WHY IS U.S. IN THE MIDDLE EAST?

Oil companies with experience in the Middle East should try to rescue President George Bush from his growing political problems over direct U.S. involvement in the troubled region.

Time and reality have cooled the anger that fueled America's initial support for a military response to Iraq's invasion of Kuwait. Those brave men and women smiling through their tears on television every night soon may stain Arab sand with their blood. Americans want to know why. And they want the explanation clear-cut and simple. Alas, as oil companies that have worked in the Middle East know, nothing is simple where Arab culture and Islamic theology are concerned.

Still, Americans deserve an explanation for the presence of U.S. troops in the Saudi desert. And Bush is having understandable difficulty articulating an explanation that functions in American terms. So here's a suggestion that oil companies should be able to help promote: The U.S. and their western allies are in the Middle East helping friends.

A GRATING EXPLANATION

The explanation will grate some Americans. Some Americans cannot abide the notion of friendship with nations predominantly Arab or Islamic or both. To some extent, these attitudes have deep and tragic roots in ancient hatreds to which oil companies must remain sensitive but which they cannot expect to change. To some extent, too, the attitudes represent the simple suspicions of persons and peoples toward other individuals and groups who seem fundamentally different. There, oil companies can help.

Oil companies with experience in the Middle East can speak against damaging stereotypes. They can help communicate the depth of cultural and religious complexities at work in the region. And they can assure Americans that different peoples can build friendships when they look not to what separates them but to what they share.

Oil companies can help Americans understand that it was no small gesture for Saudi Arabia to invite non-Arab men and-indeed-women to assist with a potential war with another Arab nation. It was no small gesture for other Arab nations to join the effort. Yes, western nations have made sacrifices in the move to stop Saddam Hussein. But they should recognize the sacrifices their Arab allies have made, too.

Americans and their western allies must expect Arab sensitivities to influence the conduct of warfare, if it comes to that. They must try to understand the cultural agonies of Arabs killing Arabs. Even if the crisis ends without war, Arabs will want to heal internecine wounds.

Westerners will find the process and associated concessions difficult to understand.

SHARED ASPIRATIONS

Before Saddam Hussein's army plundered Kuwait, America and its western allies shared with most Middle Eastern nations aspirations of peace, national progress, even of stable oil markets. They shared the benefits of trade. Since Aug. 2, western nations and their Middle Eastern friends have come to share even more: a sense that what Saddam Hussein did to Kuwait was transcendently wrong; the sacrifices of all participants in the military buildup; and the commitment to sacrifice much more to eliminate a dangerous menace.

The U.S. must acknowledge friendships born of shared interests and make them a greater part of the discussion about the Middle East crisis. It must understand where second-guessing might lead and ask whether that's where it truly wants to go. For good or bad, the country and its friends are committed in the Middle East. Friends who break commitments to friends soon have no friends at all.