4 - Friday, January 11, 1991 - North Shore News

War would mean end
of Mideast status quo

WILL THERE be war in
the Middle East? And
beyond?

No.

I'd give a shorter answer if 1
could. Readers have limited time,
I know.

Thanks to the wonders and
limitations of print technology,
these words are being written be-
fore the meeting this week be-
tween United States Secretary of
State James Baker and Iraqi
Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz.

But whatever the outcome of
that meeting — and it isn’t likely
to be an historical turning-point
— I'd play the No card on the
prospects of a general conflict be-
tween the United Nations forces
and Iraq.

For these reasons — notice that,
like other flowers in the Garden
of Biases, they dispute population
mis.onceptions:

First, the Arab-Israeli question.
Iraqi President Saddam Hussein
has linked any negotiations over
Kuwait, which he ran over so easi-
ly in August, with an insistence on
talks over Isrzel, which has
bloodied its neighbor's noses
repeatedly whenever they’ve tried
to run over it in the last 40-odd

ears.

Saddam has been pushing the
Israel button shrewdly and des-
perately, saying any attack on
Iraq will instantly be followed by
an attack on Israel — which
hasn’t contributed at all to the
UN forces massed against Iraq in
and around Saudi Arabia.

A frightening thought. And
meant to be, of course. Saddam is
shrewdly exploiting the very
widespread belief that au attack
on Israel would instantly reunite
the Arab nations, now divided
and mostly critical in varying
degrees of his invasion of Kuwait,
into one solid, seamless unit.

That wouldn’t happen.

Why?

Because the truth is that there is
one objective that the Arab gov-
ernmez:zs completely share above
all — and it isn’t a unanimous
policy on !«cael.

Trevor
Lautens

GARDEN OF BIASES

It’s the objective of covering
their own asses. Protecting their
well-stuffed posteriors. Keeping
the old family firm (the
sheikdoms, the kingdoms) or the
revolutionary governments (like
Iraq’s, Iran’s) in business.

A general war in the Middle
East would certainly damage
Israel, the U.S.-led UN forces,
and the world economy. But,
more certainly, it would
destabilize the Arab governments
themselves.

Destabilize: a nice word mean-
ing that at the end of the conflict
— if there was a definable end —
at least half of those governments
would be overthrown by or have
to make politically or otherwise
expensive peace with their own
oppressed and tyrannized people.

This misconception here is that
leaders, especially despots, believe
what they say. Look beyond the
rhetoric, Under the varnish, the
uniformly undemocratic leaders in
the Middle East are more zealous
for the status quo that gives them
pomp and power than on taking
the fatal risks that would be re-
quired to destroy Israel.

Not, of course, because of so-
licitude for Israel. But because of
love of their own perks — the
brotherhood of power that joins
all government leaders every-

where. With a shake of the hand,
they are united in the universal
power contract: rock the boat,
but, pray, only a little.

The lessons of history are writ-
ten clearly in what happened dur-
ing the First World War to the
German kaiser, the Russian czar,
the remnants of the Austro-
Hungarian Empire.

And the experts will tell you
that, whatever Ireland’s leaders
have specified over the years
about the matter, privately they're
petrified at the thought of bring-
ing Ulster into the fold. Same
principle: the status quo is safer.

Now, that was a long No. 1. So
here is a shorter No. 2:

Second, don’t underestimate the
skills and experience of American
policymakers.

Aw, crank up your jaw, you
naysayers. Again, the conven-
tional wisdom is wrong.

Unless you have a short atten-
tion span, or are a typical sniffing
Canadian shaped in the certainty
that the Americans can do no
right, you’ll recall that the Ameri-
can-led Western alliance —
through the Berlin airlift of
1948-49, the Cuban missile crisis
of 1962, and, yes, some failures
—- kept pressure on the Soviet
Empire for 40 years, until it
cracked like a split lip.

Iraq should notice that.

Not that everything George
Bush says should be taken at face
value. Diplomacy is mostly feints
and shuffles. The uppercut, if the
diplomacy is effective, is rare.

And No. 3:

Listen to the silences. No silence
has been greater than the one
emanating from the world’s most
efficient and, ounce-for-ounce,
strongest economy: Japan —
which gets 96 per cent of its oil
from the Middle East.

When the secret state papers of
today are released 30 to 50 years
from now, I'll wager that they'll
show more behind-the-scenes ac-
tivity by the Japanese than this
world dreams of.

Clip these three flowers from

_the Garden of Biases.

aa

Southam acquisition hearing set

A JAN. 24 HEARING date has
been set for the Federal Court of
Caprda to address a bid by the
federal bureau of competition pol-
icy to block the acquisition of
Lower Mainland Publishing by the
Southam Newspaper Group.

The bureau wants Southam to

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sell its interests in three newspa-
pers, including the North Shore
News.

But Southam will be asking the
Supreme Court of Canada to
determine whether or not the tri-

bunal is a constitutional entity.
Lowe: Mainland Publishing
owns a number of community
Hewspapers and real estate papers
imeughout the Lower Mainland

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