But the king also has solid credentials among Shia. He is a descendent of the Prophet Muhammad, and he has reminded Iraqis on numerous recent occasions of this fact. This impresses the Shia, marked in their veneration of the prophet himself and his lineage. The king’s recent speeches serve a pointed political aim: The Hashemites are respected by all of Iraq’s Islamic sects, have long been tied to the territory of Iraq, and have played a central role in the Levant. King Hussein remains close to the elite of Iraqi society, undermining the fealty of many of the tribes upon which Saddam’s regime draws support. In short, all factions of Iraqi society can live with King Hussein’s leadership.

Unfortunately, he entered this effort without being able to trust his own government or guarantee the acquiescence of his own people and with complications arising from Israel’s and the United States’s quest for "comprehensive peace." Signs of division within the Jordanian government over its Iraq policy became evident soon after Kamal’s defection. At the same time King Hussein was making clear he sought a change of regime in Iraq (and his and Asad’s foreign ministers were throwing insults at each other over the right to do so), some senior members of Jordan’s government were claiming that the defection was a "passing cloud." Jordan, they said, had generally good relations with Iraq and did not seek Saddam’s ouster. Jordan would not move alone without first securing "Arab solidarity and international support." Jordan’s foreign minister (al-Kabariti) opposed this view. Indeed, al-Kabariti had made it clear in very undiplomatic language that Jordan will not take its foreign policy cue from others (a reference to Syria) and "does not need to discuss borders and the way we deal with neighbors with anybody." Moreover, on the same day that King Hussein was telling Israeli papers that he wanted to see Saddam replaced immediately and expects confrontation, Jordan’s prime minister, Sherif Zeid bin Shaker, said Jordan was committed to good relations with Iraq. The prime minister added that Jordan would not interfere in Iraq’s affairs or sacrifice its good ties with Iraq for the sake of improving ties with Gulf countries. The U.S. promise to protect Jordan from Iraq was uncalled for, he said.

It was precisely this internal lack of consensus, and the mistrust of the professional bureaucracy, that forced King Hussein to shake his government up in what was generally considered a "White Revolution" in early 1996.

The "White Revolution," the purpose of which was to set Jordan up more solidly to launch a major initiative on Iraq with the INC and other Iraqi elements, was focused on the office of the prime minister. Foreign Minister al-Kabariti was clearly among the Hashemite palace’s closest confidants and supporters in its Iraq and new Saudi policies. He was, therefore, charged with forming a new government to replace Prime Minister bin Shaker, who had been the source of mixed signals and equivocation coming from Amman on the Iraq issue. As one Arab paper reported, Kabariti’s letter of appointment was clear; it instructed him to:

Spare no effort to end the suffering of the Iraqi people and enable them to enjoy pluralism and democracy....The letter instructs Kabariti to back the Iraqi opposition and join forces with the United States and Gulf States to bring about the desired change in Baghdad.

The longer the Iraq problem remains unresolved, the less clear it is that King Hussein can succeed. Hussein’s increasing stridency reflects his sense of danger, arising from the fact that time works against him. Time takes the initiative from his hands, giving Syria, Iran, and Iraq the time to infiltrate, plot, discredit, and isolate the king. In short, the longer this drags on and the less support he gets from the West, the more endangered are the Hashemites. The Iraq issue could eventually bring down the dynasty.

Damascene Troubles

The Iraq problem threatens Jordan profoundly. It threatens Syria just as profoundly. As much as Amman’s "losing Iraq" would leave Jordan isolated, so too would Damascus’s "losing Iraq" leave Syria isolated. Iraq’s course affects Syria’s strategic environment in a series of ways.

