Stardate 20020731.0440

(On Screen): King Abdullah of Jordan is usually referred to as being "moderate" or "friendly", because he inherited from his father, Hussein, a policy of non-belligerence towards Israel. Egypt's President Mubarek is another "moderate".

I suppose it bears mentioning that the primary reason why both of them are "moderate" is because the US sends each a substantial amount of money every year. They are friendly because we buy their friendship. It is not at all obvious that if such payments were cut off that they would remain friendly.

That said, they do face problems for their friendship. Hashemite rule over Jordan was the result of British action during the late colonial period. The Hashemites are Arabs (i.e. Bedouins from Arabia) but most of their subjects in Jordan are not. I know that from a distance we categorize the lot as "Arabs", but that's sort of like categorizing the Spanish, French, Germans and Swedes all as "Europeans". Until very recently, to some there those would have been fighting words. The modern concept of "European" as an actual political grouping is very recent, and so is the concept of "Arab", since it has had political force for less than a hundred years.

The Arabs are very tribal, and feel much more loyalty to tribe than to some mythical trans-national "Arab" identity. Of course, they prefer other Arab tribes over non-Arab Muslims, and prefer Muslims over infidels, but they prefer fellow tribesmen to other Arabs. (It's sort of how the French hated the Germans in 1890, but preferred them to Algerians.) As a result, Hashemite rule over Jordan has always been uneasy, and there's rising unrest there because of pessimism about the situation in Israel.

King Abdullah announced that the Arabs no longer trust the US. When you look more closely, what that means is that they no longer believe that the US will coerce Israel into committing suicide, and frankly what this "loss of trust" really means is that the Arabs are starting to get realistic about American attitudes towards the region.

King Abdullah makes his statement more in sorrow than in anger. But I think there's some panic in there, too. Abdullah is also trying his best to convince the US to not attack Iraq. I think that Abdullah is concerned that the majority of Jordanians who are not "Arab" (as in coming from Arabia) may boil over if the region is embroiled in armed conflict, and Hashemite rule may be in peril.

For King Abdullah, that's probably a legitimate concern, and he can hardly be blamed for voicing it. But it has to be pointed out that the maintenance of Hashemite rule in Jordan is not a top priority for American foreign policy, and while we don't actively seek his ouster, I doubt we're going to be willing to give up our own goals just to save his ass.

There is some confusion about the new American policy towards the Palestinians in Israel. After stunned silence in the couple of days following Bush's speech, representatives of the "moderate" Arabs came to Washington to meet with President Bush, and they came out afterwards and announced that he'd promised them a Palestinian state in 3 years. I suspect that what we have here is "failure to communicate".

Bush made no such public announcement, either before or since. What I suspect is that Bush said that if the Palestinians actually did the things he demanded, that he thought that the process of creating a Palestinian state would probably take about three years. The Arab foreign ministers then seized on that number, and used it to play to the home crowd, but carefully dropped all reference to Palestinian actions required to advance that process.

They needed a concession, or the appearance of one. They needed it to pacify their own underclass, who are growing restive. But there's a danger that if they start to believe their own lies that their behavior will come to seem insane to the rest of us. King Abdullah is now asking President Bush to decrease that three year date, and establish the Palestinian state even sooner.

Which means that he's trying to "clarify" American policy into a complete reversal. The whole point of the new Bush doctrine towards the Palestinians is that from now on they only get rewards in exchange for concrete action. They are no longer entitled to the benefit of the doubt, they are no longer considered reliable negotiating partners. They have proved that they won't keep their word, so from now on what they promise doesn't matter. They will be rewarded for what they do, and only for what they do, and part of what they have to do is to replace the leaders who have brought them to this sorry state.

There is no "three year" timeline. That was Arab distortion of what they thought they heard in Washington, not any kind of American policy. What King Abdullah wants is for President Bush to set a formal date sometime in 2004 or 2005 when a Palestinian state would formally begin to exist, no matter what.

But it's precisely that "no matter what" which is the issue, because if a real target date is established, then it removes any incentive for the Palestinians to reform themselves. Indeed, it would encourage them to not do so because it would give the current Palestinian leaders a major victory. This isn't clarification, it's a return to the failed policy of rewarding the Palestinians for lying and breaking promises. It's completely antithetical to the new Bush approach, which will only reward real progress as demonstrated by real action.

What there really is was a statement of actions and rewards. If the Palestinians hold fair elections and kick the bastards out, the US will send money and negotiate with the new leaders. If the Palestinians stop attacking and killing the Israelis, the US will pressure Israel to withdraw. If the Palestinians prove that they are reliable and can be trusted, they'll get a state. If they do all these things at a reasonable speed, their state could probably be established in about three years.

But nothing happens without concrete Palestinian actions first, and if they don't reform themselves then there won't be a Palestinian state 30 years from now.

If King Abdullah wants a Palestinian state in 3 years, or 2, or fifty, then he shouldn't be visiting Washington. He should be sending messages to the Palestinians telling them that the old ways have to change. But doing that would be politically deadly for King Abdullah, because of the 80% of his subjects in Jordan who identify tribally more closely with the Palestinians than they do with the Hashemites, and who would view this as a sell-out.

I don't think King Abdullah expected this trip to make any difference to American foreign policy. He is doing it so as to play to the crowd at home.