| Show omMiemmowi!iimft0VtiO441&&ItAimmakiUIAnikoWmk - LI The Salt Lake Tribune Sunday September 30 1990 Negotiated Peace Difficult Long By William G Hyland Special to The Washington Post The time has come for America to spell out its terms for settling the Gulf crisis At this stage the crisis should be easing and diploma cy moving forward Both sides had to make certain moves before a settlement could even be contemplated But that phase ended with the Helsinki summit a breach between the superpowers was Saddam Hussein's last real hope Rather than easing however the crisis is becoming more explosive and war seems more and more likely em MINN William G Hylimd is editor fairs &SIM VP 0 : Itik 10 t - Olmilb of Foreign At o War may well be the only solution If Sad-dais truly like Hitler he lusts for war Even so before going to war we must try to offer him a way out Simply insisting that Iraq withdraw from Kuwait is no longer enough Any peace plan has to deal not only with the liberation of Kuwait but with the containment of Iraq and the establishment of new security arrangements for the Gulf and perhaps the entire Middle East as well The outlook for negotiations is quite gloomy but a peace plan might work if all five permanent members of the Security Council — Britain France the United States China and the Soviet Union — put it forward Even Saddam could not simply brush it aside To hint at a negotiation at this stage could be a sign of weakness and encourage Saddam to hold on Any Five Power offer therefore would have to have the character of an ultimatum perhaps not a Strict time limit but close to it The starting point of course would be the withdrawal of Iraqi troops from all of Kuwait and the insertion of I UN force The restoration of the status quo ante would not be enough The Kuwaiti government would have to pledge to validate its legitimacy through elections to a parliament Iraq would be gru'Sranteed the opportunity to present its economic and territorial grievances against Kuwait to the World Court and both governments would be bound by the outcome With Iraq's withdrawal completed one-haof its assets would be unfrozen and the im embargo against foodstuffs and lf non-leth- N 7f): I ::: I90 I j9 5e- 1040 7A -- -- Q - 1v1 — i - c 33 --- : ---1- 4- Pti)la 0 1 !ilit 0 i But War Even More So ----- ' wentAtiezotrztus - 4 ‘ 00 - fo ' 16b ' Nit : -- : - -- -' 4 a 01J - 3 Ts '- -' at -- --- 14 S:'-- 15:' 11 ' - -- I'' - 1"---- - '- - - ----- -r - r 1 X t - : - --- - f -- C 'C ! War Drums ports would be lifted This might just barely save Saddam's face but it would still leave the region at his mercy This threat would be dealt with first by a Five Power guarantee to the effect that an unprovoked attack against any of the Gulf States by any power would be an attack against the Five Powers This guarantee would be extended to all Gulf states whether they requested it or not - if ' fi : it r10 0 tN t r tt Bush Tax-C:- By Kevin Phillips Special to the Los Angeles Times ! 1 The image that the Republicans developed during the 1980s as the party of the rich and by Washington's rapacious — surrealistic budget debate — is no longer just a sarcastic liberal epithet It's a White House bias that could menace both the economy and the future of the GOP New poll data shows that under President Bush the percentage of Americans describing the GOP as the party of wealth and avarice has surged Bush's upper-crubackground may be a factor So too his millionaire friends in the Cabinet economic em- Bush's incessant 1988-9tax rate phasis on reducing the capital-gain- s peeved even GOP congressional leaders And his son Neil's involvement in Colorado's $2 billion Silverado savings and loan scandal hasn't helped Politically this imagery plays on one of the GOP's historic great weaknesses h r S b i - I I! s ' i B it s " st r e 0 I s e '' - S ut MMm1 - A Five Power guarantee is a powerful political instrument but it would not be enough American and other troops would remain in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf area until the question of Iraqi armaments had been dealt with Iraq would have to agree to submit its various nuclear-relate- d facilities to inspection as pro vided for by the Nonproliferation Treaty Moreover its rockets and missiles would have to be assembled in a designated area subject to continuing inspection and preferably de tiI 1 The economic downside as America moves into the 1990s is also significant For starters the White House has been putting upper-brackinterests principally a reduction in the capital-gain- s tax rate — ahead of compromising to reduce a federal budget deficit that's nearly out of control e This has made deficit reduction a and i Second cycle the process greed debt bubble of the '80s may be on the verge of — bursting just as it has twice before in the S&L j last hundred years The I bailout crisis is just one sign Real estate val1 ues and commercial bank solvencies are in and a rising tide of personal and 4 jeopardy ) corporate bankruptcies has begun lapping at states cities and counties I It's no coincidence Policies of the 1980s Perils-ofPaulin- it n 11 i ' n Y T 1 !:''‘N'- '''''' - -sit '4 - l'X ' - 1 - ': - - — ' - i- ' "a (1 ' '4 N ''' P ' '' ey and influence will fill For countries like Czechoslovakia Poland and Hungary Germany will become their most important trading partner and most important source of investment capital The Soviet Union is daily becoming more dependent on German credit Germany's diplomats and businessmen will loom large in the old Soviet Bloc — and that influence In turn will strengthen their hands in the rest of the world The United States hopes that the new Federal