in both the Arab-Israeli arena and the Gulf region.

Americans pride themselves on being pragmatic, and non-ideological. No doubt there has been such a strand in American foreign policy. But this has often been offset by impulses that look suspiciously ideological. Whether one points to Woodrow Wilson's rhetoric about the "war to end all wars", John Foster Dulles' fulminations about the evils of non-alignment and neutralism, or Ronald Reagan's crusade against terrorism, one cannot escape the conclusion that there has been more than cool calculation of interest behind American policy.

For a supposedly non-doctrinaire country, the United States has left a trail of doctrinal statements of policy identified with most post-war presidents. And most of these doctrines have related primarily to the Middle East. For example, the Truman Doctrine, enunciated in 1947, was a direct response to the perception that the Soviet Union was trying to expand its influence southward into Turkey. To check such a move, the United States offered military and economic assistance, and in due course Turkey was brought into the NATO alliance. So successful was this early Cold War test of wills with the Soviet Union that it spawned a number of attempts, all ultimately unsuccessful, to build anti-Soviet defense pacts elsewhere in the Middle East.

The Eisenhower Doctrine, issued in early 1957 in the aftermath of the Suez crisis, was also billed as an attempt to stand up to Soviet encroachments in the Middle East. This time, however, the real target seemed to be radical Arab nationalism, as personified by Egypt's president Gamal Abd al-Nasser. After a brief flurry of activity designed to enlist regional allies against the pro-Soviet regimes in the Middle East, the United States dropped the crusade because there were no takers. Even the military intervention in Lebanon in 1958, which was justified in part by the Eisenhower Doctrine, ended with the cooperation of the United States and Egypt in putting a mutually acceptable government in place in Beirut.

Perhaps the unhappy fate of the Eisenhower Doctrine curbed the desire of the next two presidents, John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson, to attach their names to any doctrines, whether in the Middle East or elsewhere. Not until Richard Nixon tried to rationalize America's post-Vietnam policy in the Third World do we come across another such sweeping policy statement. The Nixon Doctrine seems to have been an attempt at retrenchment without full-scale retreat. In essence, Nixon said that the United States could not afford to be the world's policeman; that Vietnam had shown that it was too costly to send American troops to trouble spots all around the globe; and that a new approach to creating order in Third World areas was needed. This new policy would consist of building up the power of regional partners of the United States who could act as stabilizing forces in their own backyards. In the Middle East, one candidate stood out: Iran.

During most of the 1970s, until his fall from power in early 1979, the Shah of Iran, who had been well endowed with oil revenues since 1974, was given nearly unimpeded access to the American arsenal. Arms flowed at a prodigious rate. But when the revolution came, they counted for nothing.

It was precisely the failure of the Nixon Doctrine in Iran that gave rise to the next attempt to fill the doctrinal vacuum, this time from the lips of Jimmy Carter in January 1980. His version, inevitably dubbed the Carter Doctrine, stated that the Gulf was a region of vital concern for the United States and that force would be used, if necessary, to protect the free flow of oil from the region against external threats. Without quite acknowledging his predecessor's role in setting the policy, Ronald Reagan proceeded to act on the Carter Doctrine when he ordered American warships into the Gulf to protect Kuwaiti oil tankers in 1987, thereby putting Iran on notice that American force might be brought to bear in the then-raging Iran-Iraq war. And George Bush added his own touch by sending troops to expel Iraqi troops from Kuwait and to enhance Saudi security.

The most recent doctrinal flourish, that of Ronald Reagan, was not focussed primarily on the Middle East; one of the test cases, however, was Afghanistan. The Reagan Doctrine, as it was popularly known, stated that the United States would provide assistance to "freedom fighters" trying to topple pro-Soviet regimes. The CIA for years had provided various forms of assistance to anti-communist forces around the world, but Reagan raised the level and visibility of such support, especially in Nicaragua and Afghanistan. One of the first signs that the Cold War really was nearing its end came with the Soviet decision in 1988 to withdraw all of its combat troops from Afghanistan.

Is a Bush Doctrine for the Middle East conceivable, or does the removal of the Soviet threat leave the United States with only a handful of specific problems in the region without any overarching concern? President Bush and his successors might feel compelled to articulate a vision of democracy and free enterprise for the Middle East, or human rights could become the focal point of American concern. But exhortation alone does not really provide the makings of a doctrine.

All of the past doctrinal statements were followed by substantial commitments of money and arms, and in some cases troops. The Gulf crisis produced a commitment of force -- more than 500,000 strong -- without a clear doctrinal rationale. The president spoke of a "new world order", of oil, the balance of power, the need to resist aggression and to protect the "American way of life". A policy toward Gulf security was developed which may, in time, gain the status of a "Bush Doctrine". Its essential elements would seem to be: a determination to act in defense of national interests, but to do so within a multilateral framework to the extent possible; to uphold the concept of collective security, as enshrined in the U.N. Charter; to use the threat of massive force rather than gradual escalation; and to avoid open-ended commitments. (One can note here an "anti-Vietnam syndrome" -- no more incrementalism in the use of force.)

American policy in the Gulf war showed a continuing ambivalence in Washington about power and its uses. The rhetoric, scale of commitment, and the decisiveness of the military operations might have led one to expect that the United States was prepared for a commanding role as the only remaining superpower. But what then to make of the fact that President Bush stopped short of marching on Baghdad; that American troops then stood idly by while Saddam Hussein proceeded to massacre insurgent Shiites and Kurds (we do not intervene in internal matters!); that most troops were withdrawn from the region within months; and access to bases in the Gulf was barely mentioned by the administration. Clearly the president, like many other Americans, was caught between the contradictory lessons of Munich -- resist aggression -- and Vietnam --be careful with foreign entanglements. These competing considerations suggest a form of selective involvement in future crises, but certainly no rush to impose a "new world order" on regions like the Middle East.

With or without a doctrinal theme, the United States will have interests to pursue in the region and capabilities with which to do so. How are those interests likely to be defined in the years ahead? And will the resources, economic and military, continue to be available to sustain a policy of active involvement in the Middle East?

Interests to the Fore: Oil and Gulf Security.

Oil has always been, in the post World War II era, one of the main concerns of American policy makers who deal with the Middle East. The reasons for American interest in Middle East oil have changed somewhat over the years, but they derive from the fact that the region as a whole, and especially the Gulf area, is the single largest source of petroleum in the world; oil can be produced there at the lowest cost; and American companies have been heavily involved in the discovery, development and marketing of Middle East oil. Even when the United States consumed very little oil from the Middle East, as was the case up until the 1970s, the United States had an interest in seeing that its allies in Europe and Japan had access to Middle East oil, and that American oil companies could continue to earn profits. Since the 1970s, American policy makers have seen an increase in direct American dependence on Middle East oil, and, more importantly, the region has become the swing supplier of oil, which means that world oil prices are essentially determined by decisions on oil production made in a handful of Middle Eastern countries, especially Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Iran.

Three recent oil shocks have colored American perceptions of the importance of Middle East oil. First there was the price explosion at the end of 1973, which came in conjunction with the politically inspired oil embargo against the United States by Arab producers during and after the October 1973 war. The price of oil quadrupled in a period of months; long lines formed at the gas pumps; and the American economy was dealt a severe economic blow. In many people's minds, oil and the Arab-Israeli conflict were joined. War had clearly been accompanied by disruptions of oil supplies. Perhaps peace would help assure a free flow of that precious commodity. No doubt, American efforts to find a diplomatic solution to the Arab-Israeli crisis were driven, in part, by this perceived link between oil supplies and Arab-Israeli peace.

The second oil shock accompanied the Iranian revolution. As the Shah's power ebbed, so did Iran's oil production. The fear and uncertainty generated by the advent to power in Tehran of Ayatollah Khomeini and the establishment of an austere, anti-Western Islamic republic, sent further shock waves through the oil industry. Companies scrambled to replace lost Iranian sources of supply; as prices began to rise, companies rushed to fill their storage tanks, further exacerbating the strained supply situation, sending prices even higher. By the time the surge in prices was over in 1982, a barrel of Saudi oil, for example, was selling for $34, as compared to $12.70 in 1978. And Saudi Arabia, instead of running a small budget deficit, was piling up surplus financial reserves at the rate of some $50 billion per year.

But the 1980s brought another set of lessons: not only could war and revolution drive prices skyward; markets, despite war and continuing Arab-Israeli tensions, could adjust, and prices would eventually come down, as they did with a crash in 1985-86. Despite the Iran-Iraq war, which raged from 1980 to 1988, and during which oil facilities were frequently the targets of attack, oil surpluses developed in the latter part of the decade. When, for a moment in early 1987, it seemed as if Iran was poised to launch a ground offensive into southern Iraq which might also threaten Kuwait, the United States reacted by sending a naval force to the Gulf to escort Kuwaiti oil tankers and to signal the Iranians not to overplay their hand. Some combination of luck, steady nerves and diplomatic skill led to a U.N. sponsored ceasefire in this longest and bloodiest of Middle East wars in mid-1988.

The end of the Iran-Iraq war opened a new phase in relations among oil producers. Iran and Iraq now shared a common interest in seeing higher oil prices to help rebuild their war-ravaged economies. But to achieve such higher prices, someone would have to cut production, or demand would have to grow quickly. Instead, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates adopted a practice of persistently producing above their OPEC quotas, to the point where prices began to slide significantly in early 1990. By late spring, oil from the Gulf was selling for around $12-13 per barrel, well below the $18 per barrel OPEC target, and far below Iraq's demand that oil sell for at least $25 per barrel.

For reasons that went well beyond, but included, oil, Iraqi president Saddam Hussein sent his troops into Kuwait on August 2, 1990, and soon thereafter annexed the entire country. In reaction, the United Nations called for a boycott of all Iraqi and Kuwaiti oil, thus removing some 4 million barrels per day from the market. Saudi Arabia agreed to increase output, as did a number of other producers, but the existence of adequate supplies of oil was not enough to prevent a rush to build stockpiles. As a result, the price of oil soared, briefly reaching nearly $40 per barrel in late September. In real terms, this was still below the peak reached in 1981, but the price was high enough to have a significant impact on the world economy. For the United States, high oil prices added to economic woes that had already brought growth to a near standstill. If anyone needed reminding that trouble in the Gulf could have consequences in America, this crisis drove home the point once again. By early 1991, however, oil prices were coming down, removing pressures on Americans to take painful decisions to curb their appetite for energy. It therefore remained an open questions as to whether the United States would eventually take action to reduce its vulnerability to oil-supply disruptions in the Gulf.

The conclusions likely to be drawn from these three oil shocks are that the United States will continue to have a major interest in Gulf stability and security for years into the future. To protect that interest, substantial military capabilities must be maintained. The investment made in the 1980s to develop military support facilities for the Central Command in Egypt, Oman and elsewhere proved to be of great value during the Gulf war, and more of the same will be needed in the future. In addition, military cooperation with Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states, including some American forces on the ground, is likely to a part of the post crisis security arrangements in the Gulf. It is less clear that substantial American combat forces can or should remain in place. The value of being able to bring air and naval forces to bear on regional crises will, by contrast, be widely appreciated.

These points are emphasized by those American policy makers who feel that the United States must be in a position to protect Gulf oil resources through the 1990s. The end of the Cold War has done nothing to make this task less important, as the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait demonstrated. And with the reduced possibility of Soviet intervention, the risks of pursuing such a policy have declined. If, as most expect, the Gulf will remain a zone of potential turmoil, then American power must remain available to maintain a balance of power and to protect oil supplies. But the Gulf crisis shows that this requires a multilateral effort and regional partners. In sum, the Carter Doctrine, modified to deal with threats from within the region, and as amended by the Bush preference for multilateralism, is likely to remain the framework for American thinking about the Gulf through the 1990s.

The beneficiaries of this perspective will be Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and possibly even Syria and Iran, as long as they lend their weight to the anti-Iraq coalition. Jordan and the Palestinians, in large measure because of their pro-Iraqi stance during the Gulf crisis, will find it more difficult to fit into the new security arrangements. Still, Jordan's role as a buffer state is sufficiently important that it can count on some degree of understanding. It also seems likely that Arab support for the Palestinian cause, if not for the PLO, will insure that Palestinians, in one way or another, are brought back into the political mainstream of inter-Arab politics.

Israel found itself in the anomalous position during the Gulf crisis of having no direct role to play other than to defend itself once Saddam Hussein unleashed his SCUD missiles against Tel Aviv and Haifa. Despite the direct Iraqi attacks on Israel, the United States strongly urged Israel not to retaliate for fear that the intervention of Israel in the Gulf crisis could have been unsettling for the anti-Iraq coalition. As a result, Israelis were made aware that they no longer seemed to be much of a "strategic asset", especially with the end of the Cold War.

