Iraq Foreign Relations Syria

Jordan's King Hussein persuaded the leaders of Iraq and Syria, at odds ideologically and over the Iran-Iraq War, to attempt to thrash out their differences at a meeting with five other Arab leaders. Jordanian television showed Syrian President Hafez Assad and Iraq's Saddam Hussein looking relaxed with Algerian President Chadli Benjedid sitting between them. Leaders from Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates also were present.

The United States and Britain are pressuring Syria to halt what they say are massive illegal imports of Iraqi crude, an oil flow that many believe is Saddam Hussein's biggest source of undisclosed and uncontrolled hard-currency income. In a closed-door meeting Monday of the Security Council's committee on Iraq trade sanctions, Britain called for a formal "clarification" of allegations that Syria is piping in Iraqi crude in defiance of U.N. orders.

Proclaiming that he will "work closely with" any country willing to oppose Iraq, President Bush met here Friday with President Hafez Assad of Syria, a country the Administration has publicly labeled a major supporter of international terrorism.

In a major test for the Bush administration's new foreign policy team, Syria has opened a key pipeline to Baghdad's oil, a scheme that generates at least $2 million daily in illicit funds for the regime of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, according to senior U.S. officials, Mideast diplomats and oil experts. The smuggling operation, launched in mid-November, is now the largest source of independent income for Baghdad, according to oil experts.

Every Iraqi Scud missile that crashes into Tel Aviv echoes politically here in Damascus, testing Syria's determination to stand with the allied forces in the Persian Gulf War. But President Hafez Assad's regime calculates that it has nothing to gain--and plenty to lose--by getting dragged into an Arab-Israeli conflict engineered by Saddam Hussein. It's furious at Hussein's attempts to light the fuse and scrambling to stamp it out.

Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's call for a holy war against the United States and its Arab allies in the Persian Gulf was rejected Sunday by powerful Muslim religious leaders, even as the Iraqi leader renewed his demand for destruction of the Western "infidels" and their allies. The latest Iraqi attempt to turn the conflict over Kuwait into a 20th-Century version of the Crusades came Sunday when Baghdad Radio broadcast a seven-minute speech by Hussein.

As they look at the current Persian Gulf crisis, the main concern of Israeli military planners is a future war involving the combined forces of several Arab nations aligned against the Jewish state. They do not see Iraq on its own attacking Israel--the retaliation would be swift and destructive. But they do worry if Baghdad should somehow link up with Jordan and perhaps settle differences with Syria.

Iraq's Saddam Hussein is no military mastermind. He makes a few political bluffs and then hammers straight for his objective. But he is shrewd enough to watch his flanks, and last week he invaded Kuwait apparently confident that Iran and Syria, the enemies on his borders, would not take the opportunity to strike at him. The Iraqi strongman won the first trick, but not without possible cost.

President Hafez Assad, the lone gun of Middle East politics, has joined the posse, sending Syrian troops to Saudi Arabia for the showdown with Iraq. In the shifting alliances of the Arab world, the 60-year-old Assad, two decades in power here, had remained obdurate and aloof. Diplomats called him "Mr. No." He was the man who sat and waited for things to turn his way. Now, faced with hard and complex new realities, he has taken a stand, one that is rife with risk.

Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Abdullah is scheduled to visit Baghdad and Cairo this week, continuing a flurry of high-level Middle East diplomacy aimed at clearing the way for an emergency summit and the strongest show of Arab unity in decades. The main obstacles: a long-standing rift between Syria and Iraq and the seven-year-old feud between Palestine Liberation Organization Chairman Yasser Arafat and Syrian President Hafez Assad, who has supported PLO rebels bent on ousting Arafat.

Glossing over their mutual suspicions, Turkey, Iran and Syria have closed the door to any independent Kurdish state carved from northern Iraq. But they failed to agree on how to rein in Kurdish dreams of self-rule encouraged by the Persian Gulf War. Analysts here said Monday that a weekend foreign ministers meeting between Turkey and its neighbors was remarkable less for its agreement than for what was not said.

In recent weeks, it has become painfully apparent that a new chill is descending on the once-thawing U.S.-Syrian relationship. With the Middle East peace talks seemingly going nowhere and the United States leading the drive to enforce United Nations sanctions against Libya, Syria--and other Arab nations--are having second thoughts about the foreign policy of President Bush and the United States.

Syrian President Hafez Assad, long named by the United States as a major sponsor of terrorism, acted to restrain terrorists from attacking Western targets during the Persian Gulf War after a personal appeal from President Bush, Secretary of State James A. Baker III said Sunday. Other officials said that Iran and even Libyan leader Moammar Kadafi played "a surprisingly responsible role" and apparently urged their allies not to attack American and other Western interests during the war.

"Our joy is overflowing. Thanks be to God. The enemy is turning tail," declared a broadcast by the radio of the exiled KUWAITI government. SYRIA blamed Iraq for the ill-fated outcome of its Kuwait invasion. "The rulers of Baghdad cannot deny their responsibility for . . . the catastrophe," the government-run Damascus Radio said. EGYPT was skeptical. Foreign Minister Esmat Abdel Meguid said the war will not end until Iraq accepts all 12 U.N. edicts.

Iraq's conditional offer of withdrawal from Kuwait was one of the scenarios Arab leaders in the Gulf region have feared most, and they hastened Friday to reject it decisively. Six Arab allies in the anti-Iraq coalition declared the proposal "completely and totally rejected," and officials from Kuwait's government-in-exile went from hugs and jubilant exclamations early in the day to a glum pronouncement, when the conditions became clear, that the proposal offered "nothing new."

Al Thawra, a state-run newspaper, urged Iraqis to "liquidate" Saddam Hussein, saying the Iraqi president is leading his troops to their deaths because they have no chance against the allies' advanced technology and weapons. Information Minister Mohammed Salman said the editorial represented only the journalist's opinion, not the official Syrian position.

Arab leaders have agreed to meet in the Iraqi capital next Monday to focus anger over the mass influx of Soviet Jews to Israel. The Kremlin has eased restrictions on the departure of Jews. Reduced access to the United States, where many previously chose to settle, has directed much of the exodus to Israel. The influx has alarmed Arab leaders who fear that many Jews will settle in Arab lands Israel captured in 1967.

Al Thawra, a state-run newspaper, urged Iraqis to "liquidate" Saddam Hussein, saying the Iraqi president is leading his troops to their deaths because they have no chance against the allies' advanced technology and weapons. Information Minister Mohammed Salman said the editorial represented only the journalist's opinion, not the official Syrian position.

Allied warplanes screamed across blinding-blue desert skies to blitz Iraqi troops in the trenches and bunkers of Kuwait and southern Iraq on Friday, and a Saudi commander said the Iraqis have organized "execution battalions" to shoot any of their soldiers who might try to flee. The allies focused their bombing extra tightly on the Kuwaiti theater of operations as Defense Secretary Dick Cheney and Gen. Colin L. Powell, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, visited U.S.

Allied warplanes, flying a mission a minute, bombed deeply into Iraq on Tuesday, taking special aim at the Republican Guard and at President Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit, 90 miles north of Baghdad. For a second day, the U.S. battleship Missouri slammed the Iraqis with shells from its 16-inch guns. Six rounds silenced a long-range artillery battery as it fired on allied troops. Another 28 rounds wiped out an Iraqi radar site.