Republic of Germany will be just like the old Federal Republic of Germany — only bigger West Germany was a stuffy rich country firmly tied to NATO with the United States and to a European partnership with France — a kind of Greater Holland The new Germany says official US opinion will be more of the same: ' ii:Et 400 vaw 0 — o -i - ---A5-- -- -- Helmut Kohl disintegration the United States to prop up its shaky Middle Eastern position today to prop up a shakier dollar tomorrow The deutsche mark is the world's reserve currency and it continues to gain on the dollar If reunification goes badly taking longer and costing more than even the latest set of escalating estimates Germany will be restless and unhappy but it will still be the richest and most influential country in Europe Germany's new weight in the world doesn't come from the addition of the five polluted states of the old East Germaand ny It comes from the astonishing collapse of Soviet power and the less rapid and complete but no less real decline in the US position in Europe The Soviet collapse has left a vacuum in Eastern Europe that German mon flea-bitte- n stroyed Any chemical-weapon- s production facilities would be deactivated and also made to subject inspection Destruction of chemical weapons stocks would be desirable but may be impossible to verify At this point all foreign ground troops would withdraw but some US and European air and naval units would remain Iraq's remaining assets would be unfrozen and the embargo entirely lifted These arrangements should contain the non-Ara- b have paralleled previous boom-bupatterns and this time the public sees what's happen ing According to a new Gallup poll commissioned by the Times-Mirro- r Corp and released earlier this month unprompted voter responses to a question about what Republicans stood for found 51 percent linking the GOP to "rich powerful moneyed interests" — up from only 18 percent in 1987 Cynicism was deepening the poll said "as the public in unprecedented numbers associated Republicans with wealth and greed Democrats with fecklessness and incompetence" This is the third time a Republican White House era has mutated during its second or third decade into a "capitalist overdrive" of tax cuts and reduced government interference with business At first Main Street cheered along with Wall Street — but that changed by the late 1980s When Horatio Alger-type entrepreneurs were replaced in headlines by Charles H Keating Jr Michael Milken and Leona Helmsley the percentage of Americans citing Republicans as allies of the rich tripled Democrats for their part were feckless economics and fat Caught up in 1980s political contributions they forgot their old low- - and middle-incom- e constituency And those constituencies in turn lost their commitment to Democrats Pollsters could have recorded the same disdain in the early 1890s or 1920s Alas prior eras of greed and fecklessness produced unsound structures of debt and speculation that imploded in the stock market crashes of 1893 and 1929 The follow-u- p question for the 1990s is whether another such implosion is gathering It's possible The risky credit-car- d economics and speculation of the 1980s has left Washington facing a political agenda of d issues unmatched since the early 1930s Depression days The federal budget deficit is ballooning to st Wrong again The old Federal Republic West Germany was part of Western Europe The new Federal Republic is part of Central Europe There's a difference While Western Europe was busy celebrating the "end of history" in 1990 Eastern Europe was descending into the maelstrom of chaos depression and possibly war Germany as so often before in its history is caught in the middle The Iron Curtain was in its way convenient for the West Josef Stalin took the poor and quarrelsome half of Europe and imposed rigid discipline on it That left Western Europe composed of largely peaceful countries with stable boundaries an opportunity to develop new kinds of international cooperation without having to worry about neighbors to the East The end of the Iron Curtain means the end of Western Europe's isolation from the messy and dangerous part of the Continent — and Germany feels this more keenly than anyone else This situation in Eastern Europe deteriorates day to day The Bulgarian government warns of famine and bloodshed Mikhail S Gorbachev's own top economic advisers use words like catastrophic and cataclysmic to de C'4 - ' Ik01 '"1I--4a004- - g 14 -- io'''' " t'-- - i -- ' - 1 - Big-Tim- e scribe the state of their country At market exchange rates Soviet workers earn about Bulgarians and Romanians are in much the same state Even the Yugoslays the Swiss of the East earn less in a month than Italians make in a week Nobody talks about the magic of the market any more nobody now predicts anything but further erosion of these standards of living Not surprisingly polls show that as many as 30 percent of the Soviet people would emigrate if they could In one of the most ominous signs of the postwar period Soviet Jews are banging at the doors of German consulates asking for asylum The Dutch minister of labor predicts that between 1 million and 3 million Soviets a year will come West looking for work in the early 1990s Poles Gypsies Romanians Bulgars and Serbs are also knocking at the West's back door which happens to be Germany's eastern frontier In the age of the Iron Curtain West Germany could believe that its major interests and concerns were with Western Europe and the United States The new Germany still has important links with the West but these aren't its only major interests anymore Trying to maintain good relations with its newly