First, events in Iraq can shake Syria’s position in Lebanon. Lebanon is no easy problem for Asad. He works primarily through the strong Shiite presence in the South to maintain his pressure on Israel. This pressure is necessary to preempt the Israelis from engaging more deeply in Lebanese affairs and undermining Syria in its Sunni or Christian core. But beyond the pressure on Israel, one of the most important bolts Asad retains in his arsenal to retain his strong grip on Lebanon is Hizballah, both operationally and ideologically. Hizballah’s ideological core emerges from the schools of Qom in Iran. Asad uses his alliance with Iran to keep the ideological thrust of Hizballah pro-Syrian. In turn, Syria retains operational control of Hizballah through Sheikh Nasrallah, who is more closely tied to Syria than Iran. As long as Hizballah is the primary force in southern Lebanon, the Lebanese Shia are linked ideologically to Iran.

Yet, while Hizballah is linked organically and ideologically to Iran, the Shia in southern Lebanon have more traditionally been linked over centuries through intermarriage and tribal alliances to Najaf in Iraq (a city in which the main Shiite schools are located). Because of Saddam’s control of Iraq and suppression of Shia Islam, and because of Asad’s control of Lebanon, the Lebanese Shia gradually were forced to abandon their ties to Iraq and accept Hizballah and Iran by default as their religious center.

A Hashemite presence in Iraq, especially within the Shia centers in Najaf, could break Iran’s and Syria’s grip on the Shiite community of Lebanon. Were Jordan to prevail in Iraq, then Najaf’s elite, with its veneration of the prophet’s family, would be tied to King Hussein, and pro-Jordan Iraq Shiites as Ahmed Chalabi and Layth Qubbah of the al-Khoe foundation would define the Iraqi Shiite community after Saddam’s removal. Close cooperation between Israel and Jordan could undermine Syria’s pressure on Israel’s northern border as the local Shia are weaned from Hizballah’s domination. In short, developments in Iraq could potentially unravel Syria’s structure in Lebanon by severing the Shia-Syrian-Iranian axis.

In fall 1995, Syria faced not only the Iraq issue, but the festering problem of Lebanese leadership, since the final term of the pro-Syrian president of Lebanon, Elias Hrawi, was to expire soon. To avoid an unraveling of his solid grip in Lebanon while he engaged this most important Iraqi issue, Asad had to quickly solve the leadership problem. According to Lebanese sources, Asad summoned Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri and Speaker Beri to Damascus, where they heard on September 10 according to Lebanese government sources, that:

The Syrians say they are surrounded by the Americans in Jordan, Israel, and Turkey, and now they fear in Iraq too....The Lebanese were told firmly to stop their chronic squabbling....Damascus was too preoccupied with dealing with the threatened new regional equation to permit distractions of the Lebanese flank. The problem is very serious for Syria; they cannot afford the fantasy of Lebanese problems now. This is one of the really rare times that they can’t....The Syrians were really firm in telling everyone they have to cool it.

The two were told simply to reinstall President Hrawi.

Lebanon was not the only problem Syria faced. By late fall 1995 and early 1996, Syria’s efforts in Iraq were falling apart. Key figures involved in the July 1995 meetings in Damascus, such as Bahr al-Uloum and Wafiq Samarrai, moved closer to Jordan, and even al-Hakim was forced to publicly admit the infeasibility of his plans to establish a field command in Iraq. And by March 1996, al-Hakim, perhaps in a moment of opportunism and sensing the currents, relayed a message to King Hussein through the Kurdish PUK leader, Jalal Talabani, offering SAIRI’s cooperation in any action against Saddam’s regime.

Syria Reacts

Driven by the need to keep together its crumbling Baathist state and its rickety regional strategy, Syria cannot afford to abandon to Jordan its efforts with respect to Iraq. Within a half year from the moment of great hope in June-July 1995 (the Ramadi unrest), Damascus’ opportunities in Iraq turned into a mortal danger. Accordingly, Syria moved from actively forging an alternate Iraqi opposition to sabotaging Jordan’s efforts. This strategy, the results of which were mixed, took the following forms:

• Forge an international coalition to isolate Amman

• Subvert the Jordanian regime

• Preempt American and Israeli support for King Hussein by linking the Iraq issue to the prospect of "comprehensive peace"

• Keep Saddam afloat and cooperate against Jordan.

