CRISIS IN THE PERSIAN GULF : Selling of Saddam Hussein a Brisk Business in Jordan

If Jordan had a president, and if this were an election year, Saddam Hussein would seem to be the front-runner in terms of campaign paraphernalia.

Supporters of Hussein--and it is difficult to find a Jordanian who is not--have plastered pictures of the president of neighboring Iraq on just about everything here that doesn’t move, and on some things that do--taxicabs, for example.

Jordan’s King Hussein gets little more than equal billing in this time of crisis.

The Iraqi Embassy, just down Queen Zein Street from its American counterpart, is a fount of posters, including the popular photo of King Hussein and Saddam Hussein gripping a rifle in a carpeted reception hall.

Downtown dealers are doing a brisk business in lapel buttons. In dramatic Arab style, they forgo “I Like Saddam” for a more trenchant message: “You Can Make Us Hungry but You Can’t Make Us Kneel,” inscribed over the likeness of the Iraqi leader.

“Actually, 90% of those are bought by Western tourists,” said Fuad Afghani, a Palestinian merchant. “Jordanians prefer a smaller button without the words.”

Clearly the Iraqi government has a hand in the flood of political paraphernalia, but Afghani says he creates his own.

“Every time Saddam makes a speech, we make a new button,” he said. “We have them made up here in Amman with the latest good phrase.”

Afghani, too, is an admirer of the Iraqi president.

“He’s decisive, a man who says yes and a man who says no,” Afghani said.

If pressed, Jordanians will admit that Saddam Hussein is hardly a flawless leader. He runs a ruthless regime, they concede, and his profession of Islamic piety raises eyebrows here.

Still, his invasion and annexation of Kuwait have met with little criticism, despite the Jordanian government’s official condemnation. An Amman travel agent dismissed the rulers of Kuwait as “$50-billion sheiks.”

“Pro-Saddam sentiment goes right up to the top levels of government,” a Western diplomat said. It is particularly prevalent among the Palestinians, who constitute more than half the Jordanian population, according to unofficial estimates.

A schoolboy march the other day, organized by the Confederation of Jordanian Women and very middle-class and non-militant, carried a mix of placards supporting the king and the Iraqi president, along with banners calling for an “Arab Jerusalem.”

“The Palestinian attitude may change in time,” the diplomat said. “When all their brothers and cousins come back from Kuwait and tell their stories of family fortunes gone forever, there will be second thoughts. But it hasn’t happened yet. Saddam and Iraq are riding high here. He’s seen as a tough leader who backs their cause.”

If there’s a weak wheel on the Iraqi bandwagon here it is the Islamic fundamentalist movement, which increased its political clout in last spring’s parliamentary elections. The Muslim Brotherhood, the principal fundamentalist organization, finds no comfort in Iraq’s secular, socialist policies, or in the invasion of Kuwait, which drew American-led foreign military forces into Saudi Arabia.

But Saddam Hussein remains a prime piece of merchandise at Afghani’s shop across from the old mosque in downtown Amman.

“The people here have a belief in him,” the Jaffa-born Palestinian said. “He’s not the best Islamic leader, but he’s an Arab leader.”

As Afghani discussed business and politics with a couple of American reporters, a deliveryman came through the door of his shop with a bag full of new Saddam Hussein buttons, hot from the factory. He spread them over the glass countertop.

“We’re selling about 400 a day,” Afghani said.

The big ones, the size of a silver dollar, go for about $1.50, mostly to tourists. The smaller ones, which the Jordanians favor, cost about half that.

On a rail outside the shop, the latest posters hang like laundry, beckoning buyers. A popular one features separate photos of the king, the Iraqi leader and Palestine Liberation Organization Chairman Yasser Arafat, all cradling weapons.

At major intersections, teen-agers dash from car to car with posters, like newsboys hawking the latest edition.

So far, the selling of Saddam Hussein has not reached the monumental proportions it has in his own capital of Baghdad, where his portraits cover the outside walls of buildings. The largest poster here is only 2-by-3 feet, but the quantity has been more than enough to get the message across.

Nick Williams, The Times’ bureau chief in Nicosia, Cyprus, was recently on assignment in Jordan.