America betrayed by its friends

One after another, America's Western friends and allies haverejected the Reagan administration's request for help in minesweepingin the Persian Gulf, where late last month a mine caused considerabledamage to an oil tanker navigating under U.S. protection.

The most severe blow, the hardest to take, is the one fromBritain. Also on the naysaying list are France, West Germany and theNetherlands. And, of course, Kuwait, whose U.S.-reflagged tankersare the beneficiaries of the whole risky exercise, is openlyreluctant to do anything that could incur the direct wrath of Iran.

A British Foreign Office spokesman said that granting the U.S.request would have meant a "commitment of a potentially open-endedkind that is difficult to contemplate at this present time." To addinsult to injury, he also managed to suggest that Britain was actingin a very statesman like way, unlike the United States. " . . . Inthe short term," he declared, "it is better for us not to contributeto any escalation in tension. . . . " So it is the United States, andnot the belligerents in the seven-year Iran-Iraq war, that mustshoulder the blame for "escalation of tension" in the Persian Gulf.

France did not even have the courage to admit that it did notwant to further complicate its problems with Iran. The Frenchdefense minister said his country was considering "possibilities ofcontributing help in areas where the U.S. Navy is having difficultiesin minesweeping. (But) we are not going to enter the gulf." Sure,France is going to rush out and help in such mine-sown waters asNorfolk, Va., or even Lake Michigan. These are the allies for whosesake this country has sacrificed so many American lives and spenthuge amounts of U.S. taxpayers' money?

They so covet the word statesmanship that they ignore twoother, far more important words: friend and ally.

There is no statesmanship in closing one's eyes towell-established peril and pretending it can be wished away byappropriate soothing words.

It is selfishness - selfishness that seeks to profit,politically and perhaps financially, at the expense of America.

It is shortsightedness - shorthsightedness that refuses to seethe long-term consequences of appeasement of a volatile theocratictyranny.

And it is betrayal - betrayal of a country that has always comethrough for them but which, they seem to think, does not have a rightto reciprocity.