Proposed: A 48-Hour Pause, Encouragement for Tehran : One last peace check before the President makes the ground decision

The President’s stewardship of the Persian Gulf War will soon be put to a major new test. When Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Colin Powell return from their planned trip to Saudi Arabia, Bush will be faced with the decision to initiate a ground offensive. This will indeed be a threshold call--putting many more lives at risk and involving the United States in a major land war far from our shores.

TIME PRESSURE: It may well be that such a decision is the only one that makes military sense. After three weeks of horrific bombing, the Iraqis still hold Kuwait and still possess substantial ground forces. They show no inclination to sue for peace. U.N. Security Council Resolution 678, authorizing the use of force to obtain Iraq’s removal from that invaded land, is as valid today as it was on Jan. 16, the last day Washington was not actively at war with Baghdad. But time is probably not on Washington’s side, and March may prove to be a cruel month: The predictably inclement tail of the Gulf winter begins then, complete with devastating wind and sandstorms, as does the pan-regional holy period of Ramadan, followed by another round of religious observances central to the Arab and Muslim culture. During these months a ground offensive may, for logistic and political reasons, be very difficult to sustain.

Thus, all signs point to approval by the President of a major ground offensive sometime this month. Before that happens, however, the Bush Administration should give serious thought to announcing a 48-hour pause in the war, perhaps shortly after Cheney and Powell return to Washington. Such a pause would establish a brief but not insignificant break from the bombing and send a signal to our anti-Iraq coalition partners that the United States still welcomes a diplomatic resolution. It would also suggest that the Bush Administration is by no means hellbent on pursuing a military solution, might pressure Baghdad to come to its senses and would signal to anyone in doubt that Washington remains open to diplomacy, that its goals remain confined to those spelled out in U.N. resolutions and that the obliteration of Iraq as a force in the Gulf is not a war aim.

THE GAMBLE: It’s true that the 48-hour pause might go for naught. Iran, which recently appointed itself a peace broker, has yet to report any softening by Baghdad; few believe that the Iraqis are ready to give up the fight. Even so, gambles are sometimes worth taking, and no one would fault Bush for rolling the dice. What’s more, the gamble is virtually risk-free: During the two-day bombing pause the Iraqis might be able to achieve a minor degree of recovery and repair, but not enough to constitute an overwhelming military reason why this gesture shouldn’t be tendered.

The pause would be announced in Washington as a complete stoppage in offensive military action for two days. This would afford all parties working for peace an opportunity to convey anew to President Saddam Hussein the need to commence withdrawal--and to dramatize to Baghdad, where military and infrastructure targets have been hammered by round-the-clock bombing and missile attacks, the obvious advantages of a cease-fire.

If the pause fails, the United States would then be free to resume its air campaign and decide when to initiate ground action. The chances are scant that Baghdad will respond to an overture, and if it did, its intentions would have to be very clear, so that Hussein couldn’t use a longer pause merely to allow his troops to recover. But whatever his response, the very fact of the pause will help ease U.S. relations in the Arab world, assure allies like Pakistan and Morocco that the United States remains open to peace and remind all concerned that the obstacle is not Washington but Baghdad.

THE IRANIAN CONNECTION: By the same token, Washington needs to encourage Tehran, in private if not in public, to continue to try its hand as a peace broker. There is little to lose and everything to gain if its effort somehow induces the Iraqis to go home and return Kuwait to the Kuwaitis. Even if the efforts fail, Washington will have gained points not only in the Arab world, for respecting and encouraging this peacemaking attempt, but in Iran. Despite all the bad blood over the years, Washington will need to work with Tehran if a stable postwar Persian Gulf is ever to be achieved.

If the United States is to remain a player in the Gulf after this war is settled, it must sort out its relations with Iran. It must work for long-term strategic parity between Iran and Iraq. Washington ignored this fundamental truth for the eight years of the Iran-Iraq War, during which time it tilted militarily and diplomatically in support of Baghdad, to its subsequent bitter regret. If there is anything Washington can now do to encourage Tehran to play a more constructive role in the region, it is absolutely worth trying.