On the Way to War

...But the "last best chance for peace" was not the end of diplomacy...

...The conservative Heritage Foundation says it is disappointed with President Bush, finding a "political void" in his Administration...

...Fifteen Lithuanians have been killed in a Soviet Army crackdown in Vilnius, where the television station and tower and two radio stations were seized...

...December 26: President Bush, getting too close for comfort to dire decisions, has effectively managed to put off the January 15 deadline for a month or so...

...troop reinforcement in the Gulf and the cancellation of personnel rotation on Wednesday, October 31...

...A republic like Georgia, trying to break away, faces a minority within trying to break away from Georgia...

...and foster a "brain drain" by emigration...

...Yugoslavia's Foreign Minister is poking around Baghdad, representing the nonaligned states, but that does not look very promising...

...January 5 (after the announcement of a January 9 meeting between Secretary Baker and Foreign Minister Aziz in Geneva): The Administration is trying to stay in command of the situation on our side in the tense days ahead...

...It countered an American proposal to have Kuwait present (at a meeting between Iraqi Foreign Minister Tarik Aziz and President Bush on December 17) by saying it would bring along the PLO...

...On October 28,1956,Britain, France and Israel invaded Egypt to seize the Suez Canal while Nikita Khrushchev was grappling with a democratic uprising in Hungary...

...With the President saying, in effect, that he is still determined to fight, just not quite ready, he provides a reprieve for a worried world and new chances for discussion, direct and indirect...

...He said, "I do not belittle you, but, considering the nature of American society, I hold this view: Yours is a society that cannot accept 10,000 dead in one battle...

...The focus is on a blizzard of diplomatic efforts to find some basis for a compromise...

...January2: On December 12, President Bush met with Prime Minister Yitzchak Shamir for two hours, about half of the time alone...

...December 8: Karpov and Kasparov itisn't...

...December 22: Just as once American conservatives held that détente policies and arms control were giving away the store to the godless Communists, so now Soviet reactionaries see Shevardnadze as accepting lopsided arms reduction agreements, ko wtowing to America hat in hand for food, and teaming up with America against a longstanding ally, Iraq...

...Indeed, within a week, Soviet tanks rolled across Hungary to suppress the uprising...

...January 14: At this fateful moment, linkage threatens to upset some of President Bush's calculations and complicate his plans...

...It seems inconceivable that President Bush would go to war without having gone "that extra mile...

...That is today's functional equivalent of a declaration of war...

...When General Calvin Waller asserted that American forces would not be fully ready until mid-February, his words were initially treated by the Administration as an embarrassment, but later as a godsend...

...Not linkage between the Gulf crisis and the Palestinians, but between the Gulf and the Lithuanians...

...to stall for time and try to sow division in the coalition arrayed against him...

...After all, Soviet participation in the coalition against Iraq, a longtime ally, is opposed by the same reactionary forces that want to use guns to hold the Soviet Union together...

...December 6: Senate hearings revealed a splintering of the bipartisan coalition...

...That refers, in the first place, to the European Community, which is trying for a second time to make its own contact with the Iraqi government...

...The American Government quickly retreated to making the meeting bilateral...

...The U. S. and Iraq are deadlocked on the date for a meeting...

...January 8: Nearing the third year of his Presidency, George Bush is clearly in a position he enjoys—so preoccupied with guiding the ship of state through dangerous shoals that he can ignore the domestic troubles festering below deck...

...When word of the Suez invasion reached Moscow, I happened to be with Ambassador Charles ("Chip") Bohlen, whose instantaneous reaction was, "This is a tragedy, especially for those who care about Hungary...

...He tells interviewers that he sleeps well and that he prays at night, but not kneeling...

...Democrats, earlier fearful of confronting the President in time of crisis, were emboldened to offer a direct challenge to what they characterized as a disastrous rush toward war...

...The Europeans—meaning the French and the Germans primarily—are far more willing than the United States to link a Kuwait settlement to an international conference on the Palestinian issue...

...December 24: The nationalist-military-reactionary backlash that brought Shevardnadze down appears to involve a broader challenge to the post-Cold War Soviet-American partnership...

...He could find in recent history reason to believe that concern for American life was a powerful influence on Presidential actions...

...He said efforts were being made to derail the Soviet economy...

