The Bush plan seeks to limit the spread of both conventional arms and weapons of mass destruction. The supply side, however, is the only part of the equation for which Washington has spelled out an actual process. It wants to discuss arms-sale guidelines at a meeting in Paris later this month among the United States, the Soviet Union, Britain, France and China, which account for 80 percent or more of all arms sales to the Mideast. The Soviets, British and French are expected to attend. The Chinese are unpredictable, but U.S. officials think they will show up, thanks in part to Bush’s insistence on preserving China’s most-favored-nation trading status. But Washington may be calling its own bluff. “What happens,” asks a U.S. official, “the first time the Soviets question one of our proposed F-16 sales to the Saudis, and we say, ‘We can’t touch that; it’s a longstanding commitment’?”

In the Middle East itself there is little enthusiasm for Bush’s plan. “You cannot have an arms-control system in an area without solving the problem of peace,” complains a senior Egyptian diplomat. “You are putting the cart before the horse.” The Israelis consider the plan “an evil necessity,” as one government official puts it–a process that Israel can gain nothing from but cannot openly oppose.

With their own defense budgets shrinking, suppliers want to increase arms exports, not cut them. Sources say the White House and Pentagon recently quashed a State Department proposal for a one-year moratorium on arms sales to the Mideast, partly out of concern for U.S. manufacturers. Last week Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney promised Israel 10 more F-15 fighters and $210 million in aid to the Arrow antimissile program. Washington also is working on arms deals with Saudi Arabia and Egypt. Bush’s arms-control plan is supposed to regulate such transactions. But it may evolve into a kind of arms cartel, as the major suppliers decide who will sell what, and to whom. “You’re going to see a multilateral market-sharing arrangement among the suppliers,” predicts Andrew Pierre, an arms-sales expert at the Carnegie Endowment. That cozy arrangement would preserve the big suppliers’ Mideast market share at a time of shrinking arms sales elsewhere in the world.