Jordan’s Move Away From PLO Pleases U.S. Officials

The Reagan Administration was openly pleased Thursday about King Hussein’s decision to break off his joint peace efforts with the Palestine Liberation Organization, despite disturbing signs that the Jordanian monarch may line up next with Syria’s hard-line regime.

“The PLO has failed the king’s test, and history moves on,” State Department spokesman Charles Redman said.

There even seemed to be a small sense of relief that Hussein was unable to persuade PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat to renounce the use of terrorism and to accept U.N. Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338, which imply recognition of Israel’s right to exist within secure borders.

If Arafat had met those conditions, the United States would have been obligated to offer him a place at a Middle East peace conference, and keeping that promise might have put a severe strain on Washington’s relations with Israel.

In a three-hour television address Wednesday night, Hussein revoked the agreement that he had reached with Arafat on Feb. 11, 1985, to pursue a joint strategy toward reaching a settlement with Israel.

He said that Arafat had reneged on a promise to accept publicly the two U.N. resolutions and renounce terrorism in return for a place at an international peace conference. He said he would resume dealing with the PLO at “such time as their word becomes their bond.”

Redman confirmed Hussein’s statement that the United States had agreed in writing to PLO participation in a peace conference if Arafat accepted Washington’s longstanding demand for PLO recognition of Israel’s right to exist. But Redman said Arafat’s failure to take the step “makes this a moot question.”

Will Wait for Action

For the time being, U.S. officials said, Washington plans to do nothing while waiting for “the Arabs to get their act together.”

Nevertheless, some non-governmental experts on the Middle East believe that Hussein, after casting Arafat adrift, will have no choice but to seek closer relations with Syria and with the anti-Arafat Palestinians who enjoy Damascus’ patronage.

If that happens, these experts say, the Jordan-Syria alliance will be less likely than the Jordan-PLO grouping was to seek peace with Israel on terms that would be acceptable to either Washington or Jerusalem.

Syrian Role Welcomed

Hussein has emphasized that he would not go it alone in talks with Israel. Although one U.S. official said Washington would welcome Syrian participation in the peace process, he conceded that such an outcome is unlikely.

“If you assume from the Jordanian standpoint that the peace process has reached a dead end, then you have to start thinking about how to manage the no-peace, no-war situation with minimum damage to your economy,” said William B. Quandt, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution here who was a National Security Council staff expert on the Middle East during President Jimmy Carter’s Administration.

“Syria can either make things easier for Jordan or can make them a lot harder,” Quandt said. “He (Hussein) will be working more with Syria, and the Syrians will make the PLO look like a very tame partner indeed.”

Wishful Thinking

Israel hopes that the Hussein-Arafat split will clear the way for Hussein to bring non-PLO Palestinians, possibly residents of the Israeli-occupied West Bank of the Jordan River, into the negotiating process. But Quandt scoffed at that idea.

“What is not going to happen is that the king is going to rush into negotiations with Israel with a bunch of tame West Bankers,” Quandt said. “That’s wishful thinking. If it would work, fine, we would still have something to work with.”

When King Hussein visited Washington last May and outlined to President Reagan his plan to enlist the PLO in negotiations with Israel, the President was so impressed that he predicted the start of Arab-Israeli peace talks by the end of 1985.

With U.S. mediators giving the process an occasional push, Jordan and Israel made some progress toward an agreement to begin negotiations. But the effort failed because of disputes over Palestinian representation and the nature of the “international context” in which the talks would be held. The American commitment that Hussein disclosed in his speech was an attempt to bridge that gap.

Period of Reflection

U.S. officials made it clear that Washington has no plans to try to get the process going again anytime soon.

“We have embarked upon a period of reflection on the part of all parties,” Redman said. “For our part, we’ll continue to talk with our friends on the best way to proceed.”

Another U.S. official, who declined to be identified by name, said, “I suppose we’ll poke around, but really, the action is in their (the Arabs’) camp now.”

Quandt said the Administration “has run out of ideas--they simply don’t know what to do.”

Hussein also rejected an alliance with the PLO in April, 1983, in terms similar to the ones he used Wednesday night. The relationship was patched up last February. And although it is possible that Hussein and Arafat will get together again, time does not seem to be on the side of the peace process.