PARTIAL WITHDRAWAL WOULD BE `NIGHTMARE SCENARIO' FOR U.S.

If General Walker is gagged, it's now Saddam's move. He may make the move that has been whispered around Washington for a couple of months: partial withdrawal, "the nightmare scenario." An absolute, unqualified, unequivocal and total pull out from Kuwait is what President Bush wants, but it's a price Saddam can't pay even if D-Day is now in February. It's pretty hard to justify a zero minus result to a nation still recovering from the miscalculation of the eight-year war with Iran.

"Kidnappers cannot be rewarded ... terrorism cannot be rewarded ... aggression cannot be rewarded" yes, President Bush has told us all that. But Bush may have to balance the prospect of perhaps 10,000 killed and wounded against some "face" for unsavory Saddam Hussein. That face as has been discussed all around the world is to somehow give Baghdad a shot at the tiny piece of the Rumalia oilfield that pokes into Kuwait (7/8th of it is in Iraq) and the two dinky swamp islands in the Gulf that are internationally less important than Quemoy and Matsu. In diplomacy, face can be everything.

Suppose, as the clock ticks into January, Iraq says that all it really wanted was the bit of Rumalia and the islands. Saddam can explain that everything else he seized for bargaining purposes or whatever rationale he concocts. Suppose Iraq announces or even begins a withdrawal from the Kuwait-Saudi border. Suppose Saddam proposes to meet U.S. negotiators and the Emir of Kuwait, together or separately, at Cairo, Geneva or any other secure location. Suppose significant numbers of Iraqi troops then begin heading north on or before January 15.

Do the U.S. forces along with the British, Saudi, Egyptian, Syrian and French and other allied military begin to wholesale air and land assault while Iraq is in the process of withdrawing?

Do the Arab members of the anti-Saddam alliance avidly encourage a massive air and ground attack on brother Arabs in the process of withdrawal?

Does the U.S. Congress, the sometimes Sleeping Beauty of the Gulf crisis, stand by and tacitly approve by inaction on offensive attack against a retreating Iraqi army?

The answer is no to all three questions. Once the clock begins ticking after January 15 and there is no war, then we are in the season of negotiations. Call them "talks," "discussions," or whatever you like they are negotiations. Once negotiations begin, whatever called and however structured, then the war option begins to diminish as long as Saddam keeps moving troops northward. The verbal war of experts will, however, heat up. Henry Kissinger, Richard Perle and Jeane Kirkpatrick still beat the drums for a Saddam takeout. Zbigniew Brzezinski, James Schlesinger, William Crowe and James Webb all see the virtue of taking some more time to give peace and sanctions a chance.

King Fahd of Saudi Arabia calls up Jim Baker and states the war option is not quite as viable as it once seemed. President Assad of Syria says his troops seem to be getting a little homesick. President Mitterand says that French journalists are starting to write about the bitter lessons France learned in Vietnam and Algeria.

Sooner than you think, it's March 17 and the beginning of Ramadan, the holiest month of the Moslem calendar.

No one can go to war on Arab soil during Ramadan not even Henry Kissinger.