International flashpoint

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THE Middle East since the Sicond World War has seen countless wars, many if not all with superpower intervention of one sort or another.

The 1948 Israeli-Arab war; the 1956 Anglo-French-Israeli invasion of Egypt; the 1958 US ntervention into Lebanon; the 1967 Arab-Israeli war; the so-called 'war of attrition' which followed it; the 1973 Arab-Israeli war; the 1978 Israeli invasion of Lebanon; the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon.

In addition there has been the Jordanian civil war of 1970; the Lebanese civil war since 1975; the Egyptian-Libyan war in 1977; the Ethiopia-Somalia war; the Iran-Iraq war; the Libyan and French intervention into Chad; the ongoing war in the Western Sahara; the Iraqi war against the Kurds; the Anglo-Iranian intervention in Oman, etc., etc.

Arms

The Middle East is, in terms of military spending and superpower arms sales, the most militarised area in the world. • The Middle East accounts for 48% of all major weapons supplied to the Third World. It accounts for 32% of all major weapon imports in the world -more than the 'industrialised countries' (31%) and dwarfing other 'flash point' areas like Of the world's top seven coun tries in terms of per capita military spending, six are in the Middle East. It has the bighest percentage of gross national product spent on arms of any region in the world - between 13 and 15 per cent (as against 8.3% for the Warsaw Pact countries, the next highest).

The Middle East now has almost twice the military manpower of the US, and nearly as much as the US plus NATO.

The superpowers have a long history of involvement in conflict in the region.

Brisai curent! has miltar! scrisers in Oman. There are Cuttirational peace-keeping forces in Egypt and Lebanon. The US has directly intervened i Lebanon, and indirectly in Lan iplus of curse the pathetic tempt to rescue the US Embassy hostages).

The Soviet Union has had at efferent times advisers in a sober of countries and still has ise in Exhiopia and Syria.

Sara. which has had 30,000 Imps a Lebanon since 1976, is De Somes Union's chief regional it The l'S attack on Syrian positions was, in part, motivated by a desire to 'teach the Soviets a lesson' and limit their recently reviving strength in the region - a desire fed by US 'public opinion' which is obsessed with the Soviet presence in Syria.

In the summer of 1983, the US Sixth Fleet - supposedly backing up its peace-keeping' forces in Lebanon, took to bombarding Druze villages to maintain the right-wing Christian and communalist Falangist government in Lebanon.

Rapid Force And a dominant feature of US foreign policy in the region is the so-called Rapid Deployment Force (RDF) announced in Oct 1979 under the auspices of the doctrine' • This states' that the US will intervene militarily anywhere in the region to maintain its 'vital strategic interests' and its local allies.

The RDF already has a nuclear capability. There are three carrier battle groups stationed in the Indian Ocean and Eastern Mediterranean loaded with hundreds of nuclear warheads. Anti-submarine patrol aircraft stationed in Diego Garcia and Oman also carry nuclear warheads. And non-nuclear Harrier vertical take-off AV8-A aircraft are being replaced by nuclear-capable AV8-B.

The strategic conception underlying the RDF is quite clear. It has two central aims:

*To protect allies from internal opposition, particularly, but not only, in the Gulf.

*To deter the USSR from regional 'adventures' by the threat of direct confrontation with the US which would lead to the use of US first strike capacity.

Ronald Reagan put it like this:

"If it (the USSR) thinks that this lintervention in a Middle Iran: the US's next target? Eastern country) will cause a an 11T confrontation - this is going to give them pause. They're not going to move too swiftly because they don't want the world blown up."

And Caspar Weinberger in his annual report said: "For the region of the Persian Gulf, in particular, our strategy is based on the fact that... the prospect that we might carry the war to other arenas is the most effective deterrent to Soviet aggression."

In 1976, Vice-Admiral Gerald E. Miller explained that "it will become increasingly difficult in the near future to protect US overseas interests with conventional weapons . . . We just would not have the capability.. to take care of the situation with conventional force." And Miller goes on: "I do not assume that all threats we face will come from the Soviet Union or oniy from nations capable of nuclear response ... We have confrontations with nuclear or non-nuclear nations whose geographical location is such that we have no adequate means of protecting our interests with conventional weapons."

The RDF is also designed to protect US local allies. After the assassination of Sadat in 1981, the US carried out the war games called 'Operation Bright Star' partly as a display of strength against would-be rebels.

The Reagan administration defines any anti-regime activity in one of its allied states as 'Soviet-inspired' After Lebanon, it would be Iran. The 'Islamic Republic' threatens to close the Gulf if Iraq takes action against its oilfields. The US has stated that it will intervene to keep the Gulf The prospect of more and more US intervention, escalating to nuclear confrontation, is increasingly a real and dangerous one.