Lion of Jordan

by Avi Shlaim

  Hussein’s account of the meeting suggests that it was Shamir who sought assurances that Jordan would not attack Israel:

  Shamir said, ‘Look, I have a dilemma. In October 1973 our people were not vigilant enough and the Arab attack took place and caused us a lot of damage. Now you have your troops mobilized and my generals are calling for me to do the same and to have our troops facing yours. There isn’t much distance in the Jordan Valley and it would be totally irresponsible, they say, if I did not take the same measures.’ So I said, ‘Prime Minister, you are perfectly within your rights to take the same measures if you feel like it, but let me suggest that if that happens then the possibility of an accidental war developing between us is very real.’ He said, ‘Well, what is your position?’ I said, ‘My position is purely defensive.’ He said, ‘Do I have your word?’ I said, ‘Yes, you have my word.’ He said, ‘That is good enough for me and I will prevent our people from moving anywhere.’ And he did. And that was one of the events I will always remember. He recognized that my word was good enough and this is the way people should deal with each other.48

  Ehud Barak was still troubled by the concentration of troops on Israel’s border. Shaker, who was a man of few words, intervened in the discussion to allay his anxieties. This was Shaker’s first meeting with Barak, and he found that he rather liked him. He was the military expert, having spent thirty-five years in the army, and Hussein’s right-hand man. He amplified Hussein’s position and went into detail. He and Hussein were extremely close. They had discussed and prepared the meeting beforehand, and were always in total agreement. Shaker had no reservations about meeting Israelis. He conducted himself at this meeting in a professional manner and spoke to Barak as one soldier to another. He said to Barak: ‘Your reconnaissance planes are flying all the time. We are professional soldiers. You know the difference between defensive and offensive postures.’49 Barak kept demanding more assurances until Shamir lost his patience. ‘King Hussein has given me his word,’ he said firmly, ‘and that is enough for me.’50 With a gesture of his hand, the diminutive and taciturn man ordered the most highly decorated soldier in Israel’s army to shut up and to take away the maps and the rest of the paraphernalia used to make his presentation.

  The issue of the potential threat that Jordan posed to Israel was settled in the end to everybody’s satisfaction. The king solemnly undertook to prevent the military use of his country in any shape or form against Israel. A second issue was more difficult to resolve. Jordan could not prevent the use of its air space by Iraqi ballistic missiles bound for Israel. Israel therefore sought Jordan’s tacit acquiescence in the limited use of its air space should it be forced to retaliate against an Iraqi missile attack. The request implied that if Jordan’s Air Force and its anti-aircraft systems engaged the IAF, Israel would be obliged to destroy Jordan’s capabilities, which could lead to an Israeli–Jordanian war. But Hussein resolutely refused to accede to the request of the Israeli prime minister. He explained at length that he could not afford to be seen to collude with Israel, if the latter felt obliged to attack Iraq. He stated unambiguously that if Israel violated Jordan’s airspace, he would give the order to protect his country’s sovereignty. The two leaders parted amicably but without reaching agreement on this life-and-death issue.51

  An issue that was not raised because it did not directly concern Jordan was Iraq’s possession of weapons of mass destruction. The Israelis knew, and the Americans confirmed, that Iraq had ballistic missiles that could be fitted with chemical warheads.52 For a nation haunted by the memories of the Nazi gas chambers, this was a highly sensitive issue. Shamir’s mother and sister had been taken away in carts from their village in Poland to Treblinka, where they perished at the hands of the Nazis long after he had settled in Palestine. He rarely talked about the Holocaust but it taught him an unforgettable object lesson and instilled in him, as in so many other survivors, a feeling of ‘Never Again!’ In his public statements Shamir warned that if Iraq attacked Israel, terrible retribution would follow. This was taken by commentators to mean that an Iraqi attack on Israel with chemical weapons could provoke an Israeli nuclear response. Shamir did nothing to contradict this interpretation of his statements. In the course of the weekend the Israelis told their hosts that an Iraqi attack with chemical or biological weapons would set off instant retaliation.

