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The Carter Administration hopes that Iraq's aspirations to fill the vacuum left by the fall of the Shah will induce Baghdad to put some space between itself and its longtime benefactors in Moscow. But at the same time, U.S. experts realize that Iraq is not about to endorse an active U.S. role in the area. In fact, Saddam has said that any Arab state that cooperates too closely with the U.S. should be "isolated politically and economically."
Most vulnerable to such threats is Oman. Among the gulfs other, more timid but traditionally pro-Western leaders there is apprehension that the U.S. may unwittingly contribute to Sultan Qaboos' downfall by courting him too publicly and congratulating him too loudly. Around the State Department and National Security Council this is known as the "kiss of death" problem.
But with Carter on the defensive in the presidential campaign, the White House has not been able to resist public boasting over its facilities-access agreement with Oman. "Why must the White House keep saying this openly?" asks Kuwait's Sheik Sabah plaintively. "Does the U.S. have to put Oman in a bad position like this?"
France and Britain—and, for that matter, Western Europe as a whole—generally support the Carter policy, but wish it could be conducted with less publicity. France operates a 14-vessel fleet in the Indian Ocean, while British contract officers occupy key military positions throughout the gulf; yet both the Quai-d'Orsay and Whitehall assiduously downplay their roles.
Reagan Foreign Policy Adviser Allen believes that the answer for the U.S. is not lower visibility but higher credibility: "Of course the U.S. must worry about the kiss of death problem. But the opposite of the kiss of death would be an embrace of strength. Our friends in the region must be able to count on a firm and steady policy of U.S. support."
The trouble is that American credibility in the Arab world depends not so much on how much military muscle the U.S. can flex as on how much political clout it can bring to bear in the Arab-Israeli standoff. The U.S.'s inability to budge the Israelis from the West Bank and to mediate a settlement of the Palestinian issue has direct and damaging consequences for American efforts to shore up gulf security.
As viewed from Washington, that security depends primarily on keeping the Soviets out. But seen from Kuwait, Bahrain or Iraq, security depends on defusing the Arab-Israeli conflict. From their perspective, far more disturbing and potentially destabilizing than the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan is the Knesset's formal annexation of Arab East Jerusalem.
"Jerusalem," says Sheik Hamad bin Isa al Khalifa, the Crown Prince and Defense Minister of Bahrain, "will always be more important to us than Kabul." Adds Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud, his fist clenched and his voice rising in what for him is an uncharacteristic display of frustration: "Israeli aggression is no better than Soviet aggression. If the U.S. wants to bring stability and protect independence in this region, then how can it ask our cooperation in opposing the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan unless it also opposes the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian lands occupied in 1967?"