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internationally recognized borders while seeking to regain influence in the Arab world by contributing to a just solution of the Palestinian problem. In their public statements, leaders of the Arab world unanimously insist that there is only one solution: establishment of an independent Palestinian state on the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip. Privately, at least a few Palestinian leaders are willing to concede, albeit reluctantly, that this goal cannot be realized in the foreseeable future. No Israeli government could possibly accede to the creation of such a state, even with international safeguards for Israel's security needs, and hope to survive. Yet continued occupation of the territories is as objectionable to many Israelis as it is to all Arabs.

One possible goal of U.S. policy in the ongoing peace talks would be a demilitarized West Bank, politically federated with Jordan (but with a large measure of local autonomy) and economically linked with Israel. Achieving that admittedly difficult goal would depend, of course, on getting Jordan's King Hussein to join the Egyptian-Israeli talks. Hussein so far has adamantly refused to do so. After the January summit of Islamic leaders in the Saudi Arabian city of Taif, the King once again insisted that the P.L.O. was the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people; nonetheless, he has never entirely given up his interest in the West Bank, which Jordan ruled from 1949 to 1967.

Involving Hussein is important not only because of his potential ability to serve as a surrogate for West Bank Palestinians. It is also important that the Arab-Israeli peace process take on a more multinational cast, thus easing the onus on Egypt's Anwar Sadat as the odd man out in the Arab world. Sadat's isolation makes him politically vulnerable both to internal enemies, like Muslim fundamentalists, and to external foes, like the irrepressible Gaddafi. Sadat's troubles are economic as well as political; he would be in a better position to deliver his long-promised peace dividend to his overpopulated, impoverished country if an Arab-Israeli settlement extended to the West Bank as well as the Sinai. Sadat might then also be able to count on more economic assistance from the Saudis; as long as he is a pariah in the Arab world, they are constrained from helping him very much. A Jordanian "solution" for the West Bank will become more feasible if Shimon Peres succeeds Menachem Begin as Prune Minister in Israeli elections this summer. Peres and his Labor Party have expressed a willingness, under certain circumstances, to return much of the West Bank to Jordanian sovereignty.

No matter how Israeli internal politics and the diplomatic drama in the region unfold, the U.S. cannot escape a central, active role as a mediator in the Middle East. The U.S. is the only superpower that has any influence at all with Israel and Egypt, even as it struggles to maintain the trust of all the other moderate Arab states. That trust would be important to the U.S. even if oil were not involved. Despite its vital interests in the Middle East, the U.S. should resist the temptation

to establish bases either in Israel or in pro-Western Arab states, assuming one were willing to accept an American military presence. A base in Israel would antagonize moderate Arabs; a base in Egypt or Saudi Arabia, say, might add to