restless Eastern neighbors and trying to bring some kind of stability to this region is rapidly becoming the No 1 priority of the government The first sign of the new German policy — and the first cause of trouble between the new Germany and its old Western partners — is the German drive to "totalize" the institutional network in Western Europe: to pull the blankets of NATO and the European Community over its neighbors to the East This has led to Some grumbling and blanket-snatchin- g by its bed mates to the West not everyone is convinced the new arrangements will keep them as warm as the old ones The United States worries mostly about NATO Germany wants to replace the old Atlantic Alliance with the Conference for Security and Cooperation in Europe a security system that stretches from "Pan-Europea- 1 I - 7 ) - r - - i v--i- T rz--- I d t fr---- -- ? 41 t'l ! V go-g- o cord debt levels with the gimmicks of the 1980s — leveraged buyouts and junk bonds — coming unglued Washington must also confront the possible write-of- f of perhaps $100 billion in US bank loans to Latin America and the Reagan era emergence of the United States as the world's leading debtor Like dominoes these legad cies are leaning against an business cycle that could become a major downturn The partisan consequences of any debt implosion would be enormous The slumps of 1893 and 1929 reshaped US politics and a 1990s downturn could do the same Which brings us back to Bush and the extraordinary potential vulnerability of the GOP Besides the Neil Bush S&L imbroglio Kennebunkport "cottage" and the ethics problems of millionaire aides and Cabinet officials the most vivid recent example lies in near-fetis- h of reducthe president's 1988-9rate for upper-incom- e ing the capital-gain- s investors Budget negotiations have been stymied — with potentially dire results — largely because of two Bush commitments: dropping the capital gains rate from 28 percent to 15 percent and opposing any change in the infamous federal income tax "bubble" — the provision class pays a under which the upper-middl- e marginal rate of 33 percent while those earning more than $200000 a year pay only 28 percent These skewed GOP priorities — especially with the net worth of the Forbes 400 richest Americans tripling during the 1980s — could be enough to raise William Jennings Bryan populism from its grave Such "Main Street" congressional Republicans as Senate GOP Leader Bob Dole of Kansas and House GOP Leader Robert H Michel of Illinois have urged Bush to back down And now the White House is signaling that some lesser capital greed-and-de- 1 - ‘ debt-relate- - t 71414V -- ' I - t : 1 Player I '2 -- - I ) lii President Bush ward $300 billion to WO billion The S&L bailout may be the biggest economic scandal in US history and other government loan and insurance programs are teetering The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp is running low on money to insure bank deposits just as more big banks are flirting with insolvency Nor does it end there Weakness in institutional and household finances has boosted bankruptcies to levels not seen since the 1930s and government tax collections are sliding Corporate America for its part faces re 0 - Vancouver British Columbia to Vladivostok in the Soviet Union Maybe says the United States The European menagerie could cerProtective Society thinly use a but there were lions and leopards as well as rabbits and sheep in the zoo The leopards say ) they are changing their spots and the lions say they have sworn off red meat the rabbits and sheep have heard this before NATO worked as well as it did because it had a small number of members who shared a large number of common interests The United States CSCE will have worries that the more members who share fewer interests and so be less effective France worries about the European Community for similar reasons The EC works because it has a manageably short membership 1 list — 12 — and because its members are at basically the same level of development The EC has trouble even now with its i members Adding the poor and chaotic Eastern European countries will complicate — possibly derail — the whole process of European integration The EC is now dividing between the "deepeners" who want to continue the process of integration among the 12 and the "wideners" who want to embrace the new democracies of the East Not surprising- ly Germany is leading the wideners 1 Germany doesn't want to cause all this trou- ble but it hasn't got much choice France 3 Britain and the United States don't have bor- - t ders with Eastern Europe The Soviet collapse and the resulting situation there don't hold the same opportunities and dangers for the Western countries that they do for the : Germans Pan-Anim- '4 Reunification doesn't happen until Image 7 - I 3 Wednesday and already German policy is f moving away from its postwar moorings It i won't can't — follow the US lead in security policy anymore and it won't — can't — work as closely as it used to on etanomic poll- - 4 cy with the French Rich talented and troubled the new Germany is an important new player on the international scene Like it or not the other great powers must learn to move over Proposal Underscores GOP Money-Hungr- y greed-focuse- Kevin Phillips publisher of the American Political Report is the author of "The Politics of Rich and Poor" Li : - V The good newslirst German Fascism is dead and there are no prospects for a revival Nobody in German history has been as thoroughly discredited as the Man with the Mustache He ruined Germany in 12 short years In 1945 the German people were starving occupied hated and covered in a shame that half a century