
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, June 1, 1990                   TAG: 9006010667
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A/2   EDITION: EVENING 
SOURCE: ALY MAHMOUD ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: BAGHDAD, IRAQ                                LENGTH: Medium

ARAB SUMMIT BOOSTS SADDAM'S LEADERSHIP

A three-day Arab summit ended with a whimper rather than the anti-American bang that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein wanted, because his hard-line allies were outnumbered by more cautious heads.

But if the conference, which ended Wednesday, did little to bolster the unity the Arabs have sought or produce evidence of cohesion in a bloc running from the Atlantic to the Persian Gulf, it did boost Saddam's image as the new tough guy on the block.

There was no sign that either Saddam or Syrian President Hafez Assad are prepared to end their 11-year-old feud, the main obstacle to Arab unity.

Assad, Saddam's main Arab rival, boycotted the summit along with Lebanese President Elias Hrawi - not surprisingly since Syrian troops occupy two-thirds of his country.

But Saddam can claim some success in simply gathering 16 of the 21 Arab heads of state in his capital.

The Iraqi leader has palpable ambitions to be the Arab world's paramount leader. He portrays himself as the Arab champion for fighting Iran to a standstill in the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war, saying this saved the Arabs from a Persian onslaught.

Saddam can point to the summit as a display of Arab support against what is perceived as a Western campaign against his burgeoning military power.

But he failed to parlay this into the broadside of condemnation of U.S. support for Israel that he sought.

Moderate leaders like King Fahd of Saudi Arabia and President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt mustered enough support to mute criticism of Washington and its perceived anti-Arab bias.

The ostensible reason for the meeting was to find ways to block large-scale emigration of Soviet Jews to Israel. Israeli officials estimate about 750,000 Soviet Jews will arrive in the next few years.

That would dramatically alter the demographic equation to which the Arabs have subscribed for so long - that the Arab population of what used to be Palestine will eventually outstrip the number of Jews.

Arab hard-liners wanted to put the blame more on Washington and less on Moscow because of what they see as the U.S. failure to pressure Israel into peace negotiations.

The Saudi foreign minister, Prince Saud al-Faisal, reportedly insisted the Soviet Union also be condemned for the wave of emigration to Israel.

In the end, the Arabs threatened unspecified economic and political sanctions against countries that assist Soviet Jews' travel to Israel.

But what effect this might have remains questionable, with Eastern and Western Europe drawing closer together.

by CNB