Senate Ignores Bush in Vote to End Jordan Aid : Policy: Lawmakers react to support for Iraq. The President says move could hamstring peace efforts.

Setting up a potential collision between the White House and Congress over America’s postwar policy in the Middle East, the Senate voted Wednesday to cut all economic and military aid to Jordan this year in retaliation for Jordan’s support of Iraq.

The action pitted Democrats determined to make other nations accountable for the Persian Gulf crisis against a President insistent on retaining full latitude in handling foreign policy.

Ignoring President Bush’s protests that the action could hamstring Middle East peace efforts, the Senate voted to officially halt $57.2 million in economic and military aid to Jordan in retaliation for its sympathetic position toward Iraq in the Persian Gulf War. The Administration already had suspended all such aid to Jordan.

The measure, which has not yet been approved by the House, was attached to a multibillion-dollar spending bill to finance war-related costs. The measure was eventually approved 92 to 8.

Despite strong lobbying by the White House and Secretary of State James A. Baker III, the aid ban passed on a voice vote after an unusual coalition of conservative Republicans and liberal Democrats defeated a measure to kill the ban by a 43-57 vote. Sen. Alan Cranston (D-Calif.) voted against the halt in aid, while Sen. John Seymour (R-Calif.) voted for it.

“This action takes away presidential flexibility with regard to funding for Jordan at a time when we are threading our way through a very complicated peace process in the Middle East,” White House Press Secretary Marlin Fitzwater said.

“We think it’s a kind of micro-management of foreign policy that denies the President the flexibility he needs to adequately conduct policy, and we are opposed to all aspects of this,” he said.

Protecting such flexibility is one of Bush’s strongest commitments. But Democrats and some Republicans are trying to play a greater role in foreign policy, accusing the White House of following a wavering policy toward Baghdad in the period leading up to Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait last Aug. 2.

The Senate vote was largely symbolic and, in the end, may have no impact on aid to Jordan. Its sponsor, Sen. Don Nickles (R-Okla.), called it important to send a “very strong signal” that “we just don’t keep giving money to governments that turn around and blast the United States day after day.”

Throughout the period leading up to the war and during the war, Jordan insisted that it was maintaining a neutral course. But King Hussein’s expressions of sympathy for Iraq angered Bush and other senior officials as well as members of Congress.

As one congressional source said, the message was that--despite Bush’s record-high popularity in the wake of the war--Congress, with Democratic majorities in both houses, is “not just going to roll over and play dead” when it comes to playing a role in foreign policy.

The aid ban was one of several unrelated provisions attached to the $5.2-billion spending bill over White House opposition. Although the provisions could provoke Bush into casting his first veto of the year, White House officials said they hope the confrontation can be resolved before a final measure reaches Bush.

As he tried to head off the setback, Bush sent a letter to Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.) stating: “We must not let our disappointment with Jordan’s behavior during the Gulf crisis unnecessarily constrain our postwar diplomacy.”