In addition to the desire to curb Soviet influence in the Middle East and to retain access to its reserves of oil, the United States has been guided in formulating its policy by a strong commitment to the security and well-being of the state of Israel. History, politics and strategy have combined to make Israel one of the major recipients of American diplomatic, economic and military support. In fiscal year 1990, total American aid to Israel amounted to over $3.5 billion, making this the single largest American assistance program anywhere in the world, and dwarfing all others when computed on a per capita basis (nearly $1000 for each Israeli). Much of the assistance provided to Egypt, totalling $2.3 billion annually, should also properly be seen as derivative of the American commitment to a secure Israel.

Despite the magnitude of this assistance, and the general distaste for foreign aid, Congress has shown strong bipartisan support for these programs. Why is this? No doubt, politics plays a major part in insuring Israel of high levels of assistance. American public opinion since the second World War has been consistently pro-Israeli and this has been translated into broad support for Israel in Congress and usually at the White House as well.

The sources of sympathy for Israel are not hard to discover. Many Americans, shocked by the horrors of the holocaust, believed that the remnants of the Jewish people needed a safe refuge. A Jewish state in part of the British mandate of Palestine, even if it came at the expense of the rights of the Palestinian population then living there, was seen as a historically justifiable step. Thus, American support for the creation of a Jewish state was quick in coming in 1947, despite some reluctance from those in the State Department and Defense Department who were concerned that this would alienate Arabs, compromise access to oil, and provide inroads for the Soviet Union in a sensitive area. It is important to recall that the initial impulse to support Israel was not derived from strategic calculations of gain, but rather from a sense of moral commitment to the survivors of the holocaust, reinforced and institutionalized by calculations that such support would find favor with important sectors of American opinion, especially in the influential Jewish community.

Perhaps because of its concern for other strategic interests in the region, American support for Israel was initially restrained, focussing primarily on economic aid. It was only after the 1967 war that the United States became the major supplier of military equipment to Israel, a role that it has fulfilled without interruption since 1968. But because the United States has always been concerned with more than just Israel in the Middle East, there has been a built-in tension between support for Israel and pursuit of interests elsewhere in the region. Every president has felt the strain and none has entirely succeeded in reducing it. And if Israel's standing in public opinion were to drop, politicians might be less prone to offer automatic support, creating more domestic friction over Arab-Israeli policy than has been the case in the recent past.

Two broad strategies have been devised for reducing the conflict between U.S. support for Israel and its interests in the Arab world. One approach, modeled on the collective security effort in Europe after the war, has been to try to subsume regional disputes within a larger anti-Soviet security framework. If Frenchmen, Germans and Englishmen could all be persuaded to cooperate against a menacing Soviet Union, why not try something similar with Israelis, Arabs, Iranians, and Turks? In both the 1950s and in the 1980s, variations on this theme were explored. Had they succeeded--which they emphatically did not--the United States would have been able to pursue all of its regional interests--checking Soviet influence, protecting oil supplies, and supporting Israel--with one central policy.

But the Middle East is not Europe. The Soviet Union was not seen as the most dangerous adversary by the regional actors. Israelis feared Arabs, and vice versa, more than they worried about the Soviet Union. Western colonial powers were sometimes more of a threat in the eyes of local leaders than the Kremlin's rulers. In brief, there were no foundations in the Middle East for building a solid anti-Soviet strategic consensus.

The other attempt to reduce the friction between Israel and the Arabs, and thereby to allow the United States to pursue its diverse regional interests with less difficulty, has involved a series of efforts to promote peace between Israel and its neighbors. With remarkable regularity, every American president since the 1950s has tried to find some way to move Israel and the Arabs toward peace. Sometimes the efforts were highly secret, as in 1955-56; sometimes economic incentives were offered, as with the Johnston plan for sharing the water of the Jordan river in the Eisenhower period. Nuclear power plants to desalt water and make the deserts bloom have been seen as the key to peace; settling Palestinian refugees in decent housing has been proposed; American peacekeeping troops have been dispatched to the region; arms have been sold; nuclear alerts have been called in the midst of acute crises; and numerous special envoys have been sent to the region by successive presidents.

The results have not been altogether discouraging. In fact, the largest and most powerful Arab state, Egypt, did make peace with Israel in 1979, after having fought five wars and after intense American mediation and substantial promises of aid. And the peace has endured, even in the face of stiff challenges.

But peace between Egypt and Israel resolved only part of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Still unsettled are Israel's relations with the Palestinians, who also claim the right to have a state in some, if not all, of the former British mandate of Palestine; and with the other Arab countries, most importantly Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and Iraq.

The 1967 Arab-Israeli war is still the reference point for diplomatic efforts to solve the conflict. During that conflict, Israel succeeded in conquering the Sinai peninsula and Gaza on the Egyptian front; the West Bank on the Jordanian front; and the Golan Heights on the Syrian front. Israel's declared policy at the outset, later incorporated into U.N. resolutions, was to hold the territories as leverage to force the Arab states to recognize Israel and make peace. U.N. Resolution 242, passed in November 1967, enshrined this "land for peace" formula. After the October 1973 war, another principle was contained in U.N. Resolution 338, namely that the parties to the conflict should enter negotiations under "appropriate auspices" to implement U.N. Resolution 242.

In subsequent years, each American administration tried its hand at Arab-Israeli peacemaking. In 1969 and 1970, Secretary of State William Rogers initially spelled out the terms of a comprehensive settlement, then scaled back his demands to a simple ceasefire in the then-raging war of attrition along the Suez Canal. From 1971 to October 1973, no serious peace initiatives were proposed by Washington. Then, with the outbreak of war on October 6, President Nixon and his Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger, turned their attention to efforts to end the war on terms that would make a future peace possible. Kissinger spent much of his remaining time in office working strenuously, and with a large measure of success, to pry Egypt away from the Soviet orbit into the American camp, and simultaneously to forge a series of partial agreements between Israel and Egypt, and even one between Israel and Syria.

With a presidential election looming in 1976, the diplomatic efforts were put on hold. Only Syria's intervention in Lebanon that year, undertaken with American acquiescence if not approval, seemed to alter the political map. When Jimmy Carter came to the White House, he was ready and eager to pick up where Kissinger had left off, and surprised everyone by giving his own distinctive spin to peacemaking, focussing on the need to address the Palestinian issue, as well as the more conventional state-to-state dimension of the conflict. Somewhat ironically in light of Carter's initial emphasis, all he was able to achieve was to bring Kissinger's policy to a logical conclusion by presiding over an Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty which stood as a textbook example of the implementation of the principles of "land for peace". The question, of course, was whether this model would be followed by others, perhaps with some modifications, or whether it would stand in isolation while the rest of the Arab-Israeli conflict continued to rage. And, one had to ask, could Egypt and Israel remain at peace indefinitely if the other parties to the conflict did not follow their lead?

After nearly ten years of persistent efforts to promote Arab-Israeli peace negotiations, starting with the Rogers proposals of 1969 and concluding with the peace treaty between Egypt and Israel in 1979, the new administration of Ronald Reagan decided that the time had come to focus on other dimensions of the Middle East crisis. Thus, for nearly two years, the substance and rhetoric of the Reagan administration seemed directed to combatting the Soviet threat. The "peace process", the Camp David accords, and U.N. resolutions 242 and 338 all got low billing. In such an atmosphere, it is perhaps not surprising that war broke out. In June 1982, Israel decided upon a "war of choice" against the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in Lebanon. What may have been intended as a swift, surgical operation degenerated into a prolonged siege of Beirut, replete with bombings and shellings that caused many civilian casualties. By late August, the Reagan administration, with a new secretary of state, George Shultz, at the helm, negotiated an end to the fighting in conditions that allowed the PLO to leave Beirut in return for promises that Palestinian civilians who stayed behind would not be harmed. A contingent of American forces helped to oversee the evacuation, then quickly folded its tents and departed.

On September 1, 1982, Ronald Reagan made his first and only major speech on the Middle East. It laid out a framework for a settlement between Israel and the Jordanians and Palestinians. In short, Reagan said the United States would not support Israeli annexation of the West Bank and Gaza; nor would it support an independent Palestinian state. Its preference was for the West Bank and Gaza to be in some form of association with Jordan. Meanwhile, Israeli settlement efforts in the occupied territories should stop and Jordanians and Palestinians should agree to enter into direct negotiations with Israel.

Reagan had the reputation of being very sympathetic to Israel, so it was somewhat surprising that it was the Israeli government that quickly rejected the Reagan plan, as it inevitably was dubbed, while the Arabs showed some interest. But before much momentum could develop, things in Lebanon began to unravel. The newly elected president was killed, and, in the immediate aftermath, his supporters, under the supervision of Israeli troops, carried out a massacre of hundreds of Palestinian civilians in the refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila. The outcry, both internationally and in Israel, was so strong that those Israelis judged to be responsible, including Defense Minister Ariel Sharon, were forced to leave office. A multinational force, including U.S. troops, was rushed back to Beirut to try to restore a semblance of stability. But by early 1984, US forces were pulled out after large-scale casualties had made the whole exercise politically controversial. With his reelection in mind, Reagan appeared to decide to cut his losses.

During the remainder of the Reagan administration, repeated efforts were made, but without much commitment of presidential resources, to bring Israel and Jordan (and some Palestinians as well) into negotiations. The Jordan option, as this approach came to be known, was pursued first in late 1982-early 1983; then again in 1985-87; and finally a last effort was made by Secretary Shultz, this time tied to an international conference, in early 1988. Each effort failed. The underlying reasons were twofold: Israel was unwilling, or unable, to make a clear commitment to the "land for peace" formula with respect to the West Bank; and the Jordanians were unwilling to enter formal negotiations with Israel unless they had both fairly strong assurances that Israel would eventually evacuate all or most of the occupied territory, and broad Arab backing, including support from the PLO. None of these conditions could be fully met.

Thus, by election day 1988, the Reagan administration had little to show for its numerous initiatives. Then, in the brief window provided between elections and inauguration, Shultz surprised most observers by working out an agreement with the PLO whereby the PLO would accept U.N. Resolutions 242 and 338, would recognize Israel's right to exist, and would renounce terrorism in return for the United States agreeing to begin an official dialogue with the PLO (which had been prohibited under the terms of an agreement negotiated by Henry Kissinger and the Israeli government in 1975). In addition, the United States undertook to say that it would not object to a Palestinian state if that were the result of negotiations.

Shultz's final effort, readily blessed by Reagan, gave the new president, George Bush, and his new secretary of state, James Baker, an option that had not been available to previous administrations. They could try, if they so chose, to talk directly to the PLO to try to moderate Palestinian positions enough to make them compatible with those of Israel. The task of actually doing so, however, was daunting. The PLO had no constituency in the United States, and Congress repeatedly threatened to force the administration to restrict or break off the dialogue with the PLO. More troubling, however, was the adamant Israeli refusal to deal with the PLO in any manner at all.

For Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, the PLO was an unfit partner for peace. The reason given was not primarily the PLO's resort to terrorism. Rather, it was the fact that the PLO called for the establishment of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza, and Shamir and his ideological colleagues were unwilling to give up any of these occupied areas. In short, no "land for peace" deal was acceptable for Shamir -- with Jordan, the PLO, or with any other Palestinians, however moderate. His alternative was to propose elections for Palestinians in the occupied territories to discuss some form of local autonomy. But there were no Palestinian takers for such a proposal.

A complicated effort, led by Secretary Baker, to get Israelis and Palestinians into preliminary talks in Cairo seemed to come close to succeeding in March 1990, but rather than say yes to the Baker plan, Shamir declined to respond, resulting in a collapse of his coalition government that had included the more moderate Labor party. After several months of political jockeying, Shamir emerged as the Prime Minister of Israel's most conservative government. Not surprisingly, the new Israeli government felt little inhibition in telling the Americans that they would not accept the Baker plan.

If Shamir contributed his share of nails to the coffin for the Baker plan, so too did a series of other events. In a brief period of several weeks in late May and early June 1990, the following events took place: an apparently deranged Israeli killed seven Palestinian laborers on the outskirts of Tel Aviv; more Palestinians were killed by the Israeli army during large-scale protests; the United States agreed to a special meeting of the U.N. Security Council in Geneva to discuss the possibility of investigating the conditions in the Israeli-occupied territories; a heavily armed sea-borne Palestinian commando operation was intercepted by Israeli forces near the Tel Aviv beaches; the United States vetoed a resolution in the U.N. Security Council calling for an observer group to go to the occupied areas.

Terming the Palestinian operation "sheer terror", President Bush called on PLO chairman Yasir Arafat to denounce the raid and to discipline those Palestinians who organized it. Arafat, under criticism from his own hard-liners, and responding to the angry mood among his own followers, refused to meet the American demands. As a result, Bush suspended the dialogue with the PLO, despite his own claim that it had contributed to the peace process.

The Gulf crisis erupted on August 2, 1990, a terrible time in terms of America's Middle East policy. Instead of having peace talks under way between Israel and the Palestinians, the Bush administration had nothing at all to show for its year-long effort to promote negotiations. Arab attitudes were turning against moderation and against the United States. Islamic movements seemed to be gaining ground. Iraq's Saddam Hussein was playing on all these sources of discontent in the Arab world. As a result, when the Iraqi invasion took place, he was able to mobilize substantial opinion against the United States.

