NEWS ANALYSIS : Drift Seen in U.S. Policy Toward Iraq : Gulf War aftermath: The basically passive approach has helped Hussein reconsolidate his hold, experts say.

WASHINGTON —  In stark contrast to the deliberate policy steps that culminated in Operation Desert Storm a year ago, the Bush Administration’s policy on Iraq is now drifting, according to U.S. political and military analysts.

Efforts to rid Iraq of President Saddam Hussein are now largely limited to U.N. economic sanctions and diplomatic isolation. And although U.S. troops deployed with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in neighboring Turkey monitor treatment of the Kurds in northern Iraq, the ground troops and helicopters of Operation Provide Comfort are gone.

U.N. teams are also still tracking down and eliminating Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction, which will diminish Baghdad’s threat to the oil-rich region. But overt and covert U.S. support for the internal opposition, Kurds and Shiite and Sunni Muslims, has remained low-key because of the dissidents’ inability to provide a united or viable alternative.

The basically passive role of the U.S.-led coalition and the United Nations has helped Hussein reconsolidate his singular hold on Iraq, according to Middle East experts.

“Saddam’s inner circle may be getting tighter, but there’s no indication that he’s anywhere near being ousted, which is partly a result of our policy,” a U.S. military official said.

“He calculated that we would move on to other things, and we did. Now we have no stick to draw Saddam’s attention or to encourage the opposition. I don’t believe the man will die a natural death, but he may survive in office longer than George Bush.”

Middle East specialists both in and outside government have long feared that a de facto stalemate after the war would allow Hussein to survive, even thrive at home. But they are divided on its impact.

“This confirms our worst fears,” said one U.S. expert. “Having him around taunting us undermines the whole military success.”

But another U.S. analyst contended: “It’s not what we wanted to see happen. But a weakened Iraq that can pose no threat to its neighbors is preferable to fragmentation of the country into three unstable parts.”

Administration sources counter that Operation Desert Storm never had the mandate of ridding Iraq of Hussein, despite the implications of the war’s rhetoric and President Bush’s frequent references to the Iraqi leader as a Mideast Hitler. The maximum goal was liberating Kuwait.

“We completed what we wanted under the U.N. resolutions,” Bush said in Tokyo last week.

But in an indication of the frustration felt in Washington about the war’s political aftermath, he added that “it troubles me deeply” that Hussein is still in power “brutalizing” his people. And Bush again urged the Iraqi people “to get rid of him.”

Ironically, besides Kuwait’s liberation, the war’s tangible political gains were not even among its original goals.

“The real victories from the (Persian) Gulf War were not even in the Gulf,” said Augustus Richard Norton, a former U.N. observer in the Middle East and now a research fellow at the International Peace Academy.

He and other experts cite three major successes:

* The new postwar environment helped bring together the Arabs and Israel in the current peace talks.

* Syria, a key and traditionally militant regional player, sent troops to the Gulf in the opening step of rapprochement with the West.

* Iran remained neutral during the war despite the major Western presence, shedding in the process its image as the region’s main pariah. The step contributed to the easing of decade-long tension with the West and led to Tehran’s help in winning release of Western hostages in Lebanon.

“The U.S. successes were on a larger stage,” Norton said. “The United States is now engaged in a constructive and unprecedented way in the Mideast.”

But U.S. officials concede that no new opportunities are visible in Iraq.

“Short of a serious new provocation by Saddam, I don’t think there will be any new groundswell wanting to push in a more active direction,” said an Administration source.

“There’s not a great deal of new thinking on Iraq. In fact, there’s not even a lot of thinking about it.”

Even the debate in November, generated largely from Congress, has ebbed, the source said.

The Bush Administration is instead allowing an unusual coalition of Iraq’s neighbors--Syria, Saudi Arabia and Iran--to take the lead.

All three are supporting disparate elements of the fractious Iraqi opposition, which met in Damascus earlier this month in another attempt to forge a common agenda and, eventually, possibly even a government in exile. Similar efforts during and after the war failed.

Meantime, the United States has raised the level of its contacts with opposition groups.

In testimony before a House Foreign Affairs subcommittee last November, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Edward P. Djerejian said:

“We will continue to broaden our contacts with the Iraqi opposition and to support the emergence of an Iraqi government (that is) representative of Iraq’s pluralistic society.”

Baghdad’s inner circle is made up largely of Sunni Muslims, the smallest of the country’s three main ethnic groups, from Hussein’s own Tikriti clan.

Despite the pressure last fall from congressional Democrats and some quarters within the Pentagon, the Bush Administration so far has rejected a higher profile--while conceding that sanctions alone are unlikely to have a major impact any time soon.

“Some observers believe that more ambitious covert efforts are probably needed to have a significant chance of removing Saddam,” said a recent Congressional Research Service report on U.S. policy options by Iraq expert Kenneth Katzman.

But Administration sources dismissed providing arms to Kurdish or Shiite rebels as ineffective. One official called the option “foolhardy.”

Both private and government specialists maintain that the primary hope of ousting Hussein rests within the Iraqi military.

The policy options report noted that the current political climate may not be conducive to a major U.S. intelligence initiative, especially since “there has been little evidence of serious unrest in Iraq, other than in the Kurdish areas.”

The most popular scenario within the Administration is that at some unspecified juncture, elements within the military will finally recognize the heavy costs of propping up Hussein. They will then move against him.

To provide an incentive, Bush has often offered U.S. recognition and aid to Baghdad once Hussein is ousted.

But the Iraqi leader, whose 12-year reign has been marred by 10 years of war, has become adept at maneuvering around this longstanding possibility.

He regularly reshuffles his inner circle--from bodyguards to Cabinet officials--to prevent anyone from gaining sufficient access or power to move against him.

U.S. experts also expressed concern that sanctions might backfire.

“Some argue that economic sanctions are hurting the Iraqi people without weakening Saddam and that a loosening of sanctions might create a climate for increased popular opposition to the regime,” the report noted.

But all analysts interviewed said that, despite all the external and internal pressures, Hussein so far has the edge in the game of staying power.

“Unfortunately, the longer he retains power,” concluded the Administration source, “the more de facto legitimacy he acquires.”