GORBACHEV IS FIGHTING FOR THE LIFE OF SADDAM HUSSEIN

Dr. Bill Terry reminds everyone that the annual Mayor's Prayer Breakfast is this Friday morning at 7:30 at the Show Me Center. A large crowd is expected, but tickets ($8.75 for the speaker, a hearty breakfast buffet and coffee/juice) are still available from him at 334-4635.

Also, the following weekend will see a repeat of the acclaimed Dad the Family Shepherd conference on Friday evening, March 8, and the following day. This conference received rave reviews from the many husbands and fathers who attended the sessions, to be held once again at Southeast Hospital. Call Bill Terry for more information.

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Zbiegniew Brzezinski, the wise and expert former National Security Adviser in the administration of Jimmy Carter, has an important admonition for all of us. It is this: Keep your eye on the Soviet Union. For it is there, far more than in the Persian Gulf, that the Main Event is being acted out.

And columnist Mona Charen has a good question: Why do we persist in continuing to refer to the Soviets as members of the coalition arrayed against Saddam Hussein's Iraqi regime?

Fresh from their slaughter of innocent patriots aspiring to freedom in the Baltic States, and not long after they presided over the killing of 1.2 million Afghanis and the torture of untold thousands more during their nine-year aggressive war against that country, the Soviets of Mikhail Gorbachev picked last week to announce a "peace plan".

Recall that Gorbachev was TIME magazine's Man of the Decade for the '80s. He is the Nobel "Peace Prize" laureate who now presides nominally, at least over the re-Stalinization of the Soviet ruling elite. Some keen Soviet observers are saying that a hard-line Stalinist coup has already occurred in the Kremlin. This scenario suggests the hardliners have concluded that Gorbachev's continuance as a figurehead leader suits their dictatorial purposes. Meanwhile, the USSR faces complete economic collapse (the CIA says their economy is in a depression with no end in sight), and the very real specter of massive unrest spiraling downward into civil war.

Incidentally, a year and more ago, Defense Secretary Dick Cheney and Vice President Dan Quayle took plenty of heat for forecasting very grim things ahead for Mikhail Gorbachev and predicting that either a) he would not survive in power, or b) in order to survive, he would have to kowtow to hard line militarists in his country. Quayle's and Cheney's grim forecasts are being borne out by events. What say their media and congressional critics?

Mr. Gorbachev's cunning "peace" gambit was unmasked by New York Times' William Safire, one of the most interesting and widely read columnists writing today. Bill Safire offers this brutal analysis of Gorbachev's attempt to broker "peace" in a conflict where the Soviets have at stake neither blood nor treasure, but only a longtime client Hussein's fading Iraqi regime:

"The purpose of Moscow's meddling in the air war on Iraq is to save Saddam Hussein's skin and prevent an allied victory ...

"Here is the reason behind that harsh conclusion: The Soviet imperial interest (roughly in parallel with the interests of Palestine Liberation Organization survivalists, Iranian scavengers and a Jordanian king who covets the Saudi throne) is to sustain the Iraqi dictator in power in Baghdad.

"His oil-rich country would soon again become Moscow's best hard-currency arms customer, and his survival would create a long-term radical threat to Western influence in the region. But Moscow's dream is the free world's nightmare.

"... the Soviet Union has no standing in blood, treasure or morality to mediate this war. We do not need any middlemen at all; our requirement to the Saddam clique has been edited by war from `leave Kuwait' to `leave, period.'"

Happily, President Bush largely ignored Gorbachev, and held the trigger down on the Iraqis at a crucial moment in history. The positive consequences for America and for the West will be major and longlasting. And Gorbachev well, he's looking increasingly irrelevant to the world events passing him by. Still, the wounded and declining Soviet bear should be watched, as a hurting but heavily armed brute can still be very dangerous.