Return of the Jordanian option 2: Poker with the king

This article follows the one I published yesterday, Israel-Palestine: The return of the Jordanian option.


On June 17, 1970, the United States National Security Council convened to discuss the unstable condition of two Middle Eastern governments, Lebanon and Jordan. U.S. President Richard Nixon warned that the time was coming when "the U.S. is going to be tested as to its credibility in the region." He and his senior advisor, Henry Kissinger, were determined to maintain the stability of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. Black September, right around the corner, was the test of this obligation. King Hussein's announcement that he intended to act against the Palestinian Fedayeen, brought the tuxedo-clad Kissinger straight from a reception in Virginia in honor of defense secretary Melvin Laird by helicopter to an emergency meeting at the White House.

Almost 40 years have passed since then, and the Americans are still worried about the stability of Jordan and Lebanon. A swarm of Iraqi refugees is descending on Jordan from the east, the unraveling of the Palestinian Authority is threatening it from the west. Jordan has washed its hands of the Palestinians living in the West Bank time and time again. But it seems that their fates are intertwined. Each time it becomes clear that the Palestinian problem will not be solved on its own, Jordanian involvement comes up again, and each time it dies down for the same reason: concern over the stability of the kingdom.

Edward Luttwok of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington notes that King Hussein was an expert in disseminating catastrophe theories about the Palestinians. For Hussein, Luttwok says, "it was always a quarter to midnight." It was always the last minute to solve the Palestinian problem before disaster struck - a disaster than never happened. His son, Abdullah, inherited this formula. His speeches this year have been a sophisticated show of anxiety over the impending last minute. Abdullah fears, seemingly justifiably, that the Palestinian problem is once again about to be laid at his doorstep.

Things are moving in that direction, perhaps surprisingly, with the quiet encouragement of senior Fatah officials, who are longing for release from Hamas' tightening clutch. The Jordanian kingdom, which even in 1970 showed it could take the cruel and necessary steps to deal with lawbreakers of the Hamas ilk, seems to some of these Fatah officials to be a more persuasive way out than that proposed by the international community, with or without Tony Blair. But the Jordanians are unpersuaded. "I will not tackle this issue until an independent Palestinian state on Palestinian soil is established," Abdullah said in an interview at the beginning of the week. Which means, we can talk - but only later. That might be a generous offer, but it does not meet the need for which the Jordanian option was re-floated: a channel for diplomatic energies now, not later.

In any case, toying again with the Jordanian option, according to a senior Washington diplomat, is a kind of poker game in which the player who shows his cards first loses. Jordan will not agree to take the Palestinians under its wing, for fear of rocking its government. But it can only continue to refuse as long as Israel rules the West Bank and maintains a modicum of order. If Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's convergence plan would have been implemented, and the West Bank deteriorated into chaos, Abdullah would have had to choose the lesser of two evils and intervene. But what Israeli prime minister would dare return to the convergence plan now?