• Undermine Jordan’s attempts to work with the INC by establishing Syrian and Iranian dominance in northern Iraq

• Secure Saudi support for Syria and undermine Saudi-Jordanian rapprochement

Syria’s Efforts to Isolate Amman and Subvert the Hashemites

In response to Jordan's bid, Syria had to isolate Amman diplomatically. First, Damascus moved to neutralize the legitimacy which Hussein Kamal’s defection had conferred on Amman’s credentials among the Iraqi opposition. It did so by discrediting Kamal himself as a worthy or even genuine opponent of Saddam. The Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) began lambasting Kamal, hinting that he should be killed along with Saddam. In the words of Fayez Sayegh, chief editor of SANA: "When people take over, they will punish all those whose hands were stained by blood whether they were inside or outside of Iraq....The change should not be made by Saddam’s men." Syria also forbade any of the Iraqi opposition elements based in Damascus from meeting Kamal, a request with which all but one complied though some of them, such as al-Hakim, publicly had noted only a few days earlier that they wanted to work with Kamal. Furthermore, pro-Syrian newspapers, such as the Lebanese as-Safir, blasted the Hashemite-American-Israeli conspiracy to take over and partition Iraq and isolate Syria:

Could it be an American-Hashemite scandal in Saddam Hussein’s house...this transforms the King [Hussein] from a host into a partner in a conspiracy against the historic ally Abu Uday [Saddam Hussein], or at least as the go-between who nominates the alternative on behalf of the initiator, the White House.

Having launched the public campaign to discredit Hussein Kamal, Syria moved also on the international diplomatic front to forge a coalition against Jordan’s efforts, tapping the historic antipathies that both Egypt and Saudi Arabia had with Jordan.

The first such diplomatic effort was to secure Egypt’s opposition to Jordan. On September 3, Asad flew to Egypt to meet President Mubarak, after which the two expressed strong reservations over Kamal, emphasized that efforts to remove Saddam must remain pan-Arab, and accused Jordan of undermining inter-Arab cooperation. Syria’s next address was Iran. On September 10, Syrian Foreign Minister Farouq a-Shara traveled to Iran to report to Rafsanjani that Syria had succeeded in securing Egypt’s complete support for the Syrian-Iranian position on Iraq. Echoing the views of Egypt's leaders, Cairo’s government-run papers began criticizing harshly, even ridiculing, King Hussein and his Iraq policy. First came an article by Samir Ragab in Egypt’s al-Gomhuriya. It attacked Hussein as an American stooge. This negative campaign continued deep into 1996.

Other Arabs quickly grasped the existence and significance of Syrian-Jordanian competition. The Saudi pan-Arab daily, Asharq al-Awsat, described the Egyptian-Syrian summit clearly as "an attempt to snatch the initiative out of Jordan’s hands on Iraq," and in a separate article, noted that "a new regional alliance is taking shape to counter U.S. plans for the country." Despite its understanding of the momentous importance of Jordan’s shift from supporter to opponent of Saddam, Saudi policy following the Kamal defection was confused. The Saudis went from initially being positive to eventually being negative, but with some residual ambivalence, a pattern suggestive of differences in ruling Saudi circles. These differences sharpened, and thus surfaced visibly, in early 1996. At first, Saudi Arabia welcomed Kamal’s defection. The editor of the pan-Arab, Saudi-run weekly, al-Majalla, enthused in the Saudi daily, Asharq al-Awsat, on the positive role that Kamal could play in toppling Saddam and warned "opposition groups that if they try to discredit him they will only be assisting Saddam." Saudi Arabia reacted positively officially as well, and sent their intelligence director, Prince Turki al-Faisal, to Amman to debrief Kamal, and invited Jordan’s Foreign Minister al-Kabariti to come to Riyadh to meet with King Fahd. Saudi papers predicted "imminent, positive developments in the Saudi-Jordanian relationship," which had been severed since 1991. Indeed, largely through the efforts of al-Kabariti, even as the Saudis soured on Jordan’s efforts, Jordanian-Saudi relations improved throughout fall 1995. This was demonstrated by the reestablishing of diplomatic relations, with the appointment of Abdallah al-Sudairi as the new Saudi ambassador to Amman. Appointing an al-Sudairi established a clear link between the al-Saud ruling family’s Sudairi branch (which includes Fahd, Sultan, Naif, Turki, and Salman) and Jordan. This is a matter of great consequence — especially with respect to the Syrian-Jordanian competition over Iraq. The Sudairi branch, close to the United States, was entering the succession struggle with Crown Prince Abdallah, who is not a Sudairi and is close to Syria and more sympathetic to Saddam.

