Iraq and a Hard Place

Whenever the Middle East suffers instability, people like Ismail Hodeib feel the pain. Twice war has forced the 48-year-old Jordanian on the run, from a home in the West Bank and then a job in the Persian Gulf. After Jordan signed a peace treaty with Israel in 1994, his prospects improved. Foreign tourists, including busloads of Israelis, flocked to his family’s rustic restaurant north of Amman. Last week, as Hodeib surveyed tables once teeming with shish kebab and Oriental salads, a shrug came easier than a smile. “Things are worse, 100% worse,” he says. “Life was getting better, but then everything collapsed.”

Most Jordanians would agree. The tiny Hashemite Kingdom has been free of serious violence, but no country is more anxious about the region’s descent into conflict. A map will tell you why: Jordan is caught between Israeli-Palestinian clashes to the west and a threatened U.S. attack on Iraq to the east. Those twin crises could wreck the country’s trade-driven economy. “We’re doing our best to make the situation better,” says Hodeib, “but what can we really do?”

That is exactly the question Jordan’s King Abdullah II is asking. As he ended a visit to Britain and headed for the U.S. last week, his first priority was to see Israelis and Palestinians resume talks halted 15 months ago, when Ariel Sharon became Israel’s Prime Minister. Abdullah faces pressure from activists, students and political parties to scrap Jordan’s peace treaty with Israel. He is resisting for fear that ending contact with Israel would only make matters worse.

But the King’s biggest concern may be how Israel’s recent military action suddenly rekindled tensions between his subjects of Palestinian origin, who make up two-thirds of Jordan’s 5.2 million people, and the so-called East Bankers of Bedouin stock who form the backbone of Hashemite rule. Protests in support of Yasser Arafat led to attacks on cars and shops, making East Bankers worried they were losing control. Upset that Abdullah refused to break relations with Israel, Palestinians in refugee camps pelted Jordanian police with rocks and taunts of being “Jews” loyal to Israel.

Abdullah responded by noting that ties to Israel let Jordan help broker an end to the incursions and send humanitarian aid to the Palestinians. Yet he is at pains to address the underlying sectarian tensions, lest they lead to another Black September, when Bedouin loyalists crushed a Palestinian insurgency in 1970. Sources close to the King tell Time he aims to make Jordan’s Palestinians feel part of the Kingdom, despite their loyalty to West Bank Palestinians, and to warn East Bankers not to act as if they own the country.

The King may be more helpless when it comes to Iraq. Jordanian officials detest Saddam Hussein, but the King is opposed to any U.S. war against him. Ordinary Jordanians are sympathetic to Iraq and suspicious of U.S. designs in the region. Western diplomats worry that a U.S. war against Iraq could provoke political unrest undermining the pro-American Hashemites. Moreover, Jordan is dependent on Saddam’s largesse for its economic survival, thanks to a deal by which Saddam sells the Kingdom all its oil at a 60% discount from world prices and takes payment in the form of imports that keep Jordan’s factories in business.

After Abdullah assumed the throne three years ago, he dreamed of turning Jordan into a high-tech hub. Now, he faces all of the old political and economic ills that tormented the late King Hussein. While Jordanians give Abdullah high marks for his enthusiasm, especially his drive to join the World Trade Organization, he is criticized for a rise in joblessness to an estimated 30%, failing to hold new parliamentary elections, allowing his government to intimidate critics and traveling abroad too much. One of the King’s most trusted men, former intelligence chief Samih Battikhi, faces trial soon in a corruption scandal.

For Hussein, peace was the key to the Kingdom’s future. Under Abdullah, however, Jordanians are no longer counting on it. “Israelis are proving they just want more and more land,” said Ali, 30, a civil servant, as he strolled through the Roman ruins of Jerash in northern Jordan last week. “I don’t think peace with Israel is possible.” But his friend Mustafa, 32, a teacher, is optimistic. “This is not the peace we dreamed about,” he said. “But eventually, we will wake up from this nightmare.” His fellow Jordanians can do little more than hope he is right.