Amid Pomp, Jordan Fears King’s Birthday May Be Last : Mideast: As subjects plan party in desert, Hussein’s bout with cancer has them thinking the unthinkable.

Every day for a week now, dozens of towering and colorful hot-air balloons have been drifting into this kingdom, touching down at a remote desert site in southern Jordan for a lavish celebration of King Hussein’s 57th birthday.

From miles around, Bedouin camel herders have driven the pride of their flocks to the site in ancient Wadi Rum, where Jordanian workers have spent weeks erecting more than 100 tents, grandstands and accommodations for 40,000.

By all accounts, the celebration that begins today and is scheduled to continue well into next week is the most majestic and sentimental of all the birthdays Hussein has marked during his four decades on the Hashemite throne. But it is also a celebration that many Jordanians fear may be their monarch’s last.

The festival, which has come to be known simply as “The Party,” comes on the heels of King Hussein’s first major speech since returning from cancer surgery in the United States, a national address heavily steeped in poetic nuance and, ominously, with a hint that one of the most durable rulers in the Middle East may be dying.

Although insiders--indeed, the king himself--dispute the rumor, the speech and its subtext have sent shock waves through the Arab countries, which returned to the peace table with Israel in Washington this past week. The address has fueled the fears of Palestinians both in Jordan and in the Israeli-occupied territories that Jordan may abandon the broad Arab front and cut its own deal with Israel.

And it inspired leaders throughout the Middle East to begin thinking seriously for the first time of life after King Hussein.

To some of his listeners, Hussein’s 45-minute speech on Nov. 5 sounded like a valedictory in which he pointedly reminded his subjects and the region’s leaders that a nation and its people are more important than a single man.

His words had an impact in the country to the east. Without naming Iraq or its authoritarian President Saddam Hussein, the king made it clear, both in his speech and in a blitz of subsequent interviews, that the same logic must apply throughout the Middle East.

The message was clear: It is time for the Iraqi people to act to save their nation and the stability of the region at a time when Saddam Hussein’s stubborn adherence to absolute power threatens Iraq’s very existence. The signal won praise from Washington, which had frozen all aid to Jordan when the king sympathized with the Iraqis during the Persian Gulf War.

As the king put it in an interview during the past week: “Iraq is important. Its unity is important. Its integrity is important.” He expressed concern “for the suffering of the people of Iraq and for the possibility of fragmentation of Iraq. . . .

“I’m concerned that Iraq is slipping backward into a pre-industrial state, and that the needs of the people there are such that if they are not met before too long, real dangers exist that that country might disintegrate,” he continued during the interview with CBS-TV.

Asked about his health, he replied, “I am fine.” And he did appear far more robust than the day seven weeks ago when he piloted himself home on a Royal Jordanian airliner and then, seated on the hood of a gray Mercedes-Benz, toured the streets of Amman, the capital, where throngs had turned out to greet him.

“I have almost a clean bill of health,” he told the TV interviewer. “But the fact is that I’m 57 now, and I’ve had this episode--major surgery--from which I am recovering very, very well.”

Still, the king did undergo radical surgery three months ago at the Mayo Clinic, where a cancerous kidney and ureter were removed. And he is due to return to the United States in December for further tests. In a region where cancer traditionally carries a stigma of finality, most Jordanians are convinced that their king is trying to put the best face on an impending national tragedy that, until this year, had been unthinkable.

Jordanian political analysts say the king, who has played a key role in Middle East politics for more than four decades, appears to have begun a campaign to use his illness as something of a political tool, in an effort to transform sympathy into support for a critical role he hopes to play in finding compromise solutions to the many conflicts of the region during the months to come.

Taking advantage of the renewed world attention, last Tuesday, for example, the king used the American television interview as a stage from which to urge all parties in the Middle East peace talks to negotiate seriously or face what he called “a disaster.”

“There is a sense of urgency,” he said. “There is a sense of the importance of the moment on all fronts--even as far as Syria and Israel are concerned. . . . I think there is a general mood amongst all to explore, examine, see what is possible.”

Hussein has talked about leaving as his personal legacy “a comprehensive, permanent peace for future generations” in the region. But his true goal, according to some Jordanian analysts, may lie closer to home.

“I think the king’s real mission in his speech and in the months ahead is a domestic one--to give Jordan itself a mission and to place the nation’s ship of state on a true course toward democracy that will lead other nations in the region in the same direction,” said one prominent Jordanian who asked not to be named.

“What he was saying is, ‘Look, I’m not going to be around forever, so you’ve got to strengthen these foundations of democracy, protect the institutions that will replace me and spread them around the neighborhood to make it safer and more stable for everyone.”

Asked during the television interview if his ultimate mission was to prepare his people for a transition to democracy after his death--a transition that would be guided by his brother and constitutional successor, Crown Prince Hassan, the king replied:

“I have always believed in that. . . . I’ve never thought that I belong to many who believe that life begins with them and ends with them in terms of the life of a nation. I was just stating a fact.

“The most important objective I still have is to ensure that the foundations that we have laid--democracy, national charter, pluralism, respect for human rights, sharing in power--that these should be consolidated even further in the times ahead, so that Jordan becomes an example to others.”

In pursuit of these aims, Hussein issued a royal pardon Thursday that will free 140 political and criminal prisoners, including two prominent members of Parliament sentenced to 20 years’ hard labor earlier in the week for plotting the overthrow of the king and the setting up of a fundamentalist, pro-Iranian Islamic state.