Yet, while these meetings and diplomatic acts signaled Saudi-Jordanian rapprochement, there were conflicting signals as well coming from Saudi Arabia. Indeed the editor of a major Saudi paper wrote an editorial blasting Syria, saying that "the sudden emergence of Syrian-led opposition to the Jordanian project has unsettled many, and could end up rescuing the Iraqi regime from its grave predicament." But by late-September, Saudi Arabia had reversed most of its initial support for Jordan and joined Syria and Egypt in signaling that it preferred the status quo rather than leap into the unknown with a Jordanian-inspired change in Baghdad.

There was, thus, a clearly different reaction between Saudi Arabia and Syria in the first weeks after the Kamal defection, perhaps, again, reflecting fissures within Riyadh between pro-Syrian and pro-Western/Jordanian camps of the royal family.

Egypt had ever since Jordan’s shift on Israel (because of the Jordanian-Israeli peace treaty) sought to undermine King Hussein in coordination with Syria. Thus, Cairo moved quickly to help Asad not only in his campaign to discredit Hussein Kamal, but to isolate and undermine Amman. Egypt played a major role keeping Saudi Arabia and Jordan apart. In early February, with much fanfare and two-months lead-up, King Hussein was to travel to Saudi Arabia to meet with King Fahd and "seal the reconciliation between Jordan and Saudi Arabia." In advance of this visit, Egypt worked behind the scenes with Crown Prince Abdallah and Asad to try to persuade them to "clear the air with Iraq" because of concerns over Jordanian initiatives. Finally, a few hours before King Hussein’s trip, Mubarak flew to Riyadh and met with Crown Prince Abdallah. The two conspired to cancel the Fahd/Hussein meeting and "to abort a full Jordanian-Saudi reconciliation at the last minute." A number of Arab papers noted the next day that Jordan’s Iraq policy was a matter of particular attention during the Mubarak/Abdallah meeting. They noted that Mubarak met with Abdallah to "abort the Jordanian monarch’s visit to the Kingdom by stressing that the call for a federation in Iraq [the Hashemite plan] was dangerous and could have an adverse impact on the stability of the region." It worked: there was no Hussein/Fahd summit.

While Egypt moved to drive a wedge between Jordan and Saudi Arabia, Syria tried to enlist Turkey. In an effort to exploit fears of a breakup of Iraq, which could exacerbate Turkey’s Kurdish problem, Iran and Syria convened a foreign minister’s meeting in Teheran with Turkey on September 8, 1995 to discuss the Iraq problem. To emphasize the danger of Jordan’s plan to Turkey, in the week leading up to the meeting, both the Syrian and Iranian press highlighted Jordan’s initiative as an Israeli-American plan to carve up Iraq and set up a Kurdish state. Turkey attended, but Syria and Iran failed to draw Turkey into a specific announcement opposing King Hussein’s initiative or his hosting of Kamal. Indeed, the final communique included only a general statement that "the division of Iraq would have dangerous consequences for peace and stability at both the regional and international levels." Syria could simply not lure Turkey.

Syria also worked to undermine, perhaps even subvert the Hashemite reign in Jordan. Throughout the fall and winter, 1995-1996, King Hussein was besieged by Syrian efforts to infiltrate agents into Jordan and to undermine his regime. For example, King Hussein told the Jordanian press on February 22, 1995, that he had information that "Syrian Prime Minister Abdelhalim Khaddam had offered to cooperate with eight Jordanian opposition leaders" who visited Damascus in January 1995 in order to thwart further Israel-Jordanian cooperation.

