U.S. search for secure Middle East base

Press, 4 January 1980, Page 10

U.S. search for secure Middle East base

By

PATRICK SEALE

An American defence team touring the Arabian peninsula and the Horn of Africa in search of bases has sparked off a flurry of local disclaimers. The instinct to keep the Americans at arm's length pinpoints the dilemma at the heart of the problem of Middle East oil security. Local rulers , need American protection but few, if any, can afford to accept it. Even Saudi Arabia, which shares vast oil and financial interests < with the United States, has categorically rejected the notion of United States forces on its soil. As Prince Sultan, the Saudi Defence Minister, declared late last month, the Gulf countries would “not permit

in London

any act of foreign intervention. . . regardless of the form of this intervention or the side which tried to carry it out.”. Although he named ..o names, the Prince’s intention was clearly to shoot down recent reports from the United States suggesting the United States would use military force to protect the Gulf oilfields in a crisis. He also wanted to make it plain to Arab opinion that Saudi Arabia would not provide bases for the “rapid deployment force” which the Pentagon is planning for use in Third World trouble spots. The only American presence which Arabian rulers have accepted is an invisible one — a naval force “over 'the horizon,” safely out of

the way of popular resentment. But the lesson of Iran is that such forces are ineffective. The two United States Navy carrier battle groups in the Indian Ocean are awesome instruments of war, but scarcely adapted to meeting civil disturbances. They may frighten the Russians, but the” do not impress anti-American rioters. The United States, with 21 warships in the Gulf and the Indian Ocean, and another 33 in the Mediterranean, could blow much of the Arabian land mass into the stratosphere. But the'United States does not have the ability to seize, hold, defend and— most important — operate a Middle East oilfield in the face of a hostile population.

This is what the United States defence team is trying to rectify. The mission is led by .Mr Reginald , Bartholomew,'? Director of the Bureau of- iPolitico-Military Affairs at the State Department, and Mr Robert Murray, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defence for Near Eastern, African and South Asian Affairs. It is visiting Saudi Arabia, Oman, Somalia and Kenya. To fight a land 'war in defence of the oilfields, the United States needs access to airfields and ports in the area, as well as permission to position supplies and heavy equipment. Only with the ground prepared in this way for a physical presence, would American defence guarantees become credible. But it is just such a dem-

onstration of American preparations that local rulers cannot easily entertain in the present climate. Essentially, the defence mission is seeking shortterm facilities to' tide the United States over the next I three to -five years; .-For the longer term, President Carter has announced plans to build, and deploy near trouble spots, a fleet of armed cargo ships — floating arsenals of heavy equipment — as well as a new fleet of large cargo aircraft to carry tanks and other supplies over inter-continen-tal distances. In contrast to America’s position, the Soviet Union is already well placed for rapid intervention in the Middle East by airborne or ground forces. Not only does it have some 30 divisions in military districts adjoining Iran, but it has also acquired

naval and air facilities in Ethiopia and South Yemen, and is consolidating its presence in Afghanistan; American planners are less concerned about a confrontation with the Soviet Union than about the collapse under radical pressure of some Arab regimes, a collapse which the Soviet Union would exploit. The tactical alliance of Islamic fundamentalists and L e f t-wing underground groups, such as that which overthrew the Shah, is a threat in countries as diverse as Egypt, Syria, the Gulf and Saudi Arabia. • There is increasing evidence that the seizure of the Grand Mosque in Mecca was the work of just such a group of Islamic militant reformers underpinned bytrained Left-wing guerrillas. —0.F.N.5.,: copyright.