Syria puts Schultz shuttle in limbo

Scan page 4

THE agreement of the Lebanese government to the latest American 'peace' initiative in the Middle East was no great surprise.

Lebanon's President Amin Gemayel has been courting and courted by the Reagan administration since he took office last year amid the devastation caused by the Israeli invasion.

Desperately searching for the wherewithall to finance reconstruction of the shattered economy, Gemayel has been unable to secure the kind of cash he had been hoping for from the Arab rulers of Saudi Arabia and the gulf states.

The price of added support from the West, however, has been some kind of compromise deal with the Israeli government which would facilitate a withdrawal of Zionist troops from Lebanon in exchange for 'ironclad' guarantees on the security of Israel's northern border.

The plan which has in fact emerged from George Schultz's nine days of shuttle diplomacy is in many ways tantamount to a treaty between Israel and Lebanon - only the second such bilateral deal between the Zionist state and an Arab regime.

But whereas Egypt's President Sadat went out on a limb and volunteered to participate in the Camp David accords, the Lebanese President was clearly forced into a corner by the situation following the Israeli invasion.

And the Schultz plan itself -including an eight week timetable for an Israeli withdrawal -is likely to remain a dead letter for the foreseeable future, since it depends upon the agreement of the Syrian regime to withdraw its 40,000 troops from Lebanon: and Syria is very much deterVALLEY Beiruty CHOUF Jiye Jebel Ba Barouk Awali Sidon Zahrani, RACHAYA • Damascus HASBAIYA A Litoni Mt Hermon Tyre GOLAN HEIGHTS SYRIA ISRAEL HAURAN Uccupied Jordan by Israel JORDAN WEST BANK Beka'a Valley serve a combined purpose: they are an advance line of defence against an Israeli attack on Syria; they are a support to forces of the Lebanese left and the PLO (who form a valuable counterweight to Gemayel's Phalangist power); and their presence in the current situation keeps a large Zionist army of occupation bogged down in Lebanon, thus making further moves against Syria more difficult.

Rejection

Syrian President Assad has been made the more confident in his rejection of Schultz's diplomatic advances by the arrival of vast quantities of Soviet military hardware, including a new missile screen that comprises some of the most up-to-date SAM-6 missiles.

The Soviet bureaucracy, for its part, is doing everything it can to hold on to its alliance with Assad - their last moderately firm foothold in the Middle East. It appears that they are supplying the arms on extended credit, partly in exchange for Syrian civilian contracts and orders for power stations, rail equipment and airlines.

It also seems that a combination of Moscow and Syrian pressure has produced the sudden recent switch of tone from PLO leader Arafat.

Only a month ago, Arafat was prevented at the very last moment from doing a deal with King Hussein of Jordan which could have given a boost to Reagan's peace plan.

Yet this last weekend saw Arafat turn round completely and make an apparently militant speech, declaring that:

'Effective war on the practical level is the only available means now of recharting the political map through an Arab military movement supporting the Palestinian-Lebanese national struggle' To procure a lessening of Syrian resistance - and thus also create conditins for Arafat to revert to the kind of diplomacy he was engaged upon with King Hussein - could prove a costly and difficult venture for the USA.

It would involve breaking Syria's economic and military dependence upon the USSR -and offering guarantees of military protection against the Israelis, along with some hopes that a road of compromise might retrieve the Syrian Golan Heights from Israeli occupation.

Since the USA has shown itself time and again incapable of dictating terms to the Begin government, President Assad is likely to remain convinced that the only defence of Syrian interests against its aggressive neighbour is military defence.

And with the conservative Saudi regime apparentiy still sitting on the fence, siding with the imperialists on the one hand while bankrolling the Syrians to the tune of $800m per year, there is no immediate chance of a change in this line-up.

----- pull-quotes -----

E7 The Extra-Ter