An opportunity

The Iraqi aggression against Kuwait involves oil, not human rights, and that may be why this time the US and the West did a little more than offer Iraq Most Favorite Nation status if it declares itself satisfied with Kuwait and promises to swallow no more. The usual Western acquiescence to acts of aggression and lawlessness did not set in because even the most weak-kneed of Washington's weaklings seems to have realized that a single power controlling 35% of Middle East oil production, and dictat-ing the price of 100% of it, is a serious threat. Additionally, this time Iraq's sponsor and armorer, the USSR, behaved like a civi-lized Western power and sold out its client. (Yes, sold: as the world's biggest oil producer that was probably brought to its knees by the oil price collapse, the Soviets stand to gain most from a price rise following an embargo.) Freedom, independence and fair play can heroically be defended when there is no danger of irritating the USSR.

The West's response, though less feeble than usual, has not been adequate. For a long week there was nothing but empty bluster: Bush prattled about what was "acceptable" and what was "even more unacceptable;" and Mrs. Thatcher blustered that if Iraq can get away with this, "no small country can ever feel safe again." Again? Name one small country in the last 30 years that the West has not eventually sold bound to its foes after it was threatened or attacked.

The US had, and perhaps still has, an unprecedented oppor-tunity to act militarily and morally. There is no need to get bogged down in Saudi Arabia for the long haul until a defeatist press brainwashes the country into retreat. There is no need to send ground troops to fight Iraq's million-strong army (" war-hardened" by mowing down human waves of fanatical Muslim peasants); the US need only use its air power. It is significant that Turkey, which was snubbed by the US at every occasion, shut off its pipeline with considerable self-denial, and gave permission to use air bases for strikes against Iraq, while the Saudis, who have been coddled with military aid and other bribes at every oc-casion, long kept the pipeline open and posed conditions under which the US would be graciously allowed to save their absolutist necks. From Turkish air fields and if necessary, from aircraft car-riers, the US can, alone, destroy Iraq's poison gas production, cut its pipelines on their side of the border, turn the equipment of its armored divisions into scrap metal and then sit back to hear the sweet sounds of the media wailing and the world approving. The long alternative is the media wailing and the world giving in.

One more thing Bush could do, if he had the guts, and that is to proclaim a self-evident truth: the life of a hostage is no more valuable than that of any other US citizen. Hence it is immoral (as well as futile) to try saving it at the expense of the many other hostages that the savages are bound to take if thus encouraged. And they are encouraged by negotiation, whatever smooth name the State Department dreams up for it.

What is at stake is not merely the price of oil, which will con-tinue to decline over the decades whatever small dents and fluc-tuations may be imposed on its dying trend by individual events: the Husseins, Thatchers and Bushes have no real control over the inevitable and continuing replacement of oil by nuclear power and natural gas. What is at stake is this unique opportunity of decisively interrupting, in the absence of Soviet threats and opposition, the suicidal trends of a decadent society that wor-ships weakness, backwardness, poverty, and incompetence.