Nation: The Mid East: Search for Stability

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In today's world, the U.S. has discovered that it cannot control the government it so massively finances and protects in Saigon. Neither the Soviet Union nor Communist China can control Hanoi. At least for a brief time, no one could control either the Syrians or the fedayeen in the Jordanian desert last week. There is, in fact, no way to check the long-term forces for change in most of the world's developing nations. When those changes promise a better life for more people, the U.S. might do well to support those forces, regardless of ideology. In fact, America's chief ideology today should be modernization. "The Americans have the confused idea that any social revolution is Communist—and have thereby handed over the concept of social revolution to the Communists," contends Singapore's Foreign Minister Rajaratnam. Adds a veteran American diplomat in the Far East: "We should start off with great modesty about what we can do."

That is a difficult formula to translate into specific action. Eras do not end with the finality of a third-act curtain; they dissolve gradually like a motion-picture fadeout, blending into the next scene. Nixon, like his recent predecessors, dreams of being the architect of a tranquil future for the entire world. Before leaving for Europe, he was again musing about the distinction between ending specific conflicts and achieving really durable peace. Nixon's burden, and the world's, is that the second cannot come without the first, that the passions and ambitions of dozens of countries conflict with each other, the peacemaker, no matter how intentioned and astute, often risks hurt for his efforts. It is a hazard which and his nation must face.