Odd Bedfellows

By Pico Iyer

A marriage angers the U.S.

It was as if a favorite daughter had eloped with a roue, leaving her parents bewildered and angry. So it was that Ahmed Reda Guedira, a royal counselor to King Hassan II of Morocco, faced a decidedly frosty reception in Washington last week when he visited Vice President George Bush, Secretary of State George Shultz and other Administration officials. A month ago the conservative Hassan, long a staunch U.S. ally, had suddenly initiated a treaty of friendship with Libya's radical strongman Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, Washington's Public Enemy No. 1. Officially the State Department admitted to being "surprised" by the improbable marriage; privately it fumed.

In an attempt to soothe those wounded feelings, Guedira last week reiterated that the King had been the moving and controlling force in the partnership and that Hassan, after more than a decade of swapping insults and threats with Gaddafi, had every hope of taming his mercurial new friend. In addition, said Guedira, the pact between the two countries would bolster Morocco's military strength against such inimical neighbors as Algeria and Tunisia without in any way jeopardizing its friendship with the U.S. But Administration officials, who now fear that arms and funds sent to Morocco may fall into the hands of Libya, remained unconvinced. In effect, admitted one senior official, "the U.S. read Guedira the riot act."

The unlikely liaison scattered diplomatic sparks in many directions. Washington dispatched roving Ambassador Vernon Walters to Rabat to warn Hassan that an angry Congress might now try to block the $140 million in military and economic aid earmarked for Morocco in fiscal 1985. French President Franc,ois Mitterrand sent a minister to Algeria and another to Chad; he himself dashed off to Rabat to see whether the new alliance could be of help in settling French differences with Libya in Chad. Even Syrian President Hafez Assad, who has not left his country since a serious heart attack ten months ago, traveled to Tripoli for what was reportedly a stormy confrontation with Gaddafi.

Washington had clearly lost face by not knowing that a marriage was in the making. Its anguish was only increased by the treaty's probable terms. According to some reports, Hassan has promised to lend Libya some 30,000 of his crack troops in the event of another Israeli war. He may also start handing back Libyan dissidents (he is said to have already returned one leading anti-Gaddafi agitator, Omar Meheishi, to almost certain imprisonment). Worst of all, in Washington's eyes, the King's handshake gives Gaddafi, a leader who has openly exported terrorism, a measure of respectability.

In return, the advantages for Morocco are contingent upon the good faith of the maverick Libyan. Gaddafi apparently promised Hassan that he would end his substantial assistance to the 3,500 Marxist rebels, known as the Polisario Front, who have been trying since 1976 to wrest control of the Western Sahara from Morocco in a conflict that has been draining Hassan's economy. Libya could also offer money and jobs to Morocco, which is crippled by an unemployment rate of at least 20% and an $11 billion foreign debt. Politically, the agreement serves as a defiant rejoinder to the 1983 alliance of Algeria, Mauritania and Tunisia, from which both Libya and Morocco were conspicuously excluded. But on both sides the reasoning behind the wedding may be more cynical. "Gaddafi thinks he can infiltrate the country and try to overthrow Hassan," said Abdel Hamid Bakkush, secretary-general of the Cairo-based Libyan Liberation Organization. "Hassan thinks he can prevent that while taking Gaddafi's money." Noted a British diplomat in the Middle East: "It is a marriage of convenience." It is also a very dangerous game in which Gaddafi has little to lose and Hassan everything if he overconfidently believes he can control his new partner.

Many onlookers expect that the odd bedfellows will soon have a falling-out. Libya has courted its Arab neighbors six times before (Egypt and the Sudan twice each, Syria and Tunisia once), and six times the engagements have fallen through. Only last week the ever restless Gaddafi sent an envoy to Cairo with the aim of extracting from Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak "even a hint" of willingness to annul the Egypt-Israel peace treaty. In return, Gaddafi was offering a $5 billion bribe. Mubarak refused to see the Libyan envoy, only too aware that three times in the past year the erratic colonel had sent emissaries of good will to Cairo. On each of these occasions, his promises were followed within a week by treacherous attacks.

With reporting by Philip Finnegan, Johanna McGeary