Middle East: Balancing on the Brink

Do not let this matter trouble you, for the sword devours now one and now another. Strengthen your attack upon the city and overthrow it.

-11 Samuel 11: 25

SO said King David to his downcast general, Joab, during a battle with the Ammonites for the city that is today the Jordanian capital of Amman. And so said Israel's Defense Minister Moshe Dayan last week in similar circumstances. Dayan was in the port city of Eilat, surveying the capsized hulk of an Israeli supply ship sunk by Egyptian limpet mines, when he quoted the Second Book of Samuel. Hours later, as if in response to his exhortation, Israeli airmen over the Gulf of Suez sank an Egyptian mine layer that normally carries a crew of 80.

Dayan's words set an ominous tone for what was an unusually ominous week in the Middle East. Items:

P: Egyptian commandos slipped across the Suez Canal, killed four Israelis in an ambush on a patrol, then were cut up by Israeli airplanes. Meanwhile, Egyptian bombers swept over Israeli positions along the canal four times.

P:Israeli jets flying over Egypt attacked four military installations scattered along a 250-mile front.

P:Syria attacked Israeli positions on the Golan Heights; in two days of air and artillery battles Israel lost one airplane but claimed five Syrian tanks and several gun batteries knocked out.

Moscow Message. Most disturbing of all, the Soviet Union gave an added edge to the Middle East crisis by hinting that unless the Western powers curb the Israelis, Moscow may increase its arms shipments to the Arabs. Gamal Abdel Nasser's undeclared war of attrition against Israel has backfired badly. Instead of turning the Suez into a "sea of blood," Nasser has egged Israel into sending its commandos deep into the Nile valley and its bombers right up to the gates of the Egyptian capital. In alarm, Nasser turned to his Soviet sponsors for help, and Moscow obliged.

Soviet Premier Aleksei Kosygin dispatched three messages in all. Two went to Britain's Harold Wilson and France's Georges Pompidou, requesting them to use their leverage--certainly slight in the case of France--with Washington and Jerusalem to stop the attacks. A third message, meanwhile, was addressed to President Nixon. Although it was brief, it read like a lecture. Kosygin accused Washington of arming and encouraging Israel, and called for the reopening of the becalmed four-power peace talks.

Stable Instability. Nixon answered the message at about the same length and in the same tone. He rejected the implication that the U.S. was responsible for Israel's actions. He reminded Kosygin that since the Six-Day War of 1967 Moscow had turned down every U.S. proposal for limiting arms among the Middle East belligerents and for achieving a negotiated peace. Repeating his statement to U.S. Jewish leaders three weeks ago, Nixon promised that Washington would continue to ensure Israel's safety with arms. The alternative, he said, was for the Soviet government to join finally in peacemaking attempts.

The Russians are hardly likely to comply. Since 1967, they have followed a Middle East policy designed to achieve what one British diplomat last week described as "stable instability." Moscow wants neither peace nor a fourth round of full-scale war, but rather a situation of churning unrest that would finally shatter whatever influence the U.S. still has with the Arab states. That would allow Russia to become the dominant power in the region. The Soviet policy rests on two premises: 1) a reasonably astute use of Russian weapons and tactics by the Arabs; and 2) a disinclination on the part of the U.S., Israel's last major armorer, to provide more arms.

Guessing Wrong. Neither postulation has held up. With all their Soviet materiel, the Arabs have proved ineffectual. They have scored some successes since the war of attrition began last spring but they have paid dearly for every one. The Israelis, for instance, have systematically taken out the SA-2 surface-to-air missiles that the Russians gave Nasser and laid ruin to the radar system that was supposed to alert him to low-flying Israeli marauders.

As for the second Soviet premise, it has proved equally wrong. For a time, Nixon's determination to achieve even-handedness in his Middle East policy offered Moscow cause for optimism; the Russians assumed that Washington would accomplish this primarily by limiting Israeli arms. Now the U.S. is on the verge of providing more weapons to Israel, and just might give Premier Golda Meir all 24 Phantom jets and 80 Skyhawks that she requested during her U.S. visit last fall. The decision is being influenced only partly by Russian threats; another factor is the announcement by President Georges Pompidou that by 1974 France will provide nearly 110 Mirage jets and trainers to Libya, Egypt's neighbor and close ally.

More Planes than Pilots. With its policy in disarray and its Arab clients seeking help, Moscow must now decide what to do. Providing the Arabs with hotter equipment--new MIG-23 "Foxbats" to replace destroyed MIG-21s or SA3 missiles in lieu of the SA-2s--is impractical. The Egyptians are scarcely able to handle what they have been given. In an unusually frank interview with U.S. Newsmen William Tuohy and Rowland Evans, Nasser admitted last week that "we have more planes than pilots." Nor is Moscow likely to order its own military advisers to expose themselves to danger by operating complex equipment under combat conditions. The Russians themselves have already suffered in Israel's attacks; in one incident last March, a number of their men were killed in an artillery barrage that also fatally injured Egyptian Chief of Staff Abdel Monem Riad.

The Arabs would undoubtedly like to have the cease-fire renewed, if only to ease the pressure on them and give them time to rearm. But they will not admit it. The closest they have come was the observation last week by Jordan's Foreign Minister Abdul Munem Rifa'i that his beleaguered kingdom has "a positive attitude" to any reasonable Middle East peace plan. Meanwhile Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, Syria and Sudan met in Cairo last weekend, along with Fedayeen Leader Yasser Arafat. The agenda made no mention of peace or ceasefires. It was concerned mainly with coordination of the war on the eastern front.

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