Saudi papers reported in late spring that Jordanian authorities continued to arrest infiltrators of Palestinian organizations from Syria who were going to conduct acts in Jordan. And Jordanian Prime Minister al-Kabariti claimed that Jordanian forces had foiled 36 planned terror attacks in Jordan linked to the purported infiltrations. By May 1996, Israeli papers reported that the Jordanians had arrested several dozens of people suspected of planning terror attacks against tourists and senior Jordanian officials, and that a plot to assassinate Prime Minister Kabariti had been foiled the month before. The Israeli papers reported that Jordan had information that Syrian President Asad was aware of the planned wave of terror, and was trying "to show that the peace agreement between Israel and Jordan could not provide any country in the region with security and quiet."

Jordanian Prime Minister Kabariti’s statements underscore what is perhaps the most important regional shift: Jordan was moved across the board by the Syria-Iraq matter to cooperate strategically with Israel to establish a pro-Western bloc to dominate the Levant’s balance of power. Syria in turn, understood this and engaged every effort to sabotage the shift. The most dangerous of Damascus’s efforts to sabotage Amman took the shape of the Syrian-Israeli peace process, which exploited Israel’s quest for "comprehensive peace." The "comprehensive" nature of peace was meant to neutralize Jordan’s special strategic relationship with Israel.

Linking Syria’s Regional Aims to the Peace Process

Israel and the United States have spent the last five years pursuing a regionally comprehensive peace. Underlying this view is the assumption that lack of progress on any one Arab-Israeli negotiating track undermines the progress of any other. This has led Israel and the United States to make concessions to Arafat and Asad under the notion that it would reinforce King Hussein’s decision to make peace with Israel.

The pursuit of comprehensive peace can actually undermine Hussein. The pursuit includes too monolithic a view of the Arab world regarding the Arab-Israeli dispute. It accepts pan-Arab dreams of secular-Arab nationalists — that there is an "Arab interest" to all Arab leaders aspire. But these dreams, which have brought ruin on to the Arab world, have also served to prevent Arab leaders from cooperating with Israel against other Arab leaders. Each leader has far more important strategic interests than the "Arab" cause.

The Arab world’s leaders are not informed by pan-Arabism. They are obsessed with survival. As such, inter-Arab conflicts, not Arab-Israeli issues, are the primary issues that occupy the minds of Arab leaders. Political developments in the Arab-Israeli dispute do little to threaten Asad’s or King Hussein’s existence internally. On the other hand, inter-Arab rivalries, along with the artificiality and porousness of borders, become acute internal problems for Arab leaders. The conflict between Jordan and Syria threatens both regimes.

Thus, the Arab-Israeli dispute acquires primary importance for Arab leaders only insofar as Israel’s power is a deus ex machina for Arab leaders to tap for their existential dispute with other Arabs. That motivation grounded the Weizman-Faisal agreements of 1919. It led to the King Abdullah-Israeli understandings in the early 1950s. It forced King Hussein to rely on Israel during Syria’s intervention in "Black September" 1970. It encouraged various Lebanese factions, including the Shias, to support Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in 1982. And it has now led Jordan into the current peace agreement with Israel — exactly because Amman needs Jerusalem’s cooperation on regional strategic matters.

The faulty assumptions upon which the quest for comprehensive peace are based leads Israel and the United States into a dangerous strategic misstep. The more Israel tries to solidify its ties to King Hussein by appeasing Arafat and Asad, the more Israel abets their efforts to undermine King Hussein, unraveling the strategic cooperation between Jerusalem and Amman upon which King Hussein’s decision to make peace is based.

