Policing the Golan? Yes: Peter W. Rodman.

• Author: Rodman, Peter W.

IN MARCH 1975, the second Sinai negotiation between Israel and Egypt broke down. After several months of further labor, it was reconstructed successfully when a new element was added: Some Israeli warning stations in the heart of the Sinai were replaced by U.S. warning stations, and an American flag was flown over others. Both sides were reassured. For Egyptians it was a political gain to replace Israeli positions with something more palatable. For Israelis it was a reassurance that positions they vacated were filled by Americans.

Thus, a small but pivotal U.S. role made the difference, producing an agreement in September 1975 that was the foundation for the Camp David breakthrough three years later. The question now is whether the United States should be willing to play a similar role on the Golan Heights, if Israel and Syria should request it and if it should prove a necessary ingredient of a peace treaty between them.

It goes without saying that the United States has the sovereign right to decide if it wants to participate in this way, regardless of the parties' wishes. The U.S. is also entitled to its own assessment of the risks to which any likely treaty would subject its personnel. And the State Department needs to talk to the Pentagon--and to Congress--before it makes a concrete commitment.

But what in the end is a sensible analysis of those risks?

There are many traditional objections--especially Israeli objections--to the idea of stationing U.S. forces on Israel's borders. Proposals for U.S. troops, or for a U.S. defense guarantee, often came from Americans who wanted Israel to withdraw to less-than-secure borders and were proposing a U.S. role as a (poor) substitute. There was also Israel's justified mistrust of international "peace-keepers"--who were likely to cut and run in the face of enemy provocations (as in May 1967), while constraining Israel's freedom of action to preempt or respond forcefully to such provocations. I have always sympathized with these arguments.

The interesting question is why Yitzhak Rabin, who is not a fool, has abandoned these traditional Israeli arguments.

Rabin, as far as I can tell, has adopted a different strategic analysis. For one thing, it is clear that Syria has no realistic military option against Israel. In fact, this has been true ever since Egypt split off from the Arab coalition against Israel in the 1970s. It is powerfully reinforced by the disappearance of Syria's Soviet patron. Even with...