Marwan Muasher

This weekend there are many on the sidelines who anxiously await progress in Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. But none more so than the Kingdom of Jordan. This virtually landlocked, resource-poor creation of the colonial era is engaged in a perpetual high-wire survival act. Not surprising, given its neighbors: Syria to the north, Iraq to the east and Israel to the west, with hundreds of thousands of Palestinians within and between.

Representing, and in many ways embodying, the complexities of the country is Jordan’s man in Washington, Ambassador Marwan J. Muasher. A Christian from an overwhelmingly Muslim country, Muasher, 42 and married with two children, has already served as Jordan’s information minister and its first ambassador to Israel. Though the scion of a prominent East Bank Jordanian family, his mother is Palestinian. In fact, her family fled Jaffa during Israel’s 1948 war of independence.

Muasher serves at the pleasure of King Hussein, another complicated figure. Hussein succeeded his grandfather, Abdullah, after seeing him cut down by an assassin in 1951--for consorting with the Israelis. Yet the pro-Western Hussein held numerous clandestine meetings with Israeli leaders over many decades, seeking to make peace. The stumbling block was always the fate of the Palestinians.

Palestinians comprise roughly 60% of Jordan’s population. In 1990, when Saddam Hussein claimed leadership of the Arab world, in part on behalf of the Palestinian cause, they flocked to his banner. This forced the king into an unhealthy embrace of the megalomaniacal Iraqi leader.

But the ever-resourceful king saw in Iraq’s defeat opportunities for Jordan. Even if he had alienated his financial backers, including Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, not to mention his American friend, President George Bush, he was aware that the Palestinians, too, were bereft of support. When Washington triumphantly proclaimed a new era in Arab-Israeli peacemaking, King Hussein enthusiastically signed on.

At 35, Muasher became spokesman for the Jordanian delegation to the peace talks. He was present on Oct. 26, 1994, when King Hussein and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin signed their historic peace treaty, both clearly relishing the moment. Unlike the “cold,” correct peace with Egypt and the fighting and negotiating that characterize Israel’s relationship with the Palestinians, the Jordanian peace was what the Israelis had always said to be their fondest wish. Bridges were opened, tourism and trade encouraged, joint economic projects planned and developed.

As Jordan’s ambassador to Israel, Muasher was with Rabin at the Tel Aviv peace rally on Nov. 4, 1995, when the Israeli leader was assassinated. Joining the Egyptian ambassador at the rally, he left the area literally moments before Rabin was killed. Rabin’s death, and the defeat of his Labor Party by hard-liners led by Benjamin Netanyahu in 1996, awakened fears about the future of the Israeli-Jordanian relationship.

In this period of increasing mistrust, Muasher was sent to Washington, where he has, by all accounts, thrived. He relishes the chaos of Washington-style diplomacy. While diplomatic colleagues dutifully troop to Foggy Bottom to receive official briefings, Muasher joins a regular poker game with State Department card sharks. Like any ambassador, he escorts senior Jordanian officials to meet with prominent senators, but he also drops by the cramped Capitol Hill offices of their key aides.

Before a conversation last week, Muasher’s secretary checked to see if he was engaged in one of his favorite pastimes, surfing the Internet--understandable for a PhD in computer engineering from Purdue University. The interview took place in Muasher’s modest office in the Jordanian embassy in Washington--just up the road from the Israeli embassy.

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Question: How is it that a peace process that was so promising now seems in continual danger of collapsing?

Answer: Part of it is a question of trust. The level of trust that was built with Prime Minister Rabin allowed both sides to make the necessary concessions and to move forward, even if there was violence along the way. That trust has eroded, of course, after a more hard-line government. . . . We are now engaged in negotiating details that, I think, should have been resolved a long time ago.

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Q: You say it’s a hard-line government. You were ambassador to Israel in 1995 and ‘96, so you know many officials personally, including Prime Minister Netanyahu. How did he impress you then?

A: Yes, I did meet with him as ambassador, and I knew he was totally opposed to the agreements worked out between the previous government and the Palestinians. After he became prime minister, he had to adjust his views to the realities on the ground. But we understand that he does not govern alone, that he governs through a coalition in which many people are ideologically opposed to the present course.

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Q: But Netanyahu was elected, wouldn’t you agree, in large part because of Israeli concerns over security--security they get from Jordan, but not from the Palestinians.

A: As ambassador to Israel, I could see that the Israeli citizen is genuinely afraid for his security. Arabs, maybe, have not understood that for a long time. You see, for them, it is Israel that has won every war. It is the Israeli state that threatens the Arab sense of security. In other words, security as a concept is not exclusive to Israel. Both sides have to understand and address the genuine needs of others.

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Q: When you talk about trust, wasn’t the relationship between King Hussein and Prime Minister Rabin crucial to establishing a level of trust?