Syria's interest in the Arab-Israeli peace process is informed largely by how it benefits Damascus in realizing it regional ambitions. Specifically, it is informed by how the peace process can help Damascus out-maneuver competing Arabs. Within the context of this regional ‘Alawite-Hashemite confrontation, the peace process with Asad and Arafat undermines Jordan. Jordan engages in the peace process to secure Israeli and American support for his regional efforts against Asad and Arafat. In response to Jordan's bid to influence the course of events in Iraq, Syria linked continuation of the Arab-Israeli peace process to American support for Syria's "regional concerns," which clearly meant Iraq. Syria dangles (but never fulfills) the temptation of peace in front of Israel and the United States in the hope of luring them into toning down their support for King Hussein in Iraq. In essence, Damascus took the peace process hostage to force on the United States and Israel his strategic plan to undermine Jordan.

At least until the Israeli elections of summer 1996, Syria’s lure worked. Already in early September 1995, American officials started issuing a long series of public reassurances to Damascus that America would not harm Syrian interests by its Iraq policy. For example, after threats by Asad in early September over not resuming peace talks, an American official hastened to assure Asad by telling al-Hayat, that Assistant Secretary of State Pelletreau’s early September trip which excluded Syria was not a snub:

It was by no means an attempt to deliberately exclude Syria from the debate about Iraq’s future; Washington’s policy is entirely separate from its approach to peace talks....

The United States is not trying to put pressure on Syria...by manipulating the regional equation in light of Hussein Kamal’s defection....I will be very frank. The Syrians were talking of the United States’ trying to manipulate developments in Iraq in a conspiratorial manner to increase pressure on Syria to make progress on the peace talks....This is far from the truth....Our policy toward Iraq is our policy toward Iraq and it exists in its own right. It is not linked....The United States is not trying to use Iraq as a ‘stick’ with which to beat Syria.

Pelletreau was making clear to Syria that the United States would not exploit Syria’s concerns on Iraq; instead it would accommodate those concerns with its regional strategy.

Syria, either unimpressed by this reassurance or encouraged by America’s anxiety over the peace process (or both), linked the issues even more closely. On September 27, 1995, a Syrian official spoke to a reporter from the Saudi pan-Arab paper, Asharq al-Awsat. According to the reporter, the Syrian official conveyed the following:

There is no room for signing a peace agreement before defining Syria’s position and role in the future regional map. Iraq's fate is the key to the post-peace game. Asad wants to discuss this before signing a peace deal; Washington would ignore Syria's position if it signs with Israel before the Iraq issue is solved....Damascus believes that Jordan plays a major role with regard to establishing a 'natural axis' with central Iraq on one side and Israel on the other, which would isolate Syria from the Arabian peninsula and [in the words of the Syrian official] ‘squeeze it between this axis in the south and Turkey in the north. Damascus fears that this could be the prelude to a redrawing of the map of the Middle East along sectarian, religious, linguistic, and ethnic lines, which would threaten Syria's territorial integrity, something Asad could not accept.’

Additional warnings were sounded by pro-Syrian journalists on the eve of Secretary of State Warren Christopher’s trip to Syria in early October 1995. Accordingly, during Christopher's trip, Asad demanded that the United States address its regional fears and agree to the centrality of "Syria's regional role on the future Middle East map" before it would agree to restart talks with Israel. The following week, the U. S. Assistant Secretary of State Pelletreau assured Syria that:

Washington's policy is not aimed at isolating or putting pressure on Damascus....The United States opposes any confederal arrangement that would lead to the breakup of Iraq.

There was a lot of speculation that we and others might be trying to...put pressure on Syria through the policy we are following in Iraq, and I can tell you it is not true. In fact, we have had a certain dialogue with Syria about developments within Iraq. The key point here is that the problems that continue to exist with Iraq [are] one set of problems that are not related to the peace process.

But the issue arose again in November, when Syria warned of Jordanian schemes and linked them to a Jordanian-Israeli strategic plan. Khaddam, in an interview to al-Wasat’s George Seeman, not only linked, but merged Jordan’s efforts in Iraq with the peace process as one coherent conspiracy:

[Khaddam] charged that plans were being hatched to break Iraq up into separate Sunnite, Shiite, and Kurdish entities that would then be rejoined with Jordan in a federation that would be part of a new Israeli-led bloc in the region. He warned that such schemes would lead to the dismemberment of other Arab countries along ethnic or religious lines, part of the process of strengthening Israel’s hand against the Arabs by fragmenting them.