  In the intimate atmosphere of an English country house, Barak was the most forthright. ‘We have been gassed once,’ he said to Shukri, ‘and we are not going to be gassed again. If one single chemical warhead falls on Israel, we’ll hit them with everything we have got. If unconventional weapons are used against us, look at your watch and 40 minutes later an Iraqi city will be reduced to ashes.’ ‘Could it be Baghdad?’ asked the stunned Jordanian. ‘It could be,’ was the reply. The Jordanians passed on the warning to Baghdad. Several years after the war, Shukri found out that the Israeli warnings indeed had the desired deterrent effect. Hussein Kamel, Saddam’s son-in-law who had defected to Jordan, confirmed that during the Gulf War the Iraqi Army had missiles armed with chemical warheads ready to be fired on Israel but the order from the president never came.53

  The meeting succeeded beyond all expectations. A relationship of mutual trust was established between the two leaders. A strategic understanding was reached that Jordan would remain neutral when the bombs in the Gulf started falling and that Israel would respect its neutrality. This understanding goes a long way towards explaining the uncharacteristic restraint that Israel exercised during the Gulf War but also Jordan’s success in avoiding being sucked into this war. ‘It was odd’, Hussein observed, ‘that two countries at war over so many years should have had that degree of understanding to avoid war.’54 Hussein gave most of the credit for this achievement to his opponent. Looking back, Hussein described this meeting to a Likud minister as a turning point and said how impressed he had been with Shamir on this occasion.55 To his son Abdullah, Hussein said that it was a very good meeting, that Shamir treated his word as trustworthy, and that they agreed, in soldiers’ language, that ‘We won’t go for you, if you don’t go for us.’56 Shaker also paid tribute to Shamir, describing him as ‘the most polite and pleasant of the Israelis’ and adding that ‘On that occasion he was a perfect gentleman.’57

  Although he did not claim it, Hussein too deserved a share of the credit for the amazing success of the meeting. On this occasion, as at every other meeting with the Israelis, Hussein was as tactful as the most polished diplomat. Respect for the Jews, the People of the Book, was a Hashemite family tradition that Hussein had learned from his grandfather and passed on to his son. In addition to good manners, Hussein had deep insight into the sources of the insecurity that many Israelis feel despite their patent military superiority over all the Arab states. His close aides and family were well aware of the importance he attached to sensitive handling of the Israelis. He educated the people around him about the need to show understanding and sympathy to the other side. His key point, in the words of his son Abdullah, was: ‘If you deal with an opponent, and at that point the Israelis were opponents, you have to put yourself in their shoes… You have to see their concerns, their paranoia and their fears.’58

  The understanding reached at the summit remained a closely guarded secret. The possibility of a clash with Jordan excited some reckless talk in Jerusalem. Some politicians on the extreme right did not share in the sudden conversion of their normally hardline leader to the royalist cause. Ariel Sharon was not impressed with the argument that Israel had to do its utmost to stop Jordan getting embroiled in the Gulf conflict. On the contrary, one of his motives for advocating swift and forceful military action against Iraq was his persistent desire to destabilize the regime in Amman. The cabinet continued to receive intelligence briefings on the situation in Jordan, but, following the expiry of the ultimatum for Iraqi withdrawal, it redirected its attention to developments further east.59

  Operation Desert Storm was launched on 16 January and lasted
forty-three days. The air war lasted thirty-nine days and the ground war four days, a hundred hours to be precise. Like the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, it was achieved with virtually no resistance at all. So great was the disparity in the firepower and competence of the two sides that the encounter between them could hardly be called a war. America, under a UN banner, led a coalition of some thirty countries, including Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Syria. After the outbreak of hostilities, Saddam persisted in his efforts to mobilize Arab public opinion on his side by turning what started as an Arab–Arab dispute into a conflict between the Arab nationalists on the one hand and Western imperialism and Israel on the other. His use of Islamic imagery and his call for a jihad against the infidels appealed to Muslim fundamentalists throughout the region.