A: Well, certainly, personalities play a part. Their relationship grew to a point where both men trusted each other, and that allowed the relationship to move forward. But they also understood the importance of the other country . . . and King Hussein was aware that a Jordanian-Israeli model of peace was something for all others to emulate.

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Q: Do you think that view trickled down to the Jordanian population?

A: Any agreement can be criticized as one between governments and not one among people. I find this totally natural. No agreement starts between people. Once you sign an agreement ending the formal state of war, then you begin to install avenues of cooperation.

During the first year of our agreement, a lot was done to encourage areas of cooperation. We’ve had more than 100,000 Israelis visit Jordan. We started contacts between universities, between businessmen. But one should not exaggerate this to say that the people suddenly forgot decades of war. In Jordan there is hardly a family that does not have relatives on the West Bank, and movement in the peace process, whether positive or negative, immediately has repercussions on the Jordanian side.

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Q: But, as you say, the Jordanian-Israeli relationship has a depth that the “cold” peace Israel has with Egypt does not.

A: First of all, I want to point out that Jordan’s case is different than that of Egypt, because almost all of our resources lie on the border between us and either Israel or the Palestinians. Our people live on a strip of the border that is no more than 20% of the land of Jordan. The rest is desert. Our mineral resources are there, as is our only port to the seas.

This has prompted Jordan to seek a relationship which is different than others have sought. We have a unique situation that compels us to have more interaction with all the people around us.

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Q: Do you fear Jordan will no longer be able to maintain its balance between Israelis and Arabs?

A: Yes, I do, very much so. Very much so. One should not underestimate the taboos, psychological barriers that have been broken. Yes, there have been many achievements, if you look at the last six or seven years. . . . But here was also a time when we could say peace was irreversible. I still think it is the only option. But it is becoming more and more difficult to convince the man on the street that peace is irreversible.

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Q: If you cannot persuade the population to persevere in the peace process, what happens to Jordan?

A: Pressure is building inside the country, and in the Arab world in general, as a result of the lack of progress during the last three years. Now we are in a very difficult position, because we have chosen to be forward-looking. We signed a peace treaty with Israel three years ago, in an era when peace was advancing on all fronts. We find ourselves, three or four years after the fact, where we, of course, cannot go backwards, because the peace treaty is here to stay. Equally, we cannot go forward at a pace that is needed to bring tangible benefits to our population. The pressure is on us all the time, pressure from inside and pressure from outside Jordan.

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Q: Another area in which you have moved back and forth is Iraq. Jordan used to be far closer to Saddam Hussein than it is now.

A: Well, at one time we were close, yes, very close, to Iraq during the Iraq-Iran war. I might add the United States was pretty close to Iraq then, as well. It was not something Jordan has done uniquely.

Also, the Iraqi and Jordanian populations have a lot of affinity with each, and we remain today concerned about the plight of the Iraqi people.

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Q: How do you assess U.S. policy toward Iraq?

A: Recently, by providing more food through the United Nations, we feel you have contributed at least to a partial lifting of the suffering of the Iraqi people.

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Q: So you would say your relations with the U.S. have improved since the Gulf War.

A: Absolutely. . . . I think our relations are at their best right now.

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Q: How would you describe U.S. relations with the Palestinians?

A: I think the United States is doing its best to effect an agreement. I mean, there is no question that the United States enjoys a special relationship with Israel, and therefore it would be naive to assume that the United States is going to totally side with the Palestinians.

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Q: But does the U.S. have a balanced view of Palestinian problems?

A: I think that the days when the United States only looked at its interests in the Middle East as those that coincided with Israel are over, and we are now witnessing a new era where it is not viewed as a zero-sum game. The U.S. relationship with Israel does not mean that it cannot have good and healthy relations with the Arab world, as well. That does not mean that we agree with the U.S. on every possible issue, but that means that, as partners, as people who share the same vision for peace, we can talk, we can join hands, and when we do disagree, we can do that in a spirit of partnership, not as adversaries.

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Q: I gather that you enjoy working in Washington. But how do you explain the atmosphere here, particularly to other Arabs who may not have so rosy a view of the U.S.?

A: The decision-making process in this country is unique. There are many centers of power here, and policy is made by consensus, sometimes with all these centers converging on a particular policy. And there are a lot of dynamics among all these centers of power. Therefore, to be effective as a foreign country, a foreign embassy, you have to adequately address the different centers of power and deal with them as they work together or apart.

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Q: Not quite like being posted to London or Paris.

A: No, it is not enough, as is the case in most other capitals, to deal with the administration of the country. Sometimes it is even more important to deal with Congress, or with the media, or with think tanks, or with American Jewish groups--a considerable amount of my time is devoted to addressing the American Jewish community. . . . These are centers of power that have an input. This is where your voice needs to be heard and heard systematically, consistently, regularly in order for your point of view to be listened to. . . .

Washington is a wide-open city. The doors are open. Even those who disagree with you are ready to hear your point of view. It is a sense of service that is very commendable in this country.