These Syrian warnings were shortly afterwards met by further American, and eventually even Israeli, assurances that Syria’s "regional anxieties" will be assuaged. Indeed, by December 1995, Jewish news sources reported that Israel, "in a deliberate departure from long-held positions...conferred on Syria a new strategic and regional significance that the secularist state never had." Jerusalem and Washington were sliding into being responsible for propping-up, if not even supporting, Baathism in order to keep the "peace process" afloat. In doing so, they were rapidly undermining the Hashemites in Jordan.

Loosening Saddam’s Isolation

Despite all of Syria’s efforts, including help from Egypt and some factions within Saudi Arabia, and despite the United States’ and Israel’s strategic missteps, Jordanian efforts gained momentum. In early 1996, after a series of meetings between King Hussein and INC heads in London, King Hussein staged a late-January Amman conference encompassing a broad array of opposition figures, including some that had taken part in the Syrian-based meeting in July 1996. Lacking the power to halt Jordan’s efforts directly, Syria signaled that it and Iran might prefer a weak, but barely surviving Saddam. Thus, soon after the Kamal defection, Asad moved to sabotage King Hussein’s efforts by trying to prop up Saddam long enough to ensure failure of Amman’s drive. The first indication of the implementation of this strategy was an article, written by a Jordanian Baathist, already in August, 1995:

Syria may be locked in a historic and ideological dispute with the current Iraqi government, but it would rather deal with it than with the alternative regimes the international media machine has begun to lionize, namely a Jordan-based effort.

By early September 1995, Saudi papers were reporting that:

a new regional alliance is taking shape to counter U.S. plans for [Iraq]....It is widely believed that Syria is...determined to wrench the ‘Iraqi card’ from Jordan’s hands and that Asad has even established contact with Saddam himself, his arch rival for two decades.

In October, major Western papers began to report the rapprochement with Saddam, saying "the bitter foes of Baghdad suddenly decided that Saddam and the status quo were preferable to a potentially dangerous disintegration of Iraq," which is how King Hussein’s objectives are generally described. By mid-December, Arab papers noted improving Iraqi-Syrian ties, with one Bahrain daily reporting that "Syria is hinting that it might restore ties with Iraq in order to strengthen its hand." Egypt played a major role in this effort as well.

In early spring 1996, Syria began using Algerian mediation in order to affect a Syrian-Iraqi thaw. By late spring 1996, reportedly Asad began to meet directly with Saddam Hussein along the Syrian-Iraqi border to try to forge a common strategy to deal with what Asad called a threat of "the return to the policy of alliances," namely Jordanian efforts to oust Saddam and the creation of regional Israeli-Jordanian-Turkish-American bloc.

Part of Syria’s efforts may also involve relieving the pressure on Saddam. Iraq is forbidden under a number of UN resolutions from selling its oil, except under UN supervision and provisos. It is possible, however, that Syria is allowing Iraq to transport some of its oil for export through Tripoli, Lebanon. There is no firm evidence of this transshipment activity, but rumors persist. If so, then the oil would pass most securely through the port in Tripoli, to be transshipped as Syrian oil. The port in Tripoli is run by a Sunni named Shaaban, called the "Prince of the Believers." Shaaban is a close friend of Asad and skims money for private use from port operations. This arrangement permits Syria to conduct clandestine transshipments discreetly.

Saudi Succession as a Factor between Iraq and Jordan

To tolerate Saddam would incur the wrath of Saudi Arabia — a relationship even more important to Syria than its ties to Iran. Asad’s relationship with Saudi Arabia — anchored to personal ties between Crown Prince Abdallah and Syria — is important for a number of reasons. It helps keep the common Hashemite foe off balance and is a vital link in isolating King Hussein. Saudi Arabia has provided Syria with much-needed cash in the past. The relationship helps Syria avoid isolation within the Arab world. Finally, it encourages the Saudis to intervene with the West to keep Syria out of the "rogue nation" camp that includes Iran, Libya, and Iraq; namely it helps Syria avoid isolation vis-a-vis Europe and America.