To blunt some of this anger, and to check the spread of Islamic extremism, the Bush Administration tried to hold out the prospect that serious efforts to solve the Arab-Israeli conflict would follow the resolution of the Gulf crisis. The Israelis were clearly nervous about such a prospect, but nonetheless showed some interest in the possibility of negotiating with Syria, although not with the Palestinians. Still, it seemed inevitable that pressures would be felt in Washington to deal with the Arab-Israeli conflict at some point in the future. Because of the end of the Cold War, the long-standing aversion to including the Soviets in any diplomatic effort seemed to be fading.

Shortly after the end of the Gulf war, President Bush, speaking before a joint session of Congress, stated bluntly that the time had come to settle the Arab-Israeli conflict. In the following weeks, Baker made a series of trips to the Middle East to explore the possibility of convening a "regional conference: which would lead to "two-tracks" of negotiations, one between Israel and the Arab states, and one between Israel and the Palestinians. The Soviet Union would be co-chairman of the conference, and the Europeans would have an observer present. A number of procedural issues stood in the way of an early convening of the conference, and it was unclear that the parties to the conflict were genuinely ready to negotiate even if an "event" could be scheduled. Missing was a shared vision of peace in which both sides of the dispute could imagine themselves as better off. And the united States seemed reluctant to enter into the details of how the substantive issues could be resolved so that Israel would achieve security and the Arabs could recover their territory and the Palestinians could assert their political identity. In short, a peace settlement of the Arab-Israeli conflict was still nowhere in sight.

One approach to the Arab-Israeli conflict that commands some support is for the United States to disengage from an active diplomatic role. From this perspective, Washington should wait until conditions are "ripe" before committing its prestige and resources to trying to broker a negotiated settlement. The "ripeness" theorists argue that the United States cannot want a settlement more than the local parties do; that ill-considered activism can make things worse by raising unrealistic expectations, or by setting off defensive reactions. At most, the United States should try to encourage modest steps that can transform the environment, opening the way for possible negotiations at a later date. Thus, confidence-building measures should be encouraged, and moderate leaders supported, while quiet diplomacy explores the room in which each party can maneuver. But no big plans, international conferences or formal negotiations should be supported. This posture assumes that American interests will not be seriously at risk during a prolonged stalemate on the diplomatic front; that the risks of war are slight; and that the chance of any diplomatic breakthrough is minimal.

Some have argued that Arab-Israeli peacemaking should focus on the Arab states and Israel, not on the Palestinians and Israel. This approach correctly notes that Israel's security is threatened by the conventional armies of Syria and Iraq, not by Palestinian guerrillas, and certainly not by the stone-throwing teenagers in the occupied territories. Therefore, why not try to get Syria and Israel, for example, into peace talks, following the Egyptian-Israeli model of the mid-1970s? In the midst of the Gulf crisis, this idea attracted some attention because of Syria's cooperative role. Secretary of State Baker even visited Damascus. But no evidence exists to suggest that Syria is ready for a bilateral deal. And even if there were some such temptation on the part of the Syrian regime, there is no reason to suppose that Israel would be ready to make Syria an offer on returning the Golan Heights that in any way was comparable to the offer made on Sinai in 1978.

Although it is hard to imagine starting the Arab-Israeli peace process with only Syria and Israel, it does make sense to try to include Syria in negotiations that would take place in parallel with talks between a joint Jordanian-Palestinian delegation and Israel. This formula was suggested by Secretary Shultz in 1988 when he endorsed the idea of a non-coercive international conference to which all the parties would be invited. If successful, such a conference might produce several related tracks of negotiation. Even the effort to organize such a conclave would provide a political focus for diplomatic activities that might be of value. But the Israeli government would have to change dramatically before it would be ready to go down this path.

As the president weighs these and other alternatives, he will have to ask himself two key questions: how much do I really care about the Arab-Israeli conflict, and why? And how much leverage do I have with the parties to the conflict, especially Israel? If the answer to either of these questions is "not much", then one can expect a period of retrenchment--at least until the next crisis. But is that the best answer? Not necessarily.

In the short-run, it may be true that the United States can stand back from the Arab-Israeli conflict without much damage to its interests. But over the medium to long term -- the next five to ten years -- much could be at risk. For example, the Egyptian-Israeli peace could come unstuck unless there is further progress in the peace process. Pressures could mount on existing regimes to take tough positions that could undo the progress that has been made to date in the peace process. Extremism in both Israel and the Arab world could grow, making future negotiating efforts much more difficult. Israeli settlement of the West Bank will continue, leaving less and less to compromise over, and pressuring more and more Palestinians to look toward Jordan as their future homeland. So, dangers to American interests do exist in the current situation, and a peace settlement would surely be desirable. But at what price?

Ever since 1967, Israel has been in the position of having to trade something very tangible--territory--for peace. Not without some qualms, Israelis agreed to relinquish all of the Sinai in return for peace and recognition from Egypt. But the West Bank, to say nothing of east Jerusalem and the Golan Heights, are not so readily placed on the negotiating table. Since there is virtually no negotiated settlement in sight as long as Israel holds onto the occupied territories, the question for the United States is whether it can use its influence with Israel to persuade it to relinquish territory under some set of conditions. To do so would require, no doubt, both positive and negative incentives. In short, Israel would have to be reassured and pressured at the same time. Any American president will have to ask what domestic political risk he might be taking if he tried to force the Israelis to make concessions. Could he ask Congress to reduce aid, or at least to attach conditions to any aid increases? Would words alone be enough? Could he count on American Jewish leaders to back him, or would they rally to Israel's side? Could he credibly argue that Israel's security would be enhanced by giving up territory in conditions of peace? And would some portion of the Israeli electorate agree that peace was worth the sacrifice of territory? Much would depend, of course, on what specific issues were on the table, and whether Israel's prospective Arab negotiating partners were seen as offering reasonable proposals.

No doubt there has been some erosion in support for Israel in American public opinion at large, but this does not necessarily translate into support for Arab positions. No Arab leader since Sadat has succeeded in capturing the imagination of the American public. Therefore, it seems highly unlikely that any American president, and certainly no Congress, will turn away from Israel and toward the Arabs in a dramatic fashion. But on specific issues, there could be support for a policy that was quite critical of Israel. For example, settlements in the occupied territories have been opposed by every American president. Some day Congress might be persuaded to attach a provision to the foreign assistance bill that sets aside some money, equivalent to that being spent by Israel on subsidies to the settlements, from the economic support fund. This previously unmentionable idea was raised by congressmen in 1990, as was the possibility of simply cutting all aid, including that to Israel, by five or ten percent in order to make funds available elsewhere. These straws in the wind suggest that aid levels are no longer untouchable.

If economic assistance to Israel could conceivably be used as a form of diplomatic leverage, the same is not necessarily the case with security assistance. Granted, there are many special programs that are simply a disguised form of economic assistance, but the core of the program allows Israel to purchase sophisticated American military equipment to keep a technological edge over any conceivable coalition of Arab adversaries. If Arab countries move to acquire surface-to-surface missiles, chemical weapons, and possibly nuclear capabilities later in the decade, no American policymaker is going to want to be accused of weakening Israel's deterrent power. This does not mean a completely blank check approach, but it does mean that arms will continue to flow. American officials do not want to weaken Israel to the point where some Arab leader might be tempted to entertain a war option, and, less often stated, no one wants to push Israel to a position of having to depend upon its nuclear weapons for deterrence.

Because of the build up of sophisticated weapons in the Middle East, there is inevitably much talk of arms control. Indeed, President Bush put forward such a proposal in mid-1991. But efforts to curb the multiple arms races in the region have largely been unsuccessful in the absence of a political framework on which to anchor such agreements. Indeed, unless there is progress toward both Arab-Israeli peace and Gulf security, arms control will be difficult to achieve in the Middle East. That does not mean that some efforts are not worth pursuing. For example, the missile technology control regime worked out with most suppliers in 1987 may be useful; efforts to slow the pace of nuclear proliferation are still needed; and a ban on chemical weapons would be desirable. But it will be difficult to persuade Arabs to abandon their missiles and chemical weapons unless Israel gives up its missiles and nuclear weapons. And that trade off is not in sight. Concern for arms control, then, leads back to an emphasis on the peace process and possibly to an international conference.

Whatever the goals of America's Middle East policy in the years ahead -- access to reasonably priced oil, promotion of Arab-Israeli peace, encouragement of democratization, protection of human rights, pursuit of arms control, or the stimulation of economic growth -- policies will have to be devised with an eye to regional trends. Among the most important of these trends are likely to be the important political role of Islamic movements in several Arab countries; Israeli preoccupation with the absorption of large numbers of Soviet Jewish immigrants; profound economic and social problems that exceed the capacities of weak governments; continued Palestinian activism in pursuit of a state of their own; ongoing accumulation of sophisticated weapons, especially by Israel, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq and Egypt; and pressures for opening up the restrictive political systems that have clung to power in parts of the region. To say the least, these trends do not imply stability in the region in the foreseeable future. Indeed, significant changes in the political map can be anticipated, although when and where will be difficult to foresee with precision.

The triumph of the Islamic movement in Iran in 1979 led many to expect that Islamic fundamentalism represented an unstoppable wave in the entire Middle East region. Yet apart from areas of Lebanon, Islamic movements did not show comparable successes elsewhere in the 1980s. In short, the Iranian version of Islamic militancy was not readily exported. But home-grown variants did make headway, each with its own specific roots and priorities. What these movements had in common was a ready-made mass base, a political vocabulary that focused on issues of social justice and the fight against corruption, and an authenticity that appealed to many in the region for whom westernization had produced alienation and the breakdown of traditional communal values. In addition, in some countries Islamic movements provided specific social services--education and health clinics, for example--of a higher quality than those offered by the overburdened state sector.

In Egypt, Jordan, Algeria and among the Palestinians in the occupied territories, Islamic movements were particularly strong at the beginning of the 1990s. Whether a second Islamic republic might be declared in the Middle East in the 1990s is uncertain, since countervailing nationalist and secular movements still retain considerable strength. And nowhere have Islamic movements shown that they have compelling answers to the economic and social problems of the countries of the Middle East. Iran does not stand out as such a success that others in the region are rushing to emulate its example, and even Iran seems to be turning away from Islamic militancy as it enters its second decade as an Islamic republic. Nonetheless, Islamic sentiment, often merging with nationalist feelings, will tend to reinforce a trend toward non-alignment, hostility toward Israel and its backers, and a general reluctance to adopt western advice and values. In all probability, Islam will not, however, provide a basis for unity or cooperation throughout the region, since Islamic movements and regimes may prove to be as competitive as the nationalist ones to date.

Israel also may feel the effects of the rising influence of religion in politics, as orthodox parties play a large role in coalition formation. Israel's Arab voters, many of them now turning to Islam and potentially constituting a sizable voting bloc, could also play an increasingly important role in future elections. But even more important for the future of the Jewish state is likely to be the influx of large numbers of Soviet Jewish immigrants, perhaps as many as one million during the first half of the 1990s. For some Israelis, this immigration represents the fulfillment of the Zionist dream. Prime Minister Shamir in 1990 went so far as to imply that the new immigrants made it necessary for Israel to keep all the occupied territories. And, of course, some have seen the massive influx of Jews as the answer to Israel's demographic dilemma of coping with a large and growing Arab minority.

No one can tell for sure what the impact of the new immigrants will be. But several points are worth noting. Few of the newcomers are committed Zionists. Most would prefer to go to the west to live, but that option may not be available. Most are middle class, many are professionals, and most have unhappy memories of living in a socialist society. How they will vote is unknown, but previous waves of Soviet immigrants in the 1990s did little to change the overall balance of the Israeli electorate. What does seem likely, however, is that this cohort of immigrants will be relatively privileged compared to many Sephardic Jews, and this may cause social tensions, with possible political consequences. It will be a challenge for the Likud party to win the allegiance of the new immigrants while holding the loyalties of the Sephardim.

On the economic front, the new immigration is likely to exacerbate problems in the short run, while probably laying the basis of a stronger economy in the future. Finally, on the demographic front the new immigrants will not solve Israel's dilemma of how to keep the occupied territories while remaining a democratic country with a Jewish majority. Instead of having an Arab majority in the year 2010 or so, this will occur ten or fifteen years later. In historical perspective, this means relatively little, however much comfort it may give to today's politicians. Eventually, some Israeli leader will have to provide an answer to the question of how Israel intends to deal with the 2.5 million Arabs (as of 1990) living under Israeli rule. Will they all be given citizenship? That hardly seems likely. Can they be induced to leave? Not easily and not without a major crisis. Can they remain disenfranchised indefinitely? This seems to be the Likud proposal for the Arabs living in the occupied territories. Or can most of the Palestinians in the occupied territories find their political identity in an Arab state living at peace alongside a predominantly Jewish state of Israel? This is the hope of those on the left of the Israeli political spectrum.

