Why Not Split the Difference? : Longest of long shots though it is, the Hussein-Baker meeting should take place

James A. Baker III is quite right to take the position that the proposed face-to-face meeting between the U.S. secretary of state and the Iraqi president is not a dead issue. The Administration must not feel that it would lose face by compromising on the date of that meeting.

It is always a mistake to lose hope that war can be avoided. It is a particularly grave error when so much is on the line--and when the U.S. President has so assiduously sought and so successfully achieved a broad coalition of forces, backed by the important imprimatur of United Nations Security Council resolutions.

Patience. Persistence. Precision. That’s what U.S. diplomacy especially needs in the next days and weeks.

No doubt President Bush miscalculated by opening so wide a window on the talks--proposing that Baker go to Baghdad anytime before Jan. 15. Because any time--but not much time--is exactly what Saddam Hussein offered in return: the date of Jan. 12.

Washington countered by saying that no one serious about a peaceful settlement would want to begin such talks after Jan. 3, because a date so close to the U.N. deadline for withdrawal from Kuwait would leave insufficient room for maneuver.

Those are fair and solid points (although if the U.S. position really is that there can be no negotiation with aggression, it’s hard to see why so much more time is needed). But they must not stand in the way of a meeting. It may very well be true that Saddam Hussein is totally insincere and craven in his expressed desire to achieve a peaceful settlement; it may very well be that he doubts America has the will or staying power to go to war against him; it may very well be that he believes that the longer the present situation stays as it is, the greater the pressure on the coalition to unravel.

Even so, President Bush did put an offer on the table to meet with Saddam Hussein prior to Jan. 15. Little should be expected of such a meeting, of course. But it’s important that the world not see the U.S. President pulled down in the poisonous undertow of Hussein’s crafty diplomacy. Rather than engage in unseemly name-calling and pointed dates in the sand, American diplomacy must stick to the high road.

So why not split the difference? The Iraqis want Jan. 12; the Americans want Jan. 3. Have the secretary of state propose a date on or about Jan. 8. Then get Iraqi Foreign Minister Tarik Aziz to Washington and get the Baghdad end of the show on the road.