Behind the Headlines Optimism and Realism in Moscow

Behind the cordiality and optimism outwardly manifested by the principals in the current Soviet-American conversations in Moscow, the realism is that the superpowers are probably further apart on the Middle East situation than at any time since they were sending arms to their allies during the Yom Kippur War. In these conversations between Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger and Soviet leader Leonid I. Brezhnev at the Kremlin, the United States appears plainly on the defensive, if reports received here from official U.S. sources are correctly assessed by American government analysts.

In effect, Kissinger is telling Brezhnev that if the Soviet Union cannot lend its cooperation in bringing about a Syrian-Israeli disengagement on the Golan Heights, then perhaps he will at least acquiesce in U.S. efforts to achieve it. One well placed American source in Moscow said that active Soviet assistance would be desirable but if that is unobtainable then perhaps Soviet toleration of American activity would be forthcoming. This implied that the Kremlin holds the high cards as in the past on whether high tension will return to the Mideast or progress toward adjustment of the Arab-Israeli conflict will continue.

Soviet assistance is seen as not necessary for starting Syrian-Israeli “proximity” talks since Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Dayan is due here March 29 and the Syrians are expected to arrive within the following week. Where Soviet assistance may be needed is to persuade the Syrians to accept certain positions.

Despite the prospect of indirect Syrian-Israeli talks soon after Kissinger’s return from Moscow, deterioration has set in on both the Egyptian and Syrian fronts. On the Golan Heights Syrian gunners are continuing into the third week their barrages at the Israeli forces. Soviet equipment and ammunition appears to be reaching Syrian forces without interruption. Along the Suez, Egypt has moved guns into areas specifically forbidden by the disengagement accord and recalled the Soviet-Egyptian collusion in 1970 when the Egyptians moved Soviet weapons into the Suez area in violation of the Suez standstill agreement.

In the current case, Israel has been assured by Kissinger, according to Western sources here that Egypt will withdraw its weapons in due time. But the fact that Egypt moved the guns into the forbidden area in the first instance was seen as a possible test by the Cairo government of the determination by the U.S. and the United Nations truce enforcers to keep both sides adhering to the disengagement agreement. One source, in fact, indicated that the attacks on Egypt in the Soviet media may be only a cover on the Kremlin’s encouragement to Cairo to move ahead in the Sinai regardless of the Cairo-Jerusalem accord.

Kissinger himself had cautioned only last Thursday that settlement in the Middle East couldn’t be possible against Soviet opposition. The question now is whether the Soviets will allow Washington to gain ascendancy with the Arab states, particularly Egypt and Saudi Arabia, without irreversible concessions from the United States that will strengthen the Soviet Union in Europe and bolster the Soviet economy.

The Jackson/Mills-Vanik legislation blocking the previous commitment by the U.S. government on trade benefits and credits to the Soviet Union is a lesson the Kremlin has learned, namely, that in the U.S. legislative process the White House does not always have the last word.