Proceed with Caution

The U.S. is urged to tread lightly in a crucial region

The Islamic revolution in Iran has sent out shock waves of confusion and distress throughout the monarchies of the Middle East. A state of jitters prevails in the Arabian peninsula, whose petroleum exports are vital to the security of the U.S. and its allies. The rulers of Saudi Arabia, the largest oil exporter of all, are reported to be frightened; a new set of security regulations is in force throughout the country. The governments of the tiny states of the Persian Gulf are also worried, about both their Shi'ite and Palestinian populations and about the wave of Islamic fundamentalism and unrest that seems to be spreading through the Middle East. They are trying desperately to bend with the wind. Bahrain, long known for its easygoing Western ways--it is one of the few countries in the area where liquor is sold--has, in deference to Muslim tradition, just opened an interest-free Islamic bank and banned male hairdressers from attending to women. The Amir of Kuwait has promised that his country's national assembly, "suspended" since 1976, will be reopened next year.

Throughout the region, there is a virtually unanimous belief that the current semblance of stability would be shattered by U.S. military intervention in Iran, regardless of the provocation. Says a political science professor in Kuwait: "It would lead to a direct explosion." The moral, in the words of a respected Beirut journalist: "If the U.S. ever considers military intervention, it had first better make sure that Arab governments are in control of their countries."

Nowhere is concern over the future more manifest than in Saudi Arabia, where a feudal monarchy rules a sparsely settled (estimated pop. between 4 million and 7 million) land containing 23.2% of the world's proven oil reserves. The ruling House of Saud was badly shaken by last month's attack on the Sacred Mosque in Mecca, the holiest shrine in Islam. It was originally reported that the attacking guerrillas were religious fundamentalists who were seeking the recognition of their leader as the Muslim Mahdi or Messiah. Saudi officials later confirmed that although some of the intruders were indeed religious zealots, the majority were politically motivated guerrillas who were trying to destabilize the country. Some Saudis believe that the armed men may have been trained in South Yemen, the Marxist state at the southern tip of the Arabian peninsula. Their real leader, according to Saudi officials, was an Islamic nationalist named Juhaman Otabi, who had once worked for the government but had been dismissed and flogged for drinking liquor.

The operation in Mecca had been intricately planned. For weeks before, the guerrillas had been squirreling away small weapons and food supplies inside the mosque. After the attack began, they concealed their dead and wounded in order to make the government think that the rebel casualties were light. When the two-week siege was finally over, the Saudi national guardsmen discovered the bodies of 300 guerrillas. Most of their faces had been deliberately burned by their surviving comrades to conceal the victims' identities. Some 160 of the intruders were captured, and will be tried on charges of defacing a holy place. The likely sentence: death by beheading. Saudi officials are now convinced that the whole operation was aimed at King Khalid and the royal family. The King had planned to worship at the mosque that day but changed his mind because of illness. Some eyewitnesses reported that the guerrillas closely examined the faces of hundreds of worshipers, apparently in the hope that the King, in disguise, might be among them.

The attack has deeply alarmed Saudi leaders. Questions are being asked about whether Crown Prince Fahd, the heir apparent to King Khalid, commands enough authority, especially among the armed forces, to withstand a broader-based insurrection. One U.S. expert believes that the regime should embark on an emergency anticorruption campaign, but he is not particularly hopeful. His conclusion: "Some say the royal family can survive. Some say it is too late."

One of the worst fears of the Saudi leaders and their neighbors is that the Soviet Union will become actively involved on the side of the monarchies' enemies. So far the Soviets have treated the unrest in the region with relative restraint. But to the east, in Afghanistan, the Soviet role has been aggressive and heavyhanded. Within the past three weeks, according to U.S. intelligence estimates, the Soviets may have tripled their military assistance to the Marxist regime of Hafizullah Amin, which is fighting to hold its own against a country-wide rebellion by Muslim tribesmen. The Soviets are now believed to have 5,000 to 10,000 military advisers in Afghanistan, many of whom are actually directing some field operations.

The U.S. has been quietly telling the Soviets for months that their intervention in Afghanistan is contrary to the spirit of detente and could jeopardize the passage of SALT II. Why are the Soviets ignoring these warnings? To some extent, they are trying to reinforce a faltering regime. But Western experts believe that the buildup may also be Moscow's deliberate reaction to the increase of American naval and air power in the region around Iran: an oblique Soviet warning of the dangers of superpower confrontation.

Given such a staggering array of imponderables, what policies should the U.S. follow in Iran, Saudi Arabia and the surrounding area? In an interview with TIME Editor in Chief Henry Grunwald, the director of London's International Institute for Strategic Studies (liss), Christoph Bertram, argues that once the American hostages have been released, the U.S. should ignore Iran, isolate it, and try to curtail its influence on the Gulf states. Many of America's allies agree. British diplomats, for instance, are convinced that the Iranian Ayatullah Khomeini's Islamic Republic in its present form will not outlive the aging leader. It is therefore vital, say the British, that the U.S. tread as lightly as possible in Iran and do nothing that would prejudice the emergence of a more moderate Islamic regime.

As for Saudi Arabia, the liss's Bertram believes that Washington would do well to try to dilute a historic one-to-one relationship with Riyadh by bringing some of its closest allies into the partnership. Otherwise, says Bertram, "the danger is that the U.S. will be drawn into the country's potential internal conflicts, and that governments in the Gulf, in order to reduce internal tensions of their own, would try to dissociate themselves from the U.S." In his view, the establishment of permanent U.S. bases in the Gulf would be unwise because it would place additional internal political strain on the area's vulnerable regimes.

In surveying the problems facing the U.S. and its allies, most strategists agree on one point: nothing could do more toward building a new relationship between the West and the Islamic world than a successful conclusion of the Egyptian-Israeli "autonomy" talks. It would be an ideal first step toward defusing the Iranian crisis and reducing the pressure on America's traditional allies. Until significant progress is made on that score, they believe, there is likely to be neither much sympathy for the U.S. nor much real stability in the region. As a senior British diplomat observed last week, "A settlement of the Palestinian problem would do more for the West in the Middle East than several divisions of U.S. Marines." -

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.