Syria, however, is clearly worried about its relations with Saudi Arabia and the damage Jordan’s initiative could cause. As early as September 1995, as al-Wasat’s Damascus correspondent Ibrahim Hamidi, reported, "[Syria’s] main concern at present is the prospect of Jordan adopting a major role in bringing about a change in Iraq, which would reduce the oil-rich Gulf states’ need for Syria." Hussein Kamal’s defection and Jordan’s subsequent initiative began to cause a rift on regional policy between Riyadh and Damascus. This fear must have been sharpened in January 1996 as King Hussein was openly making efforts to unite the various Iraqi opposition factions and have them move to Amman as their center of operations. Asad must have been particularly concerned when the al-Sudairi Saudi ambassador to Jordan, Abdallah al-Sudairi, "declared that there are no differences between his country and Jordan over Iraq...and that the two countries were working together." Asad’s problem was compounded by the Jordanian "White Revolution" in the first week of February 1996, which installed al-Kabariti, known for his antipathy toward Syria. Syria was in danger of losing Saudi support on the Iraq issue, to Jordan.

To respond, Syria launched a strategic initiative to counter the pro-American drift in the Middle East, isolate Amman, and bring Saddam’s Iraq out of the woods within limits, if only to counter-balance what it perceives is a pro-American, Israeli-Turkish-Jordanian alliance.

Syria’s efforts to challenge the United States and deal with Iraq could run into resistance in Riyadh. In the framework of this delicate, but vital, relationship for Asad, Syria’s involvement in the June 1996 terror attack on the U.S. barracks at Khobar towers in Dhahran is most perplexing. Press reports indicate persistently that Syria at least tolerated, perhaps even assisted, in the attack on American forces at Dhahran’s Khobar Towers housing complex in June 1996. There is also mounting circumstantial evidence that this is the case. The bomb, according to reports circulated widely in the American press, originated in Lebanon, which is virtually under complete control of Ghazi Kan’an, Syria’s de facto military governor of Lebanon. In the words of Alain Chouet, head of the French Mission to the United Nations in Geneva:

Ghazi Kan’an, an al-Kalbiyah [the ‘Alawite tribe from which Asad hails] from Bhamra [the ‘Alawite village next to Asad’s] is allied to the Asads by having married his son to a daughter of Jamil al-Asad. He is a Brigadier General in charge of all security aspects of the Lebanon situation, which he discusses directly with President Asad, without intermediaries. A virtual Syrian proconsul in Beirut, he dominates public life in Lebanon, where nothing happens anymore without his authorization.

If Syria had no role in the bomb, and Hizballah acted in a wildcat operation, then this would have been an embarrassment to Asad, a failure of Kan’an, and a major crisis in one of Syria’s most important regional relationships. Yet, a week later, Ghazi Kan’an was promoted; he was appointed Director of the Foreign Operations Branch of Syrian intelligence, among the most sensitive positions in Syria.

If true, why would Syria, a regime not given to forfeiting control, allow itself to be implicated with an operation so damaging to its most important associate in the region? Why would Syria, when it has entered a dangerous struggle with Jordan over the balance of power in the Levant, risk antagonizing one of its most important allies? And why would Syria, just as it moves to keeping Saddam afloat, risk antagonizing the Saudis further? The answer to these questions lies in the dynamics of internal Saudi politics, the course of which is critical to Asad. The split within the royal family, between the al-Sudairis and Abdallah, presents Syria with an opportunity. In launching an anti-American campaign that might include tolerance and rehabilitation of Saddam, Asad would have a particular problem with the al-Sudairi branch of the ruling al-Saud family. That branch is closer to the United States than to Syria. Moreover, the al-Sudairis have also been leading the rapprochement with Jordan, appointing one of its own members as the ambassador to Amman. They are also adamant in rejecting any rapprochement with Saddam.

In contrast to the al-Sudairis, Crown Prince Abdallah is closer to Syