Behind the Headlines Sadat is Reappraising His Peace Effort

President Anwar Sadat of Egypt is under increasing pressure to renounce formally his peace initiative and may decide whether to do so this coming weekend in the light of the Washington talks between President Carter and Israeli Premier Menachem Begin. He may even use the occasion to offer his resignation.

Sadat is reappraising his position in the light of the Israeli invasion of south Lebanon amid mounting calls from other Arab leaders for a summit meeting to discuss the Lebanese crisis. Sadat has also shown a desire to improve his relations with the Soviet Union, which was embittered by his peace initiative.

The Egyptian leader gave an indication of his latest thinking last week at a meeting in Cairo of the African Parliamentary Union (APU). “We shall watch what happens in the very near future, he said, promising to call a meeting of his National Security Council, the forum in which high policy decisions are discussed. It will take place this Saturday, March 25.

Although many observers has long since written off the prospects of progress in the Egyptian-Israeli peace talks, Sadat declared that until the Israeli invasion of south Lebanon he himself had believed “we had reached a point where we were about to solve the whole problem peacefully.”

Even now, he was not prepared to admit that his initiative was a failure. This was echoed in a statement by the president of the APU expressing the conference’s “absolute support” for the peace initiative. However, Sadat has also shown the crucial importance he attaches to the outcome of the Carter-Begin talks, and has hinted that he has now virtually lost all hope of achieving what he regards as a satisfactory change of heart from the Israeli leader.

PREPARED TO RESUME TIES WITH USSR

Thus, in spite of the continuing bitter propaganda war between Moscow and Cairo, Sadat told the magazine, “October,” on the eve of the Lebanese crisis, that Egypt was prepared to resume its relations with the Soviet Union and even to improve its ties with the rejectionist Arab states which had been broken following his trip to Jerusalem last November.

This week, the Egyptian leader was at the center of efforts by other states to bridge inter-Arab differences following the Israeli action in south Lebanon. Jordan’s King Hussein led the appeals for an emergency summit meeting, and was supported by Saudi Arabia and the Sudan. The Arab League Secretary General, former Egyptian Foreign Minister Mahmoud Riad, followed by issuing invitations to a summit from his headquarters in Cairo.

The difficulty, however, was that since their own summit in Tripoli three months ago, the rejectionist Arab states have been boycotting all political contacts with Cairo in protest against Sadat’s peace initiatives.

Although Syria’s President Hafez Assad has said that Sadat should be welcomed back to the fold if he recants his heretical policies, other extremist Arab leaders, especially Libya’s Col. Muammar Qaddafi, want to pursue the anti-Sadat vendetta to the bitter end.

The last word may be spoken by Sadat himself who has frequently indicated that he would resign once his peace initiative proved to be a failure. Should he do so on Saturday, he would then face popular demands in Egypt for him to return to office. But as long as Israel is in south Lebanon, Sadat is hardly likely to revive his bid for peace, if he remains President of Egypt.