THE Arias Peace Plan was in jeopardy, but alive, until last week when the Reagan Administration and the Sandinista Government dealt it a mortal blow.

The decision to dispatch more than 3000 American troops to a Honduran air base came in response to confirmed Sandinista incursions into Honduras in pursuit of contra rebels. Even though the Sandinistas have reportedly withdrawn from Honduras and are negotiating a cease-fire with the contras, the United States still plans to keep its force in Honduras. But the troops may do more than what the Administration claims is their mission--to keep the Sandinistas from wiping out the contras.

Although the Reagan Administration insists that the troops will be kept far from the battle zone, the news that an American battalion moved within a dozen miles of the Nicaraguan border suggests that the Administration is once again putting its obsession with toppling the Sandinista government above the highly acclaimed regional peace plan.

The superpower machinations in this region have been guided by the same mentality that was behind Vietnam. While the potential outcome of the deployment remains unknown and frightening for students, the first clear victim is the region's one hope for peace. The Central American countries attempted to set their own house in order with the Arias Plan, but superpowers on both sides of the conflict were quick to destroy that indigenous chance for peace.

THE latest events make it clear that instead of sincerely complying with the peace plan, each side is twisting the plan to further its own ideological ambitions. The Administration, which fought long and hard against any non-lethal aid to the contras, is clearly using the events of this past week to win the recent debate over renewing military aid and thereby proceed with its announced intention of overthrowing the Sandinista government.

The Sandinistas, on the other hand, are hoping to cripple severely the contra resistance--putting them in a greatly weakened position for their first high-level face-to-face negotiations within Nicaragua this week. Indeed, Costa Riean President and Nobel Laureate Oscar Arias Sanchez, who has repeatedly criticized the Nicaraguan government's failure to comply with the peace plan he designed, denounced last week's Honduran raid as a blow to the peace process and said it revealed that the Sandinistas are more concerned with eliminating the contras than negotiating with them.

Of course, long before the events of this past week, the Arias Plan was in serious jeopardy. Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega had made it clear in a speech that the Sandinistas would never open up the political process to include opposition parties.

ALL sides publicly swear to uphold the Arias Plan, yet, as the events of the past week make clear, they privately seek to undermine it. The resulting tragedy is that the Arias Plan, which represented the only real hope for peace and democracy in Nicaragua and throughout Central America, is now on its deathbed.

That Reagan's deployment of American troops in Central America undercuts the Arias peace plan is no suprise, that the Administration is willing to risk more American lives in pursuit of a vaguely defined foreign policy is even less of one. This attempted show of strength in Reagan's twilight hour is sadly indicative of his failed policy in the region. The timing of the deployment with the indictments of Lt. Col. Oliver North and former National Security Adviser John Poindexter may have succeeded in topping these criminal acts in the newspages--but it cannot be allowed to divert attention from the fact that the Administration's policies in the region have controverted public will and the law.