  On the night of 18 January the first barrage of eight Iraqi Scud missiles landed in Tel Aviv and Haifa. After months of uncertainty and bluster, Saddam carried out his threat to attack the Jewish state, dramatically raising the stakes in the Gulf War. It was the first air attack on an Israeli city since 1948. Altogether thirty-nine missiles landed in Israel during the war, resulting in only one direct casualty. The material damage caused was limited, but the psychological impact of the attack was profound. Uncharacteristically, Israel took punches on the chin without retaliating. Two main considerations accounted for this passivity in the face of provocation. One was the understanding that Shamir had reached with Hussein to respect Jordan’s neutrality and to refrain from actions that would destabilize it. The other was the strong pressure applied by the Bush administration on Shamir to keep out of the war so that the fragile coalition against Iraq could remain intact. As well as applying pressure, the administration supplied Israel with positive inducements in the shape of Patriot anti-missile defence systems.

  Hussein managed to keep his country out of the Gulf War, despite all the external pressures to join the coalition and the internal pressures to wade in on the side of Iraq. Popular sympathy for the Iraqis was fuelled by scenes of the aerial bombardment of their cities and villages by the coalition forces. Another source of mounting anger was the bombing by coalition planes of vehicles carrying vital oil supplies to Jordan from Iraq and the loss of Jordanian lives. Hussein got out in front of his people in a fiery address to the nation he made on 6 February. It was the most overtly anti-Western speech of his entire political career. He bitterly denounced the US-led assault on Iraq as ‘ferocious’ and ‘unjust’, and claimed that the war was going well beyond its UN mandate to liberate Kuwait. Washington and its allies rejected Jordan’s attempts to resolve the problem peacefully. Why?

  Because the real purpose behind this destructive war, as proven by its scope, and as attested to by the declarations of the parties, is to destroy Iraq, and rearrange the area in a manner far more dangerous to our nation’s present and future than the Sykes–Picot agreement. This arrangement would put the nation, its aspirations and its resources under direct foreign hegemony and would shred all ties between its parts, thus further weakening and fragmenting it.

  Hussein reserved his harshest criticism for the Arab participants in the US-led coalition in the war against Iraq:

  When Arab and Islamic lands are offered as bases for the allied armies from which to launch attacks to destroy Arab Muslim Iraq, when Arab money is financing this war with unprecedented generosity unknown to us and our Palestinian brothers, while we shoulder our national responsibilities; when this takes place, I say that any Arab or Muslim can realize the magnitude of this crime committed against his religion and his nation.60

  Hussein’s speech was a surprising escalation in the propaganda war against America and its Arab allies but it had no material effect on the course of the shooting war. On 28 February, when the coalition forces had overrun Kuwait and southern Iraq and the Iraqi Army was in full flight, Bush gave the order for a ceasefire. The mother of all battles threatened by Saddam had ended in a military catastrophe. But, while Operation Desert Storm was a triumph of advanced military technology against an army that lacked the will to fight, its political aftermath was much more problematic. The basic objectives of the operation were achieved: the Iraqi forces had been ejected from Kuwait and the government-in-exile was restored to its capital. But Saddam retained his hold on power in Baghdad. He had sown the wind; his army and people were left to reap the whirlwind. During the war Bush repeatedly stated that he would not allow the government of Saddam to survive and openly called on the Iraqi people to rise up against their leader. On 1 March, the day after the ceasefire, the Shi’ites rose up in the south, and a few days later the Kurds rose up in the north. If Bush was serious about toppling Saddam, now was his chance. But when the moment of truth arrived, Bush recoiled from pursuing his policy to its logical conclusion. His advisers told him that a Kurdish victory would lead to the dismemberment of Iraq and that their call for help should therefore go unanswered.