later has still not departed Some lessons people learn Fringe groups are with us always but the overwhelming majority of Germans are sincere in saying they don't want to go this route again Now for the news that may not be bad but is a little less comfortable A reunified Germany will be far more powerful than the old West German state and it will use its power in ways that will sometimes make its old partners unhappy Some commentators argue that reunification doesn't mean much Germany they say hopefully is not a great power For years to come it will be too absorbed in the expensive and divisive process of integrating its communist East and capitalist West to throw its weight around Wrong answer The new German state is already a superpower The Soviet Union and the United States are both trying to sponge off the Germans — the Soviet Union to avoid - r7 t Walter Russell Mead is the author of "Mortal Splendor: The American Empire in Transition" ' rit- - yet" God heard the first half of that prayer One year ago German unity was a remote con- tingency not expected for decades On Oct 3 the church bells will ring and the banners will wave from the Rhine to the Oder — the Fourth Reich will be open for business ----- threat from Iraq Why would Iraq ever agree to this? It would be close to a surrender but it ought to be preferable to a war which could only end with Iraq's destruction The plan's principal disadvantages are that Saddam would remain in power with a huge army and that deterring him would depend heavily on a continuing agreement among the Five Powers The chances for settling the crisis would be improved by including some provisions for a broader regional settlement A realignment of forces in the Arab world is obviously under way The Soviet role in the area is also changing significantly The Five Powers should include in their plan an offer to expand their efforts to explore a regional security system They could not be expected to underwrite the status quo but they could stand ready to be honest brokers and to guarantee an Arab' Israeli settlement It would be ironic if this crisis ended with security guarantees for the Arab sheiks while leaving Israel exposed The Five Powers could agree to convene a conference on the Middle East an old shop- worn idea but worth reconsidering in light of the new situation Such a conference might not yield anything and when it collapsed another crisis might be provoked by Iraq Baghdad would certainly then try to form a new' Arab front The Five Powers would have to make it clear that the Iraq settlement would not be dependent on the outcome of an international conference The current strategy of relying on the buildup of military power and the tightening of the embargo is too dependent on the calculation ' that Saddam will become desperate enough to capitulate or will be overthrown He might I however agree to get out of Kuwait but nothing more A settlement that goes beyond the s liberation of Kuwait and containing Iraq is surely in the American interest Moreover a settlement that preserves some balance of power between Iraq and Iran Is also in the American interest It would be a supreme irony if the United States destroyed as the Iraq thus permitting Iran to strongest power in the Gulf and in passing t also strengthened Syria We would be wise to spell out our peace terms If they are rejected then at least we will have the support of the key Security Council members for the military action that will then be unavoidable post-crisi- World Stage (Again as Genhany Steps Onto - By Walter Russell Mead Special to Los Angeles Times Publicly the West has been calling for it for 40 years but the prayers for German unity were like St Augustine's youthful prayers for chastity: ''Make Germany one Lord but not 11 x t - - A froTA & --: 1-- ' All - I I gains change might be possible Public opinion is playing a role Late spring NBC polling found 42 percent of Republicans rate should be saying that the capital-gain- s increased not cut After the Times-Mirro- r poll released earlier this month analysts concluded that the "remarkable spike in unfavorable public opinion toward the basic motiva- tion of the Republican Party has overwhelmed" the GOP's other appeals and kept it from taking advantage of the Democrats late 1980s ineptness 1 Possibly so Several prominent conservatives have also analyzed this return of the t GOP's traditional weakness Conservative firebrand Pat Buchanan laments that Bush foreign policy reflects the interests of Wall Street and American Conservative Union ) Chairman David Keene cites Bush's upper class loyalties: "Ronald Reagan kept his distance from the establishment But George 2 Bush by way of personality background and breeding has embraced the very thing most people feel alienated from So they feel politically homeless today" Such indictments go to the core of the GOP ! coalition's viability But for the moment this J remains exaggeration Patriotism ignited by the Persian Gulf crisis is overriding skepticism about White House economic management and class loyalties There is still time for Bush to give his economics a new sensitivity But not a lot The hum of intensifying bud- get oil financial real estate bank and junk bond crises is growing And finally it seems t Democrats recognize the growing public dissatisfaction with the GOP as the party of avarice — and seem to be holding firm against more tax cuts for the rich And if the GOP doesn't wake up to the per- - 1 ils of the debt cycle and the party's growing public identification with the economics of greed then the excesses of the 1980s could become a framework for severe political em- - t barrassment in the 1990s 7s ' |