Socio-economic tensions are likely to preoccupy many governments in the Middle East in the years to come. In a few cases -- Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states, possibly Iraq and Iran -- oil revenues will provide enough of a cushion to ward off economic crises. But in Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Algeria, Tunisia and Sudan, to mention a few cases, no such palliatives are in sight. In each case, governments are aware of the need for fundamental economic reform, but they are often unwilling to pay the political price that will come when subsidies are cut, jobs are no longer guaranteed, and the state sector is sold off. If such steps are taken, prices are bound to rise, as will unemployment, and no one can be sure that there will not be violent protests. Economic reform, as much as it makes sense as a way of laying the foundations for growth, has the short-term effect of increasing the gap between rich and poor, thereby breaking the implicit social compact that has provided many governments with the shred of legitimacy that they have had until now.

In brief, the politics of economic reform will be a major challenge to all governments -- including Israel, where there is an inefficient state sector and where American aid has helped governments avoid the encounter with economic reality. Americans who have an impulse to preach the virtues of free enterprise should be aware of the political disruptions that can accompany such policies. Attempts to use modest American aid programs to push weak governments toward reform are also likely to result in frustration on both sides of the equation.

Although socio-economic issues may top the agenda for most Arab governments, political concerns will continue to be uppermost in the minds of Palestinians. The contemporary Palestinian quest for statehood, in all or part of historic Palestine, is now in its third decade. A whole generation of young Palestinians has been raised without ever knowing their original homes in Palestine, and yet it is precisely these young Palestinians who helped to ignite the uprising against Israeli occupation, or intifada, in December 1987.

The intifada will no doubt have its ups and downs in the future, but there is no reason to believe that Palestinians will abandon their quest for a state of their own. What may change are the tactics, the formal positions of the PLO, the leaders of the movement, and the weight of the Islamic tendency, which until recently was barely represented in the councils of the PLO. While some Arab regimes will continue to only give lip-service to the Palestinian cause, there will still be a place in Arab politics for the Palestinian cause, especially as it is adopted by Islamic militants.

Jordan, which in mid-1988 gave up its claim to speak for the Palestinians in the West Bank, will be especially affected if no solution is found that anchors Palestinian nationalism to the west of the Jordan River. Although neither Palestinians nor Jordanians want a Palestinian state to replace the Hashemite Kingdom, there will be pressures in that direction in the absence of a political settlement that provides a homeland for the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza.

And if Palestinians become convinced that they cannot gain their objectives through negotiations, there will be voices calling for a return to "armed struggle" as the more effective path. That, in turn, would strengthen the hand of hardliners in Israel, and would close the door to an effective U.S. mediation role. But unless Israelis, with American support, can convince mainstream Palestinians that the peace process can satisfy Palestinian national objectives, increased violence seems to be inevitable.

Palestinian-initiated violence, however frequent it may be in the future, will not threaten the peace of the Middle East on the same scale as the regular armies of Israel, Syria, Iraq and Iran. These four countries must take very seriously the real chance of war, and they seem determined to acquire impressive arsenals to deter and to fight if necessary. Others, such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt, are also well armed, but seem less likely to initiate conflict. Advances in military technology indicate that future wars will be very lethal. Large conventional inventories are now complemented by surface-to-surface missiles, against which there are no effective defenses; chemical weapons, which can cause great damage to undefended civilian populations; and nuclear weapons, which already exist in the Israeli arsenal and on drawing boards elsewhere.

Weapons per se do not make war more likely, but in the hands of a leader like Saddam Hussein of Iraq they can be terribly destabilizing. And some types of weapons, especially surface-to-surface missiles, chemical capabilities, and nuclear systems may lead military planners to consider preemptive strikes in future crises. Thus, sudden political changes can quickly lead strategists to consider the advantages of striking first. Warning times and opportunities for quiet diplomacy may be lost, and the absence of "hot lines" may make it difficult for adversaries to communicate in crises. Arms control, apart from some possible agreements among suppliers, does not appear to have a promising future in the absence of a credible peace process. Finally, the end of the Cold War means that many sophisticated weapons will be available for transfer to the Middle East to any party able to pay in hard currency.

The final trend that will influence events in the Middle East will be increased demand for greater political participation throughout the Arab world. Some of the regimes now in place are unpopular dictatorships that depend upon the army and security services for support. Others are monarchies that severely restrict popular involvement in decisions. A few are cautiously experimenting with democracy, but none has yet yielded power through free elections.

For many years, non-democratic practices were justified in the Arab world by the struggle against the colonial powers; the fight against neo-colonialism and Israel; or the need for a strong government in the face of multiple challenges and conspiracies. The accomplishments of these authoritarian regimes were in winning independence, improving basic literacy and reducing infant mortality. Despite these successes, arguments for non-democratic practices began to wear thin in the 1970s and 1980s, especially when the enormous oil revenues of that period were often squandered. Governments could not meet the increased demands for services. And leaders who had never had to face elections found that they were out of touch with popular sentiment. As a result, demands for greater public accountability began to be heard in the Arab world in the 1980s, and by the end of the decade such pressures had produced semi-democratic elections in Egypt, Jordan and, in 1990, in Algeria. In each case, the outcome demonstrated considerable dissatisfaction with the prevailing order, and surprising strength of Islamic candidates. Pressures for elections and democratic participation can be expected to grow, and regimes can be expected to resist. Americans will instinctively want to encourage democratic development, but they should be aware that elections may well undermine the kind of stability that has prevailed in the region through much of the 1970s and 1980s. That is no reason to avoid the democratic experience, but it is a reminder that the consequences may be difficult to foresee and not always compatible, in the short run, with American interests. For example, it is quite possible that freely elected governments will be strongly anti-American and anti-Israeli in some Arab countries.

If the trends analyzed above are likely to shape the context in which the United States tries to formulate its policies toward the Middle East, a continued high-level involvement can be foreseen. Full-fledged disengagement, a return to isolationism, seems out of the question. Too many interests remain at risk to warrant such a posture. As preoccupation with the Soviet threat disappears, and depending on how the Gulf crisis is resolved, the Middle East is likely to be near the top of the American foreign policy agenda for years to come.

A Middle East torn by conflicts and marked by instability will not be easily "managed" from Washington. Public opinion is unlikely to have much sympathy for developments in this part of the world. Nowhere is there likely to be a Middle East variant of the dramatic turn to democracy recently witnessed in Central and Eastern Europe. Nowhere in the region are we likely to see the economic breakthroughs toward growth that occurred in Asia in the 1980s. Nowhere can one see inspiring leadership, such as that of Nelson Mandela and Frederick de Klerk in South Africa, opening the way to new diplomatic opportunities. And we are unlikely to see intractable conflicts yielding in the face of steady diplomatic efforts, as in Namibia. Sustaining a long-term American commitment to such a volatile area will be difficult. But because of oil and Israel, it will be essential to do so.

To protect its interests in the Middle East, the United States will need to be selective in its focus, multilateralist in its thinking, and quick to respond to unanticipated developments. The United States should concentrate on those issues where it can make a difference with available resources, and where its interests are at stake. Basically, five related issues stand out for priority attention. First, the United States is now stuck with a major commitment to Gulf security. How precisely this will be demonstrated in the years ahead is unclear, but one can easily imagine substantial commitments in the form of arms and personnel. But that will not be enough to bring security to the area.

To reinforce the post-Gulf crisis security arrangements in the Middle East, the United States will need to focus on a second issue: the task of furthering the peace process between Israel and its neighbors. The lack of immediate openings is no reason to disengage. Most of the parties want the United States to stay involved in some fashion. Israel may be ambivalent, but this is no time for Israel to contemplate the kind of reduced American support that might come with U.S. disengagement. In fact, as the "strategic asset" argument wears thin, and as Israel requires additional assistance to help absorb new immigrants, the United States will gain increased leverage over Israeli policy. Whether this will be used effectively to promote the peace process remains to be seen, but usable American influence is available because of the density and magnitude of the U.S.-Israeli relationship.

Third, the United States, Europe and Japan will have an interest in seeing that Middle East states succeed in reforming their economies. Assistance will be needed if the transition to market economies is to be made successfully. In some cases, as with Egypt, debt relief will be needed.

A fourth priority will be to monitor developments in Iran. There is no chance, and no need, for a restoration of the kind of American presence that existed in the 1970s. But the United States does have an interest in a stable Iran that is able to contribute to a balance of power in the Gulf region. No administration will want to rush into a new relationship with Iran, but normal relations should eventually be restored, and this might help to reduce the image of the United States as uniformly hostile to Islamic movements.

Finally, the United States will want to be alert to possibilities for limiting the supply of weapons of mass destruction in the Middle East and for promoting other forms of arms control. The Missile Technology Control Regime, along with the Non-Proliferation Treaty, are examples of what can be accomplished. Weapon systems that increase temptations for preemptive strikes and which are particularly lethal should also be subject to controls by exporters. As part of any serious peace process in the future, the United States should be prepared to support a range of arms control and peacekeeping measures.

Each decade of the post-war era has witnessed a major Middle East war. Iraq's invasion of Kuwait was only the most recent of the many surprises that have confronted American policy makers over the years. What else might surprise us?

First, there is the danger of the collapse of the Egyptian-Israeli relationship, and the attendant deterioration of relations between Cairo and Washington. If Egypt were to return to a posture of belligerency, or were to rally to the side of other Arab states at war with Israel, the strategic picture in the region would suddenly change for the worse. The United States has considerable leverage to dissuade any Egyptian government from moving in this direction, but domestic pressures could override such strategic calculations, or a new regime could come to power with a different set of priorities. Obviously, any move in this direction would pose a threat to American interests in the region and should be prevented if at all possible.

Second, a much-feared scenario of the 1980s was an upheaval in Saudi Arabia that might disrupt oil supplies. Indeed, President Reagan somewhat glibly announced that the United States would not allow such a development to take place. It is less clear what the United States would or could have done, but no one would doubt that major interests were at stake. Few analysts would predict that the Saudi regime is on the verge of collapse. But the Gulf crisis may have weakened some of the foundations of the regime, and a sudden change in leadership there, especially at a time of tighter oil supplies, would confront the United States with an acute dilemma.

Third, it is possible that Saddam Hussein and his regime may cling to power in Iraq for some time to come. In addition to posing a major threat to Iraqi citizens, such a regime could also seek revenge against its many enemies in the region, engaging in terrorism and assassination to destabilize the Gulf region in particular. As long as Saddam Hussein remains in power, Gulf security will seem problematical. And even if he passes form the scene , the future of Iraq is shrouded in many uncertainties. Whether or not Iraq can play a role as a counterweight to Iran's growing power in the Gulf will be a major strategic question in the 1990s.

Many observers of the Middle East scene fear that the perennial issue of water may become a growing source of conflict in the region. Already this is a serious complicating element in Israeli-Palestinian relations. Similarly, Lebanon, Syria and Jordan are all concerned with Israeli designs on their water resources. Syria and Iraq have problems due to large-scale water projects in Turkey that affect the flow of the Euphrates. And Egypt, even with the High Dam at Aswan, feels vulnerable to developments in Ethiopia and Sudan that could affect water supplies. In brief, water will likely be a source of tension in the years ahead, but will probably not be a cause of large-scale armed conflict.

Finally, there are alarming scenarios involving the acquisition or the brandishing of nuclear weapons by states in the region; the deployment of surface-to-surface missiles with chemical warheads; or chemical weapons in the hands of terrorist groups. At worst, some of these developments, in combination with changes in Soviet leadership, could revive some of the Cold-War atmosphere of the past. To ward off such eventualities will require some combination of sophisticated intelligence gathering, careful police work, international cooperation, U.S.-Soviet consultations, and progress toward political resolutions of conflicts.

On the more optimistic side, there are several developments that might change things for the better. One positive step would be a serious move toward Arab-Israeli peace negotiations in the aftermath of the Gulf crisis. Changes of leadership in any number of Middle East states might provide welcome surprises -- although no one can be confident that this will be the case. Against current expectations, Lebanon may begin to rebuild its shattered society, and would have a strong claim on American and other international support. And Iran may emerge from its post-Khomeini consolidation of power as a relatively moderate force in the region.

As Europe unites and Japan assumes a political role comparable to its economic prowess, the United States may be able to find partners with both interests and influence to help deal with the problems of the Middle East. This would be a desirable change in two senses: some of the costs of promoting stability and security in the Middle East should appropriately be borne by other wealthy countries; and multilateral diplomacy may offer more opportunities for containing and resolving regional conflicts than strictly unilateral American initiatives. These are not reasons for the United States to turn to Europe and Japan for leadership in dealing with the region; but they are arguments in favor of enlisting them as partners, along with the Soviet Union where appropriate. The handling of the Gulf crisis suggests that this is indeed a possibility, and adds significantly to the president's ability to sustain public support for a policy of deep involvement in the Middle East.