...December 15 (after President Bush, having proposed that Secretary Baker go to Baghdad between December 17 and January 15, balked at January 12 as too close to the deadline): The planning in the Bush Administration is done in a tight little circle of people comfortable with each other and deathly afraid of leaks...

...Worry about a handful of hostages in Lebanon had helped to lead President Reagan into the Iran-contra scandal...

...Somebody else must worry about the over 7.5 million Americans unemployed in a now-acknowledged recession—most of whom will fall through a tattered safety net...

...December 10: There is already in progress a form of negotiation by press statement and talk show...

...People who don't have monolithic Communist tyranny to hate any more are going back to hating each other...

...President Bush bought time with Congressional leaders by scheduling the Baker-Aziz meeting and saying, in effect: Everybody shut up or you'll spoil the meeting...

...The threat of war vies for frontpage space with the bank failures helping to further erode Americans' confidence that their way of life, which he is defending in the Persian Gulf, is being defended at home...

...It went on, mainly through others—the French, the Algerians, United Nations Secretary General Perez de Cuéllar—and seemed likely to continue after January 15 until the time came when the bombs would fall...

...President Bush wrote to Congress that "I am determined to do whatever is necessary," and invited it to support him...

...December 20: Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze's resignation has profound implications for Soviet foreign policy, but even more profound implications for the future of democracy in the Soviet Union...

...Completing a withdrawal by thenis manifestly unfeasible...

...That reversed an almost fourmonth-old policy of no negotiations until Iraq unconditionally pulled out of Kuwait...

...President Eisenhower accused the Soviets of trying to use Suez to distract attention from their brutality in Hungary...

...Israel displayed its nervousness about the American-Iraqi talks by warning the U.S...

...As midnight approached, a kind of hush fell over the world...

...The President has been trying strenuously to keep the two issues separated...

...against allowing Iraqi power to remain intact...

...When Shevardnadze warns of a coming dictator, he presumably means Gorbachev's successor, yet that successor could be Gorbachev himself...

...This time the linkage may be more direct...

...For President Bush it was to bring home to Americans the immediacy of the risks and to galvanize Congress into giving him support...

...That was the dilemma that confronted Congress as it started, the day after Geneva, debating whether to give Bush its blessing or try to slow him down...

...President Johnson at least asked for authorization (and got it from all in Congress, except Senators Wayne Morse of Oregon and Ernest Gruening of Alaska...

...He said Soviet support against Iraq remained "solid but firm," and refrained from invoking sanctions that might weakenMoscow's backing while condemning the crackdown in Lithuania...

...It appeared at this writing that perhaps only then would serious negotiation start on an Iraqi evacuation from Kuwait...

...Public diplomacy is not like private diplomacy...

...January 13: President Bush has eased his ultimatum a little by saying that it would be enough if Saddam Hussein started a large-scale evacuation before midnight Tuesday...

...Saddam had also tried to use American hostages until they became a depreciating asset...

...His effort fails...

...For Saddam Hussein evidently was convinced, despite all the warnings, that the U.S...

...Washington Notebook BY DANIEL SCHORR On the Way to War Attentive readers of The New Leader who are also listeners to National Public Radio may have discovered echoes of my daily commentaries in these columns...

...It is now known that Bush approved the plan for large-scale U.S...

...The Iraqi dictator had identified America's cardinal weakness, as he saw it, in his famous July 25 interview with Ambassador April C. Glaspie, where he warned against American intervention in his dispute with Kuwait...

...Saddam spoke with the authority of one who had launched a war against Iran that cost a million lives on both sides...

...Secondly, once Saddam is out of Kuwait he will be able to negotiate with it for the oilfields and islands he supposedly covets...

...There was another case of linkage between Soviet repression and a Middle East War...

...December 11: "In other news," as they say after giving you the big story, there is Europe east of the Elbe, threatened with civil strife as an empire crumbles...

...Secretary General Pérez de Cuéllar has gone to Baghdad with some ideas about a UN peacekeeping force and a Middle East conference...

...This was the kind of mistake that experienced staff people help you avoid—the people whom you are supposed to ask, "If I do this, what is Saddam's response likely to be...

...he did not ask for authorization...

...They reportedly reached some understanding that Israel would try to stay out of a war with Iraq and that American forces would offer a swift response to any Iraqi attack on Israel...

...Congress nevertheless proceeded to vote authorization, enabling it to claim that constitutional requirements were fulfilled...

...An unwelcome diversion, from the American viewpoint, is renewed pressure in the United Nations for a broadranging conference on the Middle East —read the Palestinian conflict...

...While making no flat commitment to stay on the sidelines, Shamir reportedly agreed to "consult" and "coordinate" with the United States before Israel launched its own armed response...

...I continue to believe—but I'm increasingly lonely in my position—that at least one meeting has to take place early in the New Year...

...It has its own purposes...

...Asked whether the military action in Vilnius was timed to exploit the international preoccupation with the looming war in the Gulf, Bush replied with a curt "No," although he cannot know...

...December 4: There has been enough evidence of positions abruptly switched and information manipulated to raise questions about whether the Bush Administration has been leveling with the public about matters that may involve war or peace...

...Here, as a way of reconstructing the evolving perceptions as we approached the Iraqi crisis—whatever stage it may be in when you read this —I would like to quote more explicitly from those analyses...

...December 5: In the preparatory exchanges to set up the talks Iraq has already scored a point...

...would flinch at the prospect of shedding American blood...

...January 12 (the final day of the threeday debate that ends with narrow majorities in Senate and House to authorize the use of force): Several members have said this was the most important vote they were likely to cast in their legislative careers, but it was not...

...As long as he remained convinced Americans were so sentimental about human life that they would not let their President go to war, there was not likely to be any serious negotiation...

...Voter frustration about American hostages in the U.S...

...A meeting is likely because it has become a kind of imperative...

...That was signaled by Vladimir A. Kryuchkov, chief of the KGB, in a speech to the Congress of People's Deputies...

...President Bush needs it for the reason he originally gave—to show his willingness to go the extra mile for peace...

...Iraq is dragging its feet on a date for Secretary of State James A. Baker togo to Baghdad, obviously wanting a date as close as possible to January 15...

...At the same time, he ordered that this be kept secret until after the November 6 elections...

...Saddam doesn't have to play for checkmate, just for stalemate—that is, to weaken allied and American resolve enough to take him past the United Nations' January 15 pullout deadline...

...Saddam Hussein needs it...

...The most recent switch was the announcement of talks with Iraq...

...Let us start in early December, after the news that American hostages in Iraq were to be released, and that President George Bush had proposed reciprocal meetings in Washington and Baghdad...

...What the Shevardnadze resignation has dramatized is that Gorbachev's assurances (of continuity of policy) don't count for much...

...December 18: Never mind what the governments say publicly as they maneuver for position...

...It is accustomed to space countdowns, but not to a countdown like this one...

...But up on the bridge where the winds blow, such mutinous sounds are hardly heard as the skipper steers his course toward America's manifest destiny...

...In the onetime center of the empire, Mikhail S. Gorbachev leans more and more heavily on the Army and the KGB as he attempts to impose a new Union treaty on resistant republics...

...The method was pioneered by President Johnson in 1964, when he asked Congress to authorize "all necessary measures" to aid South Vietnam after an allegedly unprovoked attack on an American warship in the Gulf of Tonkin...

...On television, Secretary Baker assures Saddam Hussein that he is safe from attack if he just gets out of Kuwait...

...The President seems serene as, in his words, "weclickrightondowntoadeadline...

...Soon the Bush Administration may have to consider how it can provide assistance when that aid is under attack within the Soviet government...

...Then, there is the 102nd Congress, which convened amid indications that the Democratic leadership would seek, by resolution, to require that the President obtain Congressional authorization before going to war...

...embassy in Teheran had helped bring down President Carter...

...Others must worry, too, about the swelling budget deficit that threatens to reach an all-time high and more than wipe out the reductions painfully stitched together at the budget summit last fall...

...If Gorbachev was, as he says, not consulted before the shooting began in Vilnius, how long can he be counted on to support the United States in the Gulf...

...He charged Western countries with shipping outdated technology and contaminated grain to the Soviet Union...

...January 10 (after the unproductive meeting between Secretary Baker and Foreign Minister Aziz in Geneva): It wasn't in the cards for Geneva to produce a breakthrough...

...For Saddam Hussein one purpose, obviously, was to don the robe of Saladin, defender of the Arab world against the infidel...

...that he is increasingly a prisoner of the very forces from which he wanted to liberate his country...

...December 29: Although there was some expectation that Saddam Hussein would produce a new diplomatic initiative arising from his meeting with key Iraqi ambassadors, that has not happened...