  Behind the decision to abandon the rebels to Saddam’s mercies lay the pessimistic view that Iraq was unsuitable for democracy and that the formula of Sunni minority rule through military force was the only way to keep the country in one piece. Saddam was free to use whatever equipment he had salvaged from the defeat, including helicopters, to suppress the uprisings. The Shi’ites were crushed and fled to the marshes. The Kurds were crushed and fled to the mountains. The suppression of the uprisings quickly punctured the euphoria of victory. In calling for Saddam’s overthrow, Bush evidently had in mind a military coup, reshuffling Sunni gangsters in Baghdad rather than helping the opposition to create a freer and more liberal political order. By holding back, Bush ended up by snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. He himself proudly proclaimed that the victory against the aggressor in the Gulf laid the foundations for a New World Order, but the new order was more rhetoric than reality.

  The period between Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait and the end of the Gulf War was one of the most stressful and unhappy in Hussein’s entire reign. Despite all the defeats and disappointments he suffered, Hussein remained an irrepressible peacemaker. From the first day he volunteered his services as a mediator and persisted in his efforts to find a peaceful solution to the problem until the outbreak of hostilities. He made trips to about twenty countries, including three to Baghdad, in an effort to avert a military confrontation, but all to no avail. The American version claims that an Arab solution to the crisis was not possible because Saddam could not be ejected out of Kuwait without the resort to military force. The Jordanian version claims that Hussein persuaded Saddam to begin to withdraw and attend a mini-summit, but that American–Arab condemnation and intimidation pushed him into a corner. According to this version, Hussein, with the approval of Egypt, Saudi Arabia and America, secured the beginning of an Arab solution, but these countries changed their minds and scuttled his efforts.

  What went on in Saddam’s dark and devious mind we shall probably never know. What is fairly clear, however, is that Hussein’s allies promised him forty-eight hours to work out an Arab solution but that they did not keep their promise. Not only did they renege just as Hussein was on his way to Baghdad, but they vilified him, accused him of secretly supporting the invasion – which he had not – and attributed to him sinister designs against Saudi Arabia, which were not supported by a scintilla of evidence. Consequently, Hussein felt used and abused by the Americans. Although he hesitated to say it publicly, he suspected that Bush double-crossed him and that he deliberately killed off his attempt at mediation because, under the influence of Thatcher, he came to equate negotiations with appeasement. With remarkable rapidity it became clear that Bush would settle for nothing less than Saddam’s head. Unfortunately, in the end he did settle for less and at a horrendous cost to the Iraqi people.

  With so many enemies on all sides, Hussein’s success in preserving his throne and in keeping Jordan out of the Gulf War is all the more remarkable. The general consensus in the American media was that he had irreparably blotted his record and that he was unlikely to survive. In the event he
did survive, albeit with difficulty. It took, however, all his skills as a tightrope walker to do so. On the eve of war he scored his most significant success by persuading Shamir to respect Jordan’s neutrality. It is the supreme irony that in a crisis in which the survival of the Hashemite dynasty was at stake, Hussein’s only true ally was Israel and his only reliable partner was Shamir, the leader of the party that stood for overthrowing the monarchy and turning Jordan into an alternative homeland for the Palestinians.

  24

  From Madrid to Oslo

  The Gulf crisis was very taxing emotionally and psychologically for the lonely, 55-year-old monarch, and it also affected his health. There was a series of minor incidents of ill-health; one, involving cardiac fibrillation, required a few days in hospital until his heart reverted to its normal rhythm. The following year Hussein had his first brush with cancer. Despite the new and more constructive challenges of the post-war era, his mood did not improve. His wife was worried because ‘he seemed to be retreating more and more into his own world, as if he were trying to disengage from anything that reminded him of the agonies of the Gulf crisis. Uncharacteristically, he began to avoid dealing with complicated problems. He kept saying he was just too tired, even when it came to resolving parenting issues. He did not shirk his responsibilities, but he became somewhat detached from what was happening at work and at home – a highly unusual development for a man who customarily involved himself 150 per cent in everything he did.’1