Profs differ on impact of plan

The Soviet Union's peace plan approved by Iraq and rejected by the U.S. last night received mixed reviews from University experts yesterday. The Soviet plan -- outlined in eight points -- included a bilateral cease-fire, a complete and unconditional withdrawal of Iraqi troops from Kuwait, and a release of all prisoners of war. And although the U.S. rejected the plan, faculty and on-campus experts said yesterday that the proposal opened new doors, especially since Iraq dropped its demand that a withdrawal from Kuwait be linked to an Israeli pullout from the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip. "They dropped the main conditions of the last half year," Foreign Policy Research Institute Director Daniel Pipes said last night. "Israeli withdrawal from the occupied territories and Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon [were not mentioned]." The rejection of the plan, however, may lead to strains within the allied coalition. Some faculty said they feared a rejection would produce a split between the U.S. and other countries in the Gulf. Political Science Professor Frederick Frey said last night that the rejection may divide the delicate U.N. coalition along Cold War lines, with the Soviet Union and China on one side, and the U.S., Britain, France and Saudi Arabia on the other. He added that a rejection may make President Bush look like a war monger. Reasons as to why the Soviet-engineered proposal would be rejected varied. Frey speculated that a refusal could mean that Bush's publically announced goals in the war may not be the ones he is actually seeking. "The president is going to have to clarify his goals," Frey said last night. "If the president's goal is just to get Saddam out of Kuwait then, with some minor adjustments he will accept [the settlement]." If, however, Bush wants Saddam out of power, Frey said that he would reject the peace offer. History Professor Bruce Kuklick, an expert in diplomatic history, said the personal egos of Bush and Iraqi President Saddam Hussein may be the reason for the U.S. opposition to the plan. "[They] seemed to have shown themselves as men whose face and prestige is of immense proportions," he said. He added that if the plan had been accepted, Saddam may have looked like a hero, which he felt may be unacceptable to Bush. Assistant Political Science Professor Avery Goldstein, an expert in national security policy, said that the proposal simply did not lay the right groundwork for an agreement. "Under the right cicumstances they would be willing to get out of Kuwait," Goldstein said. "And under the right circumstances we would be willing to let them get out." Goldstein said, however, that he did not feel that this peace proposal offered the right circumstances. Before the U.S. announced its rejection, some faculty said that the proposal could have provided an opening for Bush to pursue a diplomatic conclusion to the war while still achieving the objectives laid out in the United Nations resolutions. "I'm real pleased," said FPRI Director Pipes, a nationally renown Middle East expert. "This is the first serious indication by Saddam Hussein that he has recognized that he will have to leave Kuwait." There should be "no cease-fire, but negotiations will take place if we continue to bomb," he said. "[Saddam] will have to make concessions." And History Professor Alfred Rieber, a Soviet expert, said the proposal also had left room for Saddam to save face. "My impression is that this is a good opening to negotiate," Reiber said. "In international affairs when you have someone pinned to the wall, you give them a way out."

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