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Administration officials, for their part, are anything but eager to proclaim a broad new Reagan Doctrine of repeated military retaliation against terrorism. On the contrary, they warned against assuming that new terrorist outrages will necessarily, or even probably, be punished by bombs and bullets. Having demonstrated that the U.S. really will hit back if it has sufficient evidence and provocation, the President, they say, will now return to emphasizing political and economic action. Primarily, that means pushing the allies yet again to agree to some sort of tough, coordinated action, this time with at least the implicit argument that they can see for themselves the unpleasant consequences if they refuse. Indeed, there was some intention among Reagan's advisers to use the bombing to shock the Europeans out of their timidity and inertia. The President especially intends to press for a coordinated program next month at the economic summit meeting in Tokyo of the non-Communist world's seven leading industrial powers: the U.S., Canada, Britain, France, West Germany, Italy and Japan.
Still, the question of when, how and at whom the U.S. might strike again probably cannot be dodged for long. Even if Gaddafi is cowed, terrorist violence undoubtedly will continue and may even increase, as last week's incidents so frighteningly indicated. Libya's assistance to terrorists is of two types: Gaddafi directly plans and carries out some attacks, but he also supplies money, weapons and training to groups that act on their own and could carry on without him. Says Brian Jenkins, a Rand Corp. expert on terrorism: "Quite clearly Gaddafi has played a major role in terrorism, but he by no means exercises control over the myriad Middle East groups who target the U.S. - and the West for a variety of reasons. Gaddafi may have a 'go' switch for some terrorist groups, but not a 'stop' switch."
Richly as Gaddafi deserved being targeted, the U.S. has been observing a kind of double standard in fingering him as Terrorist Public Enemy No. 1. Less noisily, but not a bit less lethally, Syria and at times Iran have been quite as active as Libya in sponsoring, aiding and sheltering terrorists. To take the most notorious example, Italian police believe that the gunmen who carried out the Rome and Vienna airport attacks trained in the Syrian-occupied Bekaa Valley of Lebanon. But Syria and Iran are far more populous, and more heavily armed, than Libya. They also are less politically isolated.
Syria maintains a treaty of friendship with the Soviet Union--a diplomatic plum Gaddafi has pleaded for but never received--which Damascus conceivably could invoke for military assistance against attack. Under those circumstances, if evidence ties some future terrorist murder to Syria as unequivocally as the intercepted messages pointed to Libya in the Berlin disco bombing, what would the U.S. do? Go back on the pledge, renewed by Reagan at his news conference two weeks ago, to "respond" whenever he has proof of responsibility for a specific terrorist act? Or would the U.S. take the risk of launching a military action that could lead to a much wider conflict?