Why the Allies Came to Jordan’s Rescue

Jordan’s small size--its population is perhaps 3.4 million--belies its importance in the geopolitics of the Middle East.

That became clear during the Gulf War when King Hussein angered many Americans and a lot of other people by remaining neutral. Jordan observed United Nations sanctions against Iraq--its main trading partner--but did not join the coalition forces in the Gulf.

Members of the U.S. Congress rose to denounce the King, and Saudi Arabia cut off all aid, which was a serious blow to Jordan’s economy. Aid from Saudi Arabia and Kuwait at one point reached more than $1 billion a year, an enormous sum for Jordan’s small $4-billion economy.

Moreover, 40% of Jordan’s labor force worked in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and other Gulf oil states as engineers, teachers and business managers. Remittances from those workers fueled Jordan’s prosperous lifestyle in the 1980s and built many of Amman’s handsome two- and three-story white stone homes and apartment buildings.

Hussein seemed to be biting the hand that fed him and his people. And indeed, Jordan’s economy was on the verge of collapse last December.

But it did not collapse. Instead, the U.S. government persuaded Japan, Germany and the European Community to send aid to Jordan, aid now totaling about $1.5 billion.

Why was Jordan saved? Because the United States and its allies did not want this small country to collapse into the kind of chaos and violence that all but destroyed Lebanon.

The key to understanding Jordan is that it is a buffer state. It shares the longest border with Israel and is home to more Palestinian people than Israel. Estimates vary, but 40% to 50% of Jordan’s population are Palestinian--people originating either long ago or in the past few decades in what is now Israel.

Yet Jordan is not a volatile place, a land of armies bristling to renew the Arab-Israeli conflict. King Hussein saw to that in a civil war in 1970-71 by driving Palestine Liberation Organization armies out of his country. Yet in this war, he stayed neutral so as not to incite the Palestinian population, almost all of whom are Jordanian citizens, to violent opposition.

“Jordan today is a Switzerland, a neutral buffer between Israel and the Arab world,” a world-traveled Jordanian businessman says.

In reality, Jordan faces too much economic uncertainty to be called Switzerland. But it is a fascinating country because it reflects many of the trends of the Middle East, both healthy and ominous, from economic dislocation after the Gulf War to attempts at democracy to the peace process being pushed by Washington to a really serious threat looming in the region: lack of water.

Having lived beyond its means in the 1980s, this small country now has $8 billion in foreign debt and must somehow come up with $1 billion in interest and loan payments annually.

Saudi Arabia has not renewed aid, and Kuwait is sending home Jordan’s workers when it isn’t putting them on trial for their lives. About 250,000 Palestinian-Jordanian workers have come home.

Some have brought home their savings, a total by some estimates of $600 million. And they are buying real estate, setting off a boom in Amman--a city of about 1 million. “That’s not a healthy boom,” says Jordanian economist Riad Khoury, head of Middle East Business Associates. “Before they were sending home income, now they are spending their savings.”

Yet some believe that the boom will last and grow. Their hopes are based not so much on economics as politics, on Jordan’s progress in constitutional democracy. King Hussein, who has ruled Jordan since 1953, restored parliamentary elections in November, 1989, and has guided the country toward a constitutional monarchy since.

This month, he appointed a new government for which there are high hopes, not least because it is led by Prime Minister Taher Masri, a Palestinian with close ties to the Palestinian community in Israel. Many of his family still reside in Nablus on the West Bank.

Experts in Amman are saying Masri’s appointment is a sign not only that Jordan will participate fully in the peace process--as proposed Arab-Israeli negotiations are called--but that “the future of Jordanians and Palestinians is now interwoven and meshed.”

In truth, Jordanians are as skeptical of the chances for peace as most others in the Middle East; optimism they leave to the Americans. Still, they believe that some progress could be made. And progress toward peace could turn Jordan into a true Switzerland, while providing benefits to the whole Middle East and the world.

Still, this remains the region of Murphy’s Law--if something can go wrong, it will. And the trend on water is ominous indeed. Israel’s agriculture is hurting from drought, and Jordan is already in a water crisis.

“We get water two days a week in this apartment,” says economist Fahed Fanek, who publishes the monthly Jordan Economic Monitor. “The rest you buy from trucks, and it is expensive--$10 for four square meters.”

Jordan’s problem is that it gets its water from the same sources as more powerful neighbors, sharing the Jordan River with Israel, the Yarmuk River with Syria and ground water aquifers with Saudi Arabia. Arguments over water could lead to worse fighting than even this region has seen in the past.

The trend in the Middle East, as usual, is uncertainty. But to understand the situation even a little, Jordan is the country to watch.