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THE ANNOUNCEMENT BY KING HUSSEIN on the formation of Jordanian volunteer force to fight on the side of Iraq in the war with Iran immeasurably widens the scope of the conflict. The terms in which Baghdad welcomed the Jordanian initiative makes it plain that Iraq now feels in need of more than only financial help. The leading Iraqi newspaper AI Thawra paid tribute to the Jordanian king in "forming the nucleus of a pan-Arab force" and should "encourage other fraternal states to follow Jordan's suit".

THE HURRIEDLY CONVENED emergency meeting of the six Foreign Ministers of the Gulf Co-operation Council in Manama on 6 February was to consider what Abdullah Bishara, the Secretary General, described as an "abnormal situation" in the Arab world.

OVER THE COMING THREE MONTHS THE GULF COOPERATION COUNCIL will hold a series of Ministerial meetings in Riyadh, some of which will be dealing with highly sensitive and emotive issues. The first meeting is the GCC Ministers of Interior and Abdullah Bishara, the Council's Secretary General has already spoken out on the concerns the Ministers ]face in their deliberations. on 27 February.

THE END OF LAST YEAR BROUGHT an unpleasant jolt to the states of the region, with the uncovering of a subversive group which allegedly planned to overthrow the regime in Bahrain and carry out sabotage in other Gulf countries. Until then, the security concerns of the Gulf had centred around preoccupations that the area could become a confrontation ground for super-power rivalries but, suddenly, questions of internal security and stability are given a greater sense of immediacy and importance.

THE RECENT MILITARY flare-up in the war between Iraq and Iran seems, on the face of it, to have been to Iran's advantage. But both sides, in their official communiques, claim successes and give conflicting accounts of the number of casualties caused and material damage inflicted. The official communiques of warring countries are rarely wholly reliable and the figures released are unlikely to be accurate. The respective communiques, however, reflect the sharply increased scale of the fighting.

THE VARIOUS AND DIFFERENT threads of Inter-Arab and Arab international policies are in a tangled and complex web of conflicting views and opposing ideas. The Arab Heads of State, at their summit meeting in Morocco, were, presumably expected to weave from this confusion a coherent pattern for an agreed and workable joint Arab political position. As we go to press, comes the news of the utter failure of the Fez summit.

THE AMERICAN IDEA of a Rapid Deployment Force (RDF), a military response to an external threat to the Middle East, is regarded with considerable disfavour by a majority of the Arab states, A majority, but not all the countries of the region reject the RDF concept. Egypt, the Sudan and Oman have a contrary view and find the RDF a presumably comforting and reassuring factor in their security and defence arrangements.

A SHORT TIME AGO the Amir of Kuwait concluded a foreign tour which took in Turkey and some of the Soviet-bloc satellite countries. It was a most successful visit, by all accounts, and the Amir was accorded red-carpet treatment in the capitals he visited. The guards of honour and the brass bands which greeted the Amir in Eastern Europe were in addition to a proper protocol, an acknowledgement of a salient political fact. Kuwait, alone among the Gulf states and the members of the Gulf Cooperation Council has long had formal diplomatic relations with the Eastern bloc countries and the significance of that solitary status would not have been lost on the Amir's hosts.

ARAB NATIONALISM fuelled by the Palestine issue hit the Arab Gulf States as wealth was giving them both the opportunity and the incentive to stop being protected by one outside power as an alternative to being threatened by some other. But their societies, Iraq perhaps excepted, were not ready for speedy natural evolution through domestic resources.

THE VICE PRESIDENT and Prime Minister of the United Arab Emirates, Shaikh Rashid of Dubai, has been sporadically and seriously unwell recently. There is no reason at this stage to suppose that he will have to withdraw from affairs. But this must, in his seventies, imply some reduction in the extraordinary vigour and resource he has always displayed.

THE RECENT two-day visit to Turkey by the Ruler of Kuwait, Shaikh Jabr al Ahmad, was the first such visit by any Gulf head of state. Shaikh Jabr's presence in Ankara also brought into focus a shift in emphasis in Turkey's relations with the Arab world. From the time of Kemal Ataturk's revolution in 1923 Turkey has faced away from the Middle East and directed its international alignments towards Europe. At one stage relations with Israel were very close and Turkey regarded Israel as a major partner.

THE FOREIGN MINISTERS of the six member Gulf Cooperation Council met in Taif on August 31st to begin the first working-level discussions on overall policy matters for the Council. The meeting, opened by Prince Saud al Faisal, the Saudi Foreign Minister, was gathered together to discuss, quite predictably, Gulf security, Prince Fahd's proposals for a Middle East peace settlement, and the steps to be taken to link the six member countries (Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman, the UAE, Bahrain and Qatar) in an economic grouping on similar lines to the European Community.

Casualties. It is not a phoney war being fought between Iran and Iraq. Though the pressmen and television crews which once thronged the lobbies of the Mansour Melia hotel in Baghdad and fought off cockroaches in the Shatt al Arab hotel in Basra have long since departed the conflict still continues.

Rift: The confusions caused by the crises in the Lebanon have spread to Washington, where recent statements by high administration officials have been marked by patent uncertainty and plain contradiction about what is current US policy to Israel.

THE CONSEQUENCES of the latest savagely escalating events in the Lebanon has already spilled far beyond the borders of that ravaged country; the subject has preoccupied the leaders of the major industrial nations at their summit meeting on Ottawa and in the Arab states - and not least in the Gulf countries - the alarm bells signalling a major Middle East crisis are ringing loud and clear.