The United States alone cannot solve the problems that beset the Middle East, but it should be sufficiently attuned to regional developments, and sufficiently engaged across a broad spectrum of issues and regimes, to be in a position to respond positively if and when opportunities present themselves. A skillful exploitation of unanticipated openings may well do more to advance American interests than carefully devised grand strategies. This will require that American policy be informed by regional expertise, not ideological abstractions; that long-term interests count for more than short-term political gain; and that creativity be valued more highly than bureaucratic loyalty. It will not be easy for the American political system to adapt to the post-Cold-War world, but changes such as these will be needed if American policy in the Middle East and elsewhere is to serve American interests well in the 1990s.

The Gulf crisis, as the first major challenge of the post-Cold War era, has set a pattern for U.S. policy for years to come. Let us hope that the strong multilateral response to Iraq's invasion of Kuwait will help to deter future aggression. In a more secure Middle East, and with strong American leadership, it might then be possible to address the Arab-Israeli conflict, the problem of weapons of mass destruction, and the growing gap between rich and poor in the region.

Abd al-Nasser. After a brief flurry of activity designed to enlist regional allies against the pro-Soviet regimes in the Middle East, the United States dropped the crusade because there were no takers. Even the military intervention in Lebanon in 1958, which was justified in part by the Eisenhower Doctrine, ended with the cooperation of the United States and Egypt in putting a mutually acceptable government in place in Beirut.

Perhaps the unhappy fate of the Eisenhower Doctrine curbed the desire of the next two presidents, John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson, to attach their names to any doctrines, whether in the Middle East or elsewhere. Not until Richard Nixon tried to rationalize America's post-Vietnam policy in the Third World do we come across another such sweeping policy statement. The Nixon Doctrine seems to have been an attempt at retrenchment without full-scale retreat. In essence, Nixon said that the United States could not afford to be the world's policeman; that Vietnam had shown that it was too costly to send American troops to trouble spots all around the globe; and that a new approach to creating order in Third World areas was needed. This new policy would consist of building up the power of regional partners of the United States who could act as stabilizing forces in their own backyards. In the Middle East, one candidate stood out: Iran.

During most of the 1970s, until his fall from power in early 1979, the Shah of Iran, who had been well endowed with oil revenues since 1974, was given nearly unimpeded access to the American arsenal. Arms flowed at a prodigious rate. But when the revolution came, they counted for nothing.

It was precisely the failure of the Nixon Doctrine in Iran that gave rise to the next attempt to fill the doctrinal vacuum, this time from the lips of Jimmy Carter in January 1980. His version, inevitably dubbed the Carter Doctrine, stated that the Gulf was a region of vital concern for the United States and that force would be used, if necessary, to protect the free flow of oil from the region against external threats. Without quite acknowledging his predecessor's role in setting the policy, Ronald Reagan proceeded to act on the Carter Doctrine when he ordered American warships into the Gulf to protect Kuwaiti oil tankers in 1987, thereby putting Iran on notice that American force might be brought to bear in the then-raging Iran-Iraq war. And George Bush added his own touch by sending troops to expel Iraqi troops from Kuwait and to enhance Saudi security.

The most recent doctrinal flourish, that of Ronald Reagan, was not focussed primarily on the Middle East; one of the test cases, however, was Afghanistan. The Reagan Doctrine, as it was popularly known, stated that the United States would provide assistance to "freedom fighters" trying to topple pro-Soviet regimes. The CIA for years had provided various forms of assistance to anti-communist forces around the world, but Reagan raised the level and visibility of such support, especially in Nicaragua and Afghanistan. One of the first signs that the Cold War really was nearing its end came with the Soviet decision in 1988 to withdraw all of its combat troops from Afghanistan.

Is a Bush Doctrine for the Middle East conceivable, or does the removal of the Soviet threat leave the United States with only a handful of specific problems in the region without any overarching concern? President Bush and his successors might feel compelled to articulate a vision of democracy and free enterprise for the Middle East, or human rights could become the focal point of American concern. But exhortation alone does not really provide the makings of a doctrine.

All of the past doctrinal statements were followed by substantial commitments of money and arms, and in some cases troops. The Gulf crisis produced a commitment of force -- more than 500,000 strong -- without a clear doctrinal rationale. The president spoke of a "new world order", of oil, the balance of power, the need to resist aggression and to protect the "American way of life". A policy toward Gulf security was developed which may, in time, gain the status of a "Bush Doctrine". Its essential elements would seem to be: a determination to act in defense of national interests, but to do so within a multilateral framework to the extent possible; to uphold the concept of collective security, as enshrined in the U.N. Charter; to use the threat of massive force rather than gradual escalation; and to avoid open-ended commitments that may bog the United States down in a quagmire. (One can note here an "anti-Vietnam syndrome" -- no more incrementalism in the use of force.)

With or without a doctrinal theme, the United States will have interests to pursue and capabilities with which to do so. How are those interests likely to be defined in the years ahead? And will the resources, economic and military, continue to be available to sustain a policy of active involvement in the Middle East?

Interests to the Fore: Oil and Gulf Security.

Oil has always been, in the post World War II era, one of the main concerns of American policy makers who deal with the Middle East. The reasons for American interest in Middle East oil have changed somewhat over the years, but they derive from the fact that the region as a whole, and especially the Gulf area, is the single largest source of petroleum in the world; oil can be produced there at the lowest cost; and American companies have been heavily involved in the discovery, development and marketing of Middle East oil. Even when the United States consumed very little oil from the Middle East, as was the case up until the 1970s, the United States had an interest in seeing that its allies in Europe and Japan had access to Middle East oil, and that American oil companies could continue to earn profits. Since the 1970s, American policy makers have seen an increase in direct American dependence on Middle East oil, and, more importantly, the region has become the swing supplier of oil, which means that world oil prices are essentially determined by decisions on oil production made in a handful of Middle Eastern countries, especially Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Iran.

Three recent oil shocks have colored American perceptions of the importance of Middle East oil. First there was the price explosion at the end of 1973, which came in conjunction with the politically inspired oil embargo against the United States by Arab producers during and after the October 1973 war. The price of oil quadrupled in a period of months; long lines formed at the gas pumps; and the American economy was dealt a severe economic blow. In many people's minds, oil and the Arab-Israeli conflict were joined. War had clearly been accompanied by disruptions of oil supplies. Perhaps peace would help assure a free flow of that precious commodity. No doubt, American efforts to find a diplomatic solution to the Arab-Israeli crisis were driven, in part, by this perceived link between oil supplies and Arab-Israeli peace.

The second oil shock accompanied the Iranian revolution. As the Shah's power ebbed, so did Iran's oil production. The fear and uncertainty generated by the advent to power in Tehran of Ayatollah Khomeini and the establishment of an austere, anti-Western Islamic republic, sent further shock waves through the oil industry. Companies scrambled to replace lost Iranian sources of supply; as prices began to rise, companies rushed to fill their storage tanks, further exacerbating the strained supply situation, sending prices even higher. By the time the surge in prices was over in 1982, a barrel of Saudi oil, for example, was selling for $34, as compared to $12.70 in 1978. And Saudi Arabia, instead of running a small budget deficit, was piling up surplus financial reserves at the rate of some $50 billion per year.

But the 1980s brought another set of lessons: not only could war and revolution drive prices skyward; markets, despite war and continuing Arab-Israeli tensions, could adjust, and prices would eventually come down, as they did with a crash in 1985-86. Despite the Iran-Iraq war, which raged from 1980 to 1988, and during which oil facilities were frequently the targets of attack, oil surpluses developed in the latter part of the decade. When, for a moment in early 1987, it seemed as if Iran was poised to launch a ground offensive into southern Iraq which might also threaten Kuwait, the United States reacted by sending a naval force to the Gulf to escort Kuwaiti oil tankers and to signal the Iranians not to overplay their hand. Some combination of luck, steady nerves and diplomatic skill led to a U.N. sponsored ceasefire in this longest and bloodiest of Middle East wars in mid-1988.

The end of the Iran-Iraq war opened a new phase in relations among oil producers. Iran and Iraq now shared a common interest in seeing higher oil prices to help rebuild their war-ravaged economies. But to achieve such higher prices, someone would have to cut production, or demand would have to grow quickly. Instead, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates adopted a practice of persistently producing above their OPEC quotas, to the point where prices began to slide significantly in early 1990. By late spring, oil from the Gulf was selling for around $12-13 per barrel, well below the $18 per barrel OPEC target, and far below Iraq's demand that oil sell for at least $25 per barrel.

For reasons that went well beyond, but included, oil, Iraqi president Saddam Hussein sent his troops into Kuwait on August 2, 1990, and soon thereafter annexed the entire country. In reaction, the United Nations called for a boycott of all Iraqi and Kuwaiti oil, thus removing some 4 million barrels per day from the market. Saudi Arabia agreed to increase output, as did a number of other producers, but the existence of adequate supplies of oil was not enough to prevent a rush to build stockpiles. As a result, the price of oil soared, briefly reaching nearly $40 per barrel in late September. In real terms, this was still below the peak reached in 1981, but the price was high enough to have a significant impact on the world economy. For the United States, high oil prices added to economic woes that had already brought growth to a near standstill. If anyone needed reminding that trouble in the Gulf could have consequences in America, this crisis drove home the point once again. By early 1991, however, oil prices were coming down, removing pressures on Americans to take painful decisions to curb their appetite for energy. It therefore remained an open questions as to whether the United States would eventually take action to reduce its vulnerability to oil-supply disruptions in the Gulf.

The conclusions likely to be drawn from these three oil shocks are that the United States will continue to have a major interest in Gulf stability and security for years into the future. To protect that interest, substantial military capabilities must be maintained. The investment made in the 1980s to develop military support facilities for the Central Command in Egypt, Oman and elsewhere proved to be of great value during the Gulf war, and more of the same will be needed in the future. In addition, military cooperation with Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states, including some American forces on the ground, is likely to a part of the post crisis security arrangements in the Gulf. It is less clear that substantial American combat forces can or should remain in place. The value of being able to bring air and naval forces to bear on regional crises will, by contrast, be widely appreciated.

These points are emphasized by those American policy makers who feel that the United States must be in a position to protect Gulf oil resources through the 1990s. The end of the Cold War has done nothing to make this task less important, as the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait demonstrated. And with the reduced possibility of Soviet intervention, the risks of pursuing such a policy have declined. If, as most expect, the Gulf will remain a zone of potential turmoil, then American power must remain available to maintain a balance of power and to protect oil supplies. But the Gulf crisis shows that this requires a multilateral effort and regional partners. In sum, the Carter Doctrine, modified to deal with threats from within the region, and as amended by the Bush preference for multilateralism, is likely to remain the framework for American thinking about the Gulf through the 1990s.

The beneficiaries of this perspective will be Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and possibly even Syria and Iran, as long as they lend their weight to the anti-Iraq coalition. Jordan and the Palestinians, in large measure because of their pro-Iraqi stance during the Gulf crisis, will find it more difficult to fit into the new security arrangements. Still, Jordan's role as a buffer state is sufficiently important that it can count on some degree of understanding. It also seems likely that Arab support for the Palestinian cause, if not for the PLO, will insure that Palestinians, in one way or another, are brought back into the political mainstream of inter-Arab politics.

Israel found itself in the anomalous position during the Gulf crisis of having no direct role to play other than to defend itself once Saddam Hussein unleashed his SCUD missiles against Tel Aviv and Haifa. Despite the direct Iraqi attacks on Israel, the United States strongly urged Israel not to retaliate for fear that the intervention of Israel in the Gulf crisis could have been unsettling for the anti-Iraq coalition. As a result, Israelis were made aware that they no longer seemed to be much of a "strategic asset", especially with the end of the Cold War.

In addition to the desire to curb Soviet influence in the Middle East and to retain access to its reserves of oil, the United States has been guided in formulating its policy by a strong commitment to the security and well-being of the state of Israel. History, politics and strategy have combined to make Israel one of the major recipients of American diplomatic, economic and military support. In fiscal year 1990, total American aid to Israel amounted to over $3.5 billion, making this the single largest American assistance program anywhere in the world, and dwarfing all others when computed on a per capita basis (nearly $1000 for each Israeli). Much of the assistance provided to Egypt, totalling $2.3 billion annually, should also properly be seen as derivative of the American commitment to a secure Israel.

Despite the magnitude of this assistance, and the general distaste for foreign aid, Congress has shown strong bipartisan support for these programs. Why is this? No doubt, politics plays a major part in insuring Israel of high levels of assistance. American public opinion since the second World War has been consistently pro-Israeli and this has been translated into broad support for Israel in Congress and usually at the White House as well.

The sources of sympathy for Israel are not hard to discover. Many Americans, shocked by the horrors of the holocaust, believed that the remnants of the Jewish people needed a safe refuge. A Jewish state in part of the British mandate of Palestine, even if it came at the expense of the rights of the Palestinian population then living there, was seen as a historically justifiable step. Thus, American support for the creation of a Jewish state was quick in coming in 1947, despite some reluctance from those in the State Department and Defense Department who were concerned that this would alienate Arabs, compromise access to oil, and provide inroads for the Soviet Union in a sensitive area. It is important to recall that the initial impulse to support Israel was not derived from strategic calculations of gain, but rather from a sense of moral commitment to the survivors of the holocaust, reinforced and institutionalized by calculations that such support would find favor with important sectors of American opinion, especially in the influential Jewish community.

Perhaps because of its concern for other strategic interests in the region, American support for Israel was initially restrained, focussing primarily on economic aid. It was only after the 1967 war that the United States became the major supplier of military equipment to Israel, a role that it has fulfilled without interruption since 1968. But because the United States has always been concerned with more than just Israel in the Middle East, there has been a built-in tension between support for Israel and pursuit of interests elsewhere in the region. Every president has felt the strain and none has entirely succeeded in reducing it. And if Israel's standing in public opinion were to drop, politicians might be less prone to offer automatic support, creating more domestic friction over Arab-Israeli policy than has been the case in the recent past.

Two broad strategies have been devised for reducing the conflict between U.S. support for Israel and its interests in the Arab world. One approach, modeled on the collective security effort in Europe after the war, has been to try to subsume regional disputes within a larger anti-Soviet security framework. If Frenchmen, Germans and Englishmen could all be persuaded to cooperate against a menacing Soviet Union, why not try something similar with Israelis, Arabs, Iranians, and Turks? In both the 1950s and in the 1980s, variations on this theme were explored. Had they succeeded--which they emphatically did not--the United States would have been able to pursue all of its regional interests--checking Soviet influence, protecting oil supplies, and supporting Israel--with one central policy.

But the Middle East is not Europe. The Soviet Union was not seen as the most dangerous adversary by the regional actors. Israelis feared Arabs, and vice versa, more than they worried about the Soviet Union. Western colonial powers were sometimes more of a threat in the eyes of local leaders than the Kremlin's rulers. In brief, there were no foundations in the Middle East for building a solid anti-Soviet strategic consensus.

The other attempt to reduce the friction between Israel and the Arabs, and thereby to allow the United States to pursue its diverse regional interests with less difficulty, has involved a series of efforts to promote peace between Israel and its neighbors. With remarkable regularity, every American president since the 1950s has tried to find some way to move Israel and the Arabs toward peace. Sometimes the efforts were highly secret, as in 1955-56; sometimes economic incentives were offered, as with the Johnston plan for sharing the water of the Jordan river in the Eisenhower period. Nuclear power plants to desalt water and make the deserts bloom have been seen as the key to peace; settling Palestinian refugees in decent housing has been proposed; American peacekeeping troops have been dispatched to the region; arms have been sold; nuclear alerts have been called in the midst of acute crises; and numerous special envoys have been sent to the region by successive presidents.

The results have not been altogether discouraging. In fact, the largest and most powerful Arab state, Egypt, did make peace with Israel in 1979, after having fought five wars and after intense American mediation and substantial promises of aid. And the peace has endured, even in the face of stiff challenges.

But peace between Egypt and Israel resolved only part of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Still unsettled are Israel's relations with the Palestinians, who also claim the right to have a state in some, if not all, of the former British mandate of Palestine; and with the other Arab countries, most importantly Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and Iraq.

The 1967 Arab-Israeli war is still the reference point for diplomatic efforts to solve the conflict. During that conflict, Israel succeeded in conquering the Sinai peninsula and Gaza on the Egyptian front; the West Bank on the Jordanian front; and the Golan Heights on the Syrian front. Israel's declared policy at the outset, later incorporated into U.N. resolutions, was to hold the territories as leverage to force the Arab states to recognize Israel and make peace. U.N. Resolution 242, passed in November 1967, enshrined this "land for peace" formula. After the October 1973 war, another principle was contained in U.N. Resolution 338, namely that the parties to the conflict should enter negotiations under "appropriate auspices" to implement U.N. Resolution 242.

In subsequent years, each American administration tried its hand at Arab-Israeli peacemaking. In 1969 and 1970, Secretary of State William Rogers initially spelled out the terms of a comprehensive settlement, then scaled back his demands to a simple ceasefire in the then-raging war of attrition along the Suez Canal. From 1971 to October 1973, no serious peace initiatives were proposed by Washington. Then, with the outbreak of war on October 6, President Nixon and his Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger, turned their attention to efforts to end the war on terms that would make a future peace possible. Kissinger spent much of his remaining time in office working strenuously, and with a large measure of success, to pry Egypt away from the Soviet orbit into the American camp, and simultaneously to forge a series of partial agreements between Israel and Egypt, and even one between Israel and Syria.

With a presidential election looming in 1976, the diplomatic efforts were put on hold. Only Syria's intervention in Lebanon that year, undertaken with American acquiescence if not approval, seemed to alter the political map. When Jimmy Carter came to the White House, he was ready and eager to pick up where Kissinger had left off, and surprised everyone by giving his own distinctive spin to peacemaking, focussing on the need to address the Palestinian issue, as well as the more conventional state-to-state dimension of the conflict. Somewhat ironically in light of Carter's initial emphasis, all he was able to achieve was to bring Kissinger's policy to a logical conclusion by presiding over an Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty which stood as a textbook example of the implementation of the principles of "land for peace". The question, of course, was whether this model would be followed by others, perhaps with some modifications, or whether it would stand in isolation while the rest of the Arab-Israeli conflict continued to rage. And, one had to ask, could Egypt and Israel remain at peace indefinitely if the other parties to the conflict did not follow their lead?

After nearly ten years of persistent efforts to promote Arab-Israeli peace negotiations, starting with the Rogers proposals of 1969 and concluding with the peace treaty between Egypt and Israel in 1979, the new administration of Ronald Reagan decided that the time had come to focus on other dimensions of the Middle East crisis. Thus, for nearly two years, the substance and rhetoric of the Reagan administration seemed directed to combatting the Soviet threat. The "peace process", the Camp David accords, and U.N. resolutions 242 and 338 all got low billing. In such an atmosphere, it is perhaps not surprising that war broke out. In June 1982, Israel decided upon a "war of choice" against the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in Lebanon. What may have been intended as a swift, surgical operation degenerated into a prolonged siege of Beirut, replete with bombings and shellings that caused many civilian casualties.

By late August, the Reagan administration, with a new secretary of state, George Shultz, at the helm, negotiated an end to the fighting in conditions that allowed the PLO to leave Beirut in return for promises that Palestinian civilians who stayed behind would not be harmed. A contingent of American forces helped to oversee the evacuation, then quickly folded its tents and departed.

On September 1, 1982, Ronald Reagan made his first and only major speech on the Middle East. It laid out a framework for a settlement between Israel and the Jordanians and Palestinians. In short, Reagan said the United States would not support Israeli annexation of the West Bank and Gaza; nor would it support an independent Palestinian state. Its preference was for the West Bank and Gaza to be in some form of association with Jordan. Meanwhile, Israeli settlement efforts in the occupied territories should stop and Jordanians and Palestinians should agree to enter into direct negotiations with Israel.

Reagan had the reputation of being very sympathetic to Israel, so it was somewhat surprising that it was the Israeli government that quickly rejected the Reagan plan, as it inevitably was dubbed, while the Arabs showed some interest. But before much momentum could develop, things in Lebanon began to unravel. The newly elected president was killed, and, in the immediate aftermath, his supporters, under the supervision of Israeli troops, carried out a massacre of hundreds of Palestinian civilians in the refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila. The outcry, both internationally and in Israel, was so strong that those Israelis judged to be responsible, including Defense Minister Ariel Sharon, were forced to leave office. A multinational force, including U.S. troops, was rushed back to Beirut to try to restore a semblance of stability. But by early 1984, US forces were pulled out after large-scale casualties had made the whole exercise politically controversial. With his reelection in mind, Reagan appeared to decide to cut his losses.

During the remainder of the Reagan administration, repeated efforts were made, but without much commitment of presidential resources, to bring Israel and Jordan (and some Palestinians as well) into negotiations. The Jordan option, as this approach came to be known, was pursued first in late 1982-early 1983; then again in 1985-87; and finally a last effort was made by Secretary Shultz, this time tied to an international conference, in early 1988. Each effort failed. The underlying reasons were twofold: Israel was unwilling, or unable, to make a clear commitment to the "land for peace" formula with respect to the West Bank; and the Jordanians were unwilling to enter formal negotiations with Israel unless they had both fairly strong assurances that Israel would eventually evacuate all or most of the occupied territory, and broad Arab backing, including support from the PLO. None of these conditions could be fully met.

Thus, by election day 1988, the Reagan administration had little to show for its numerous initiatives. Then, in the brief window provided between elections and inauguration, Shultz surprised most observers by working out an agreement with the PLO whereby the PLO would accept U.N. Resolutions 242 and 338, would recognize Israel's right to exist, and would renounce terrorism in return for the United States agreeing to begin an official dialogue with the PLO (which had been prohibited under the terms of an agreement negotiated by Henry Kissinger and the Israeli government in 1975). In addition, the United States undertook to say that it would not object to a Palestinian state if that were the result of negotiations.

Shultz's final effort, readily blessed by Reagan, gave the new president, George Bush, and his new secretary of state, James Baker, an option that had not been available to previous administrations. They could try, if they so chose, to talk directly to the PLO to try to moderate Palestinian positions enough to make them compatible with those of Israel. The task of actually doing so, however, was daunting. The PLO had no constituency in the United States, and Congress repeatedly threatened to force the administration to restrict or break off the dialogue with the PLO. More troubling, however, was the adamant Israeli refusal to deal with the PLO in any manner at all.

For Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, the PLO was an unfit partner for peace. The reason given was not primarily the PLO's resort to terrorism. Rather, it was the fact that the PLO called for the establishment of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza, and Shamir and his ideological colleagues were unwilling to give up any of these occupied areas. In short, no "land for peace" deal was acceptable for Shamir -- with Jordan, the PLO, or with any other Palestinians, however moderate. His alternative was to propose elections for Palestinians in the occupied territories to discuss some form of local autonomy. But there were no Palestinian takers for such a proposal.

A complicated effort, led by Secretary Baker, to get Israelis and Palestinians into preliminary talks in Cairo seemed to come close to succeeding in March 1990, but rather than say yes to the Baker plan, Shamir declined to respond, resulting in a collapse of his coalition government that had included the more moderate Labor party. After several months of political jockeying, Shamir emerged as the Prime Minister of Israel's most conservative government. Not surprisingly, the new Israeli government felt little inhibition in telling the Americans that they would not accept the Baker plan.

If Shamir contributed his share of nails to the coffin for the Baker plan, so too did a series of other events. In a brief period of several weeks in late May and early June 1990, the following events took place: an apparently deranged Israeli killed seven Palestinian laborers on the outskirts of Tel Aviv; more Palestinians were killed by the Israeli army during large-scale protests; the United States agreed to a special meeting of the U.N. Security Council in Geneva to discuss the possibility of investigating the conditions in the Israeli-occupied territories; a heavily armed sea-borne Palestinian commando operation was intercepted by Israeli forces near the Tel Aviv beaches; the United States vetoed a resolution in the U.N. Security Council calling for an observer group to go to the occupied areas.

Terming the Palestinian operation "sheer terror", President Bush called on PLO chairman Yasir Arafat to denounce the raid and to discipline those Palestinians who organized it. Arafat, under criticism from his own hard-liners, and responding to the angry mood among his own followers, refused to meet the American demands. As a result, Bush suspended the dialogue with the PLO, despite his own claim that it had contributed to the peace process.

The Gulf crisis erupted on August 2, 1990, a terrible time in terms of America's Middle East policy. Instead of having peace talks under way between Israel and the Palestinians, the Bush administration had nothing at all to show for its year-long effort to promote negotiations. Arab attitudes were turning against moderation and against the United States. Islamic movements seemed to be gaining ground. Iraq's Saddam Hussein was playing on all these sources of discontent in the Arab world. As a result, when the Iraqi invasion took place, he was able to mobilize substantial opinion against the United States.

To blunt some of this anger, and to check the spread of Islamic extremism, the Bush Administration tried to hold out the prospect that serious efforts to solve the Arab-Israeli conflict would follow the resolution of the Gulf crisis. The Israelis were clearly nervous about such a prospect, but nonetheless showed some interest in the possibility of negotiating with Syria, although not with the Palestinians. Still, it seemed inevitable that pressures would be felt in Washington to deal with the Arab-Israeli conflict at some point in the future. Because of the end of the Cold War, the long-standing aversion to including the Soviets in any diplomatic effort seemed to be fading.

Shortly after the end of the Gulf war, President Bush, speaking before a joint session of Congress, stated bluntly that the time had come to settle the Arab-Israeli conflict. In the following weeks, Baker made a series of trips to the Middle East to explore the possibility of convening a "regional conference: which would lead to "two-tracks" of negotiations, one between Israel and the Arab states, and one between Israel and the Palestinians. The Soviet Union would be co-chairman of the conference, and the Europeans would have an observer present. A number of procedural issues stood in the way of an early convening of the conference, and it was unclear that the parties to the conflict were genuinely ready to negotiate even if an "event" could be scheduled. Missing was a shared vision of peace in which both sides of the dispute could imagine themselves as better off. And the united States seemed reluctant to enter into the details of how the substantive issues could be resolved so that Israel would achieve security and the Arabs could recover their territory and the Palestinians could assert their political identity. In short, a peace settlement of the Arab-Israeli conflict was still nowhere in sight.

One approach to the Arab-Israeli conflict that commands some support is for the United States to disengage from an active diplomatic role. From this perspective, Washington should wait until conditions are "ripe" before committing its prestige and resources to trying to broker a negotiated settlement. The "ripeness" theorists argue that the United States cannot want a settlement more than the local parties do; that ill-considered activism can make things worse by raising unrealistic expectations, or by setting off defensive reactions. At most, the United States should try to encourage modest steps that can transform the environment, opening the way for possible negotiations at a later date. Thus, confidence-building measures should be encouraged, and moderate leaders supported, while quiet diplomacy explores the room in which each party can maneuver. But no big plans, international conferences or formal negotiations should be supported. This posture assumes that American interests will not be seriously at risk during a prolonged stalemate on the diplomatic front; that the risks of war are slight; and that the chance of any diplomatic breakthrough is minimal.

Some have argued that Arab-Israeli peacemaking should focus on the Arab states and Israel, not on the Palestinians and Israel. This approach correctly notes that Israel's security is threatened by the conventional armies of Syria and Iraq, not by Palestinian guerrillas, and certainly not by the stone-throwing teenagers in the occupied territories. Therefore, why not try to get Syria and Israel, for example, into peace talks, following the Egyptian-Israeli model of the mid-1970s? In the midst of the Gulf crisis, this idea attracted some attention because of Syria's cooperative role. Secretary of State Baker even visited Damascus. But no evidence exists to suggest that Syria is ready for a bilateral deal. And even if there were some such temptation on the part of the Syrian regime, there is no reason to suppose that Israel would be ready to make Syria an offer on returning the Golan Heights that in any way was comparable to the offer made on Sinai in 1978.

Although it is hard to imagine starting the Arab-Israeli peace process with only Syria and Israel, it does make sense to try to include Syria in negotiations that would take place in parallel with talks between a joint Jordanian-Palestinian delegation and Israel. This formula was suggested by Secretary Shultz in 1988 when he endorsed the idea of a non-coercive international conference to which all the parties would be invited. If successful, such a conference might produce several related tracks of negotiation. Even the effort to organize such a conclave would provide a political focus for diplomatic activities that might be of value. But the Israeli government would have to change dramatically before it would be ready to go down this path.

As the president weighs these and other alternatives, he will have to ask himself two key questions: how much do I really care about the Arab-Israeli conflict, and why? And how much leverage do I have with the parties to the conflict, especially Israel? If the answer to either of these questions is "not much", then one can expect a period of retrenchment--at least until the next crisis. But is that the best answer? Not necessarily.

In the short-run, it may be true that the United States can stand back from the Arab-Israeli conflict without much damage to its interests. But over the medium to long term -- the next five to ten years -- much could be at risk. For example, the Egyptian-Israeli peace could come unstuck unless there is further progress in the peace process. Pressures could mount on existing regimes to take tough positions that could undo the progress that has been made to date in the peace process. Extremism in both Israel and the Arab world could grow, making future negotiating efforts much more difficult. Israeli settlement of the West Bank will continue, leaving less and less to compromise over, and pressuring more and more Palestinians to look toward Jordan as their future homeland. So, dangers to American interests do exist in the current situation, and a peace settlement would surely be desirable. But at what price?

Ever since 1967, Israel has been in the position of having to trade something very tangible--territory--for peace. Not without some qualms, Israelis agreed to relinquish all of the Sinai in return for peace and recognition from Egypt. But the West Bank, to say nothing of east Jerusalem and the Golan Heights, are not so readily placed on the negotiating table. Since there is virtually no negotiated settlement in sight as long as Israel holds onto the occupied territories, the question for the United States is whether it can use its influence with Israel to persuade it to relinquish territory under some set of conditions. To do so would require, no doubt, both positive and negative incentives. In short, Israel would have to be reassured and pressured at the same time.

Any American president will have to ask what domestic political risk he might be taking if he tried to force the Israelis to make concessions. Could he ask Congress to reduce aid, or at least to attach conditions to any aid increases? Would words alone be enough? Could he count on American Jewish leaders to back him, or would they rally to Israel's side? Could he credibly argue that Israel's security would be enhanced by giving up territory in conditions of peace? And would some portion of the Israeli electorate agree that peace was worth the sacrifice of territory? Much would depend, of course, on what specific issues were on the table, and whether Israel's prospective Arab negotiating partners were seen as offering reasonable proposals.

No doubt there has been some erosion in support for Israel in American public opinion at large, but this does not necessarily translate into support for Arab positions. No Arab leader since Sadat has succeeded in capturing the imagination of the American public. Therefore, it seems highly unlikely that any American president, and certainly no Congress, will turn away from Israel and toward the Arabs in a dramatic fashion. But on specific issues, there could be support for a policy that was quite critical of Israel. For example, settlements in the occupied territories have been opposed by every American president. Some day Congress might be persuaded to attach a provision to the foreign assistance bill that sets aside some money, equivalent to that being spent by Israel on subsidies to the settlements, from the economic support fund. This previously unmentionable idea was raised by congressmen in 1990, as was the possibility of simply cutting all aid, including that to Israel, by five or ten percent in order to make funds available elsewhere. These straws in the wind suggest that aid levels are no longer untouchable.

If economic assistance to Israel could conceivably be used as a form of diplomatic leverage, the same is not necessarily the case with security assistance. Granted, there are many special programs that are simply a disguised form of economic assistance, but the core of the program allows Israel to purchase sophisticated American military equipment to keep a technological edge over any conceivable coalition of Arab adversaries. If Arab countries move to acquire surface-to-surface missiles, chemical weapons, and possibly nuclear capabilities later in the decade, no American policymaker is going to want to be accused of weakening Israel's deterrent power. This does not mean a completely blank check approach, but it does mean that arms will continue to flow. American officials do not want to weaken Israel to the point where some Arab leader might be tempted to entertain a war option, and, less often stated, no one wants to push Israel to a position of having to depend upon its nuclear weapons for deterrence.

Because of the build up of sophisticated weapons in the Middle East, there is inevitably much talk of arms control. Indeed, President Bush put forward such a proposal in mid-1991. But efforts to curb the multiple arms races in the region have largely been unsuccessful in the absence of a political framework on which to anchor such agreements. Indeed, unless there is progress toward both Arab-Israeli peace and Gulf security, arms control will be difficult to achieve in the Middle East. That does not mean that some efforts are not worth pursuing. For example, the missile technology control regime worked out with most suppliers in 1987 may be useful; efforts to slow the pace of nuclear proliferation are still needed; and a ban on chemical weapons would be desirable. But it will be difficult to persuade Arabs to abandon their missiles and chemical weapons unless Israel gives up its missiles and nuclear weapons. And that trade off is not in sight. Concern for arms control, then, leads back to an emphasis on the peace process and possibly to an international conference.

Whatever the goals of America's Middle East policy in the years ahead -- access to reasonably priced oil, promotion of Arab-Israeli peace, encouragement of democratization, protection of human rights, pursuit of arms control, or the stimulation of economic growth -- policies will have to be devised with an eye to regional trends. Among the most important of these trends are likely to be the important political role of Islamic movements in several Arab countries; Israeli preoccupation with the absorption of large numbers of Soviet Jewish immigrants; profound economic and social problems that exceed the capacities of weak governments; continued Palestinian activism in pursuit of a state of their own; ongoing accumulation of sophisticated weapons, especially by Israel, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq and Egypt; and pressures for opening up the restrictive political systems that have clung to power in parts of the region. To say the least, these trends do not imply stability in the region in the foreseeable future. Indeed, significant changes in the political map can be anticipated, although when and where will be difficult to foresee with precision.

The triumph of the Islamic movement in Iran in 1979 led many to expect that Islamic fundamentalism represented an unstoppable wave in the entire Middle East region. Yet apart from areas of Lebanon, Islamic movements did not show comparable successes elsewhere in the 1980s. In short, the Iranian version of Islamic militancy was not readily exported. But home-grown variants did make headway, each with its own specific roots and priorities. What these movements had in common was a ready-made mass base, a political vocabulary that focused on issues of social justice and the fight against corruption, and an authenticity that appealed to many in the region for whom westernization had produced alienation and the breakdown of traditional communal values. In addition, in some countries Islamic movements provided specific social services--education and health clinics, for example--of a higher quality than those offered by the overburdened state sector.

In Egypt, Jordan, Algeria and among the Palestinians in the occupied territories, Islamic movements were particularly strong at the beginning of the 1990s. Whether a second Islamic republic might be declared in the Middle East in the 1990s is uncertain, since countervailing nationalist and secular movements still retain considerable strength. And nowhere have Islamic movements shown that they have compelling answers to the economic and social problems of the countries of the Middle East. Iran does not stand out as such a success that others in the region are rushing to emulate its example, and even Iran seems to be turning away from Islamic militancy as it enters its second decade as an Islamic republic. Nonetheless, Islamic sentiment, often merging with nationalist feelings, will tend to reinforce a trend toward non-alignment, hostility toward Israel and its backers, and a general reluctance to adopt western advice and values. In all probability, Islam will not, however, provide a basis for unity or cooperation throughout the region, since Islamic movements and regimes may prove to be as competitive as the nationalist ones to date.

Israel also may feel the effects of the rising influence of religion in politics, as orthodox parties play a large role in coalition formation. Israel's Arab voters, many of them now turning to Islam and potentially constituting a sizable voting bloc, could also play an increasingly important role in future elections. But even more important for the future of the Jewish state is likely to be the influx of large numbers of Soviet Jewish immigrants, perhaps as many as one million during the first half of the 1990s. For some Israelis, this immigration represents the fulfillment of the Zionist dream. Prime Minister Shamir in 1990 went so far as to imply that the new immigrants made it necessary for Israel to keep all the occupied territories. And, of course, some have seen the massive influx of Jews as the answer to Israel's demographic dilemma of coping with a large and growing Arab minority.

No one can tell for sure what the impact of the new immigrants will be. But several points are worth noting. Few of the newcomers are committed Zionists. Most would prefer to go to the west to live, but that option may not be available. Most are middle class, many are professionals, and most have unhappy memories of living in a socialist society. How they will vote is unknown, but previous waves of Soviet immigrants in the 1990s did little to change the overall balance of the Israeli electorate. What does seem likely, however, is that this cohort of immigrants will be relatively privileged compared to many Sephardic Jews, and this may cause social tensions, with possible political consequences. It will be a challenge for the Likud party to win the allegiance of the new immigrants while holding the loyalties of the Sephardim.

On the economic front, the new immigration is likely to exacerbate problems in the short run, while probably laying the basis of a stronger economy in the future. Finally, on the demographic front the new immigrants will not solve Israel's dilemma of how to keep the occupied territories while remaining a democratic country with a Jewish majority. Instead of having an Arab majority in the year 2010 or so, this will occur ten or fifteen years later. In historical perspective, this means relatively little, however much comfort it may give to today's politicians. Eventually, some Israeli leader will have to provide an answer to the question of how Israel intends to deal with the 2.5 million Arabs (as of 1990) living under Israeli rule. Will they all be given citizenship? That hardly seems likely. Can they be induced to leave? Not easily and not without a major crisis. Can they remain disenfranchised indefinitely? This seems to be the Likud proposal for the Arabs living in the occupied territories. Or can most of the Palestinians in the occupied territories find their political identity in an Arab state living at peace alongside a predominantly Jewish state of Israel? This is the hope of those on the left of the Israeli political spectrum.

Socio-economic tensions are likely to preoccupy many governments in the Middle East in the years to come. In a few cases -- Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states, possibly Iraq and Iran -- oil revenues will provide enough of a cushion to ward off economic crises. But in Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Algeria, Tunisia and Sudan, to mention a few cases, no such palliatives are in sight. In each case, governments are aware of the need for fundamental economic reform, but they are often unwilling to pay the political price that will come when subsidies are cut, jobs are no longer guaranteed, and the state sector is sold off. If such steps are taken, prices are bound to rise, as will unemployment, and no one can be sure that there will not be violent protests. Economic reform, as much as it makes sense as a way of laying the foundations for growth, has the short-term effect of increasing the gap between rich and poor, thereby breaking the implicit social compact that has provided many governments with the shred of legitimacy that they have had until now.

In brief, the politics of economic reform will be a major challenge to all governments -- including Israel, where there is an inefficient state sector and where American aid has helped governments avoid the encounter with economic reality. Americans who have an impulse to preach the virtues of free enterprise should be aware of the political disruptions that can accompany such policies. Attempts to use modest American aid programs to push weak governments toward reform are also likely to result in frustration on both sides of the equation.

Although socio-economic issues may top the agenda for most Arab governments, political concerns will continue to be uppermost in the minds of Palestinians. The contemporary Palestinian quest for statehood, in all or part of historic Palestine, is now in its third decade. A whole generation of young Palestinians has been raised without ever knowing their original homes in Palestine, and yet it is precisely these young Palestinians who helped to ignite the uprising against Israeli occupation, or intifada, in December 1987.

The intifada will no doubt have its ups and downs in the future, but there is no reason to believe that Palestinians will abandon their quest for a state of their own. What may change are the tactics, the formal positions of the PLO, the leaders of the movement, and the weight of the Islamic tendency, which until recently was barely represented in the councils of the PLO. While some Arab regimes will continue to only give lip-service to the Palestinian cause, there will still be a place in Arab politics for the Palestinian cause, especially as it is adopted by Islamic militants.

Jordan, which in mid-1988 gave up its claim to speak for the Palestinians in the West Bank, will be especially affected if no solution is found that anchors Palestinian nationalism to the west of the Jordan River. Although neither Palestinians nor Jordanians want a Palestinian state to replace the Hashemite Kingdom, there will be pressures in that direction in the absence of a political settlement that provides a homeland for the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza.

And if Palestinians become convinced that they cannot gain their objectives through negotiations, there will be voices calling for a return to "armed struggle" as the more effective path. That, in turn, would strengthen the hand of hardliners in Israel, and would close the door to an effective U.S. mediation role. But unless Israelis, with American support, can convince mainstream Palestinians that the peace process can satisfy Palestinian national objectives, increased violence seems to be inevitable.

Palestinian-initiated violence, however frequent it may be in the future, will not threaten the peace of the Middle East on the same scale as the regular armies of Israel, Syria, Iraq and Iran. These four countries must take very seriously the real chance of war, and they seem determined to acquire impressive arsenals to deter and to fight if necessary. Others, such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt, are also well armed, but seem less likely to initiate conflict. Advances in military technology indicate that future wars will be very lethal. Large conventional inventories are now complemented by surface-to-surface missiles, against which there are no effective defenses; chemical weapons, which can cause great damage to undefended civilian populations; and nuclear weapons, which already exist in the Israeli arsenal and on drawing boards elsewhere.

Weapons per se do not make war more likely, but in the hands of a leader like Saddam Hussein of Iraq they can be terribly destabilizing. And some types of weapons, especially surface-to-surface missiles, chemical capabilities, and nuclear systems may lead military planners to consider preemptive strikes in future crises. Thus, sudden political changes can quickly lead strategists to consider the advantages of striking first. Warning times and opportunities for quiet diplomacy may be lost, and the absence of "hot lines" may make it difficult for adversaries to communicate in crises. Arms control, apart from some possible agreements among suppliers, does not appear to have a promising future in the absence of a credible peace process. Finally, the end of the Cold War means that many sophisticated weapons will be available for transfer to the Middle East to any party able to pay in hard currency.

The final trend that will influence events in the Middle East will be increased demand for greater political participation throughout the Arab world. Some of the regimes now in place are unpopular dictatorships that depend upon the army and security services for support. Others are monarchies that severely restrict popular involvement in decisions. A few are cautiously experimenting with democracy, but none has yet yielded power through free elections.

For many years, non-democratic practices were justified in the Arab world by the struggle against the colonial powers; the fight against neo-colonialism and Israel; or the need for a strong government in the face of multiple challenges and conspiracies. The accomplishments of these authoritarian regimes were in winning independence, improving basic literacy and reducing infant mortality. Despite these successes, arguments for non-democratic practices began to wear thin in the 1970s and 1980s, especially when the enormous oil revenues of that period were often squandered. Governments could not meet the increased demands for services. And leaders who had never had to face elections found that they were out of touch with popular sentiment. As a result, demands for greater public accountability began to be heard in the Arab world in the 1980s, and by the end of the decade such pressures had produced semi-democratic elections in Egypt, Jordan and, in 1990, in Algeria. In each case, the outcome demonstrated considerable dissatisfaction with the prevailing order, and surprising strength of Islamic candidates. Pressures for elections and democratic participation can be expected to grow, and regimes can be expected to resist. Americans will instinctively want to encourage democratic development, but they should be aware that elections may well undermine the kind of stability that has prevailed in the region through much of the 1970s and 1980s. That is no reason to avoid the democratic experience, but it is a reminder that the consequences may be difficult to foresee and not always compatible, in the short run, with American interests. For example, it is quite possible that freely elected governments will be strongly anti-American and anti-Israeli in some Arab countries.

If the trends analyzed above are likely to shape the context in which the United States tries to formulate its policies toward the Middle East, a continued high-level involvement can be foreseen. Full-fledged disengagement, a return to isolationism, seems out of the question. Too many interests remain at risk to warrant such a posture. As preoccupation with the Soviet threat disappears, and depending on how the Gulf crisis is resolved, the Middle East is likely to be near the top of the American foreign policy agenda for years to come.

A Middle East torn by conflicts and marked by instability will not be easily "managed" from Washington. Public opinion is unlikely to have much sympathy for developments in this part of the world. Nowhere is there likely to be a Middle East variant of the dramatic turn to democracy recently witnessed in Central and Eastern Europe. Nowhere in the region are we likely to see the economic breakthroughs toward growth that occurred in Asia in the 1980s. Nowhere can one see inspiring leadership, such as that of Nelson Mandela and Frederick de Klerk in South Africa, opening the way to new diplomatic opportunities. And we are unlikely to see intractable conflicts yielding in the face of steady diplomatic efforts, as in Namibia. Sustaining a long-term American commitment to such a volatile area will be difficult. But because of oil and Israel, it will be essential to do so.

To protect its interests in the Middle East, the United States will need to be selective in its focus, multilateralist in its thinking, and quick to respond to unanticipated developments. The United States should concentrate on those issues where it can make a difference with available resources, and where its interests are at stake. Basically, five related issues stand out for priority attention. First, the United States is now stuck with a major commitment to Gulf security. How precisely this will be demonstrated in the years ahead is unclear, but one can easily imagine substantial commitments in the form of arms and personnel. But that will not be enough to bring security to the area.

To reinforce the post-Gulf crisis security arrangements in the Middle East, the United States will need to focus on a second issue: the task of furthering the peace process between Israel and its neighbors. The lack of immediate openings is no reason to disengage. Most of the parties want the United States to stay involved in some fashion. Israel may be ambivalent, but this is no time for Israel to contemplate the kind of reduced American support that might come with U.S. disengagement. In fact, as the "strategic asset" argument wears thin, and as Israel requires additional assistance to help absorb new immigrants, the United States will gain increased leverage over Israeli policy. Whether this will be used effectively to promote the peace process remains to be seen, but usable American influence is available because of the density and magnitude of the U.S.-Israeli relationship.

Third, the United States, Europe and Japan will have an interest in seeing that Middle East states succeed in reforming their economies. Assistance will be needed if the transition to market economies is to be made successfully. In some cases, as with Egypt, debt relief will be needed.

A fourth priority will be to monitor developments in Iran. There is no chance, and no need, for a restoration of the kind of American presence that existed in the 1970s. But the United States does have an interest in a stable Iran that is able to contribute to a balance of power in the Gulf region. No administration will want to rush into a new relationship with Iran, but normal relations should eventually be restored, and this might help to reduce the image of the United States as uniformly hostile to Islamic movements.

Finally, the United States will want to be alert to possibilities for limiting the supply of weapons of mass destruction in the Middle East and for promoting other forms of arms control. The Missile Technology Control Regime, along with the Non-Proliferation Treaty, are examples of what can be accomplished. Weapon systems that increase temptations for preemptive strikes and which are particularly lethal should also be subject to controls by exporters. As part of any serious peace process in the future, the United States should be prepared to support a range of arms control and peacekeeping measures.

Each decade of the post-war era has witnessed a major Middle East war. Iraq's invasion of Kuwait was only the most recent of the many surprises that have confronted American policy makers over the years. What else might surprise us?

First, there is the danger of the collapse of the Egyptian-Israeli relationship, and the attendant deterioration of relations between Cairo and Washington. If Egypt were to return to a posture of belligerency, or were to rally to the side of other Arab states at war with Israel, the strategic picture in the region would suddenly change for the worse. The United States has considerable leverage to dissuade any Egyptian government from moving in this direction, but domestic pressures could override such strategic calculations, or a new regime could come to power with a different set of priorities. Obviously, any move in this direction would pose a threat to American interests in the region and should be prevented if at all possible.

Second, a much-feared scenario of the 1980s was an upheaval in Saudi Arabia that might disrupt oil supplies. Indeed, President Reagan somewhat glibly announced that the United States would not allow such a development to take place. It is less clear what the United States would or could have done, but no one would doubt that major interests were at stake. Few analysts would predict that the Saudi regime is on the verge of collapse. But the Gulf crisis may have weakened some of the foundations of the regime, and a sudden change in leadership there, especially at a time of tighter oil supplies, would confront the United States with an acute dilemma.

Third, it is possible that Saddam Hussein and his regime may cling to power in Iraq for some time to come. In addition to posing a major threat to Iraqi citizens, such a regime could also seek revenge against its many enemies in the region, engaging in terrorism and assassination to destabilize the Gulf region in particular. As long as Saddam Hussein remains in power, Gulf security will seem problematical. And even if he passes form the scene, the future of Iraq is shrouded in many uncertainties. Whether or not Iraq can play a role as a counterweight to Iran's growing power in the Gulf will be a major strategic question in the 1990s.

Many observers of the Middle East scene fear that the perennial issue of water may become a growing source of conflict in the region. Already this is a serious complicating element in Israeli-Palestinian relations. Similarly, Lebanon, Syria and Jordan are all concerned with Israeli designs on their water resources. Syria and Iraq have problems due to large-scale water projects in Turkey that affect the flow of the Euphrates. And Egypt, even with the High Dam at Aswan, feels vulnerable to developments in Ethiopia and Sudan that could affect water supplies. In brief, water will likely be a source of tension in the years ahead, but will probably not be a cause of large-scale armed conflict.

Finally, there are alarming scenarios involving the acquisition or the brandishing of nuclear weapons by states in the region; the deployment of surface-to-surface missiles with chemical warheads; or chemical weapons in the hands of terrorist groups. At worst, some of these developments, in combination with changes in Soviet leadership, could revive some of the Cold-War atmosphere of the past. To ward off such eventualities will require some combination of sophisticated intelligence gathering, careful police work, international cooperation, U.S.-Soviet consultations, and progress toward political resolutions of conflicts.

On the more optimistic side, there are several developments that might change things for the better. One positive step would be a serious move toward Arab-Israeli peace negotiations in the aftermath of the Gulf crisis. Changes of leadership in any number of Middle East states might provide welcome surprises -- although no one can be confident that this will be the case. Against current expectations, Lebanon may begin to rebuild its shattered society, and would have a strong claim on American and other international support. And Iran may emerge from its post-Khomeini consolidation of power as a relatively moderate force in the region.

As Europe unites and Japan assumes a political role comparable to its economic prowess, the United States may be able to find partners with both interests and influence to help deal with the problems of the Middle East. This would be a desirable change in two senses: some of the costs of promoting stability and security in the Middle East should appropriately be borne by other wealthy countries; and multilateral diplomacy may offer more opportunities for containing and resolving regional conflicts than strictly unilateral American initiatives. These are not reasons for the United States to turn to Europe and Japan for leadership in dealing with the region; but they are arguments in favor of enlisting them as partners, along with the Soviet Union where appropriate. The handling of the Gulf crisis suggests that this is indeed a possibility, and adds significantly to the president's ability to sustain public support for a policy of deep involvement in the Middle East.

The United States alone cannot solve the problems that beset the Middle East, but it should be sufficiently attuned to regional developments, and sufficiently engaged across a broad spectrum of issues and regimes, to be in a position to respond positively if and when opportunities present themselves. A skillful exploitation of unanticipated openings may well do more to advance American interests than carefully devised grand strategies. This will require that American policy be informed by regional expertise, not ideological abstractions; that long-term interests count for more than short-term political gain; and that creativity be valued more highly than bureaucratic loyalty. It will not be easy for the American political system to adapt to the post-Cold-War world, but changes such as these will be needed if American policy in the Middle East and elsewhere is to serve American interests well in the 1990s.

The Gulf crisis, as the first major challenge of the post-Cold War era, has set a pattern for U.S. policy for years to come. Let us hope that the strong multilateral response to Iraq's invasion of Kuwait will help to deter future aggression. In a more secure Middle East, and with strong American leadership, it might then be possible to address the Arab-Israeli conflict, the problem of weapons of mass destruction, and the growing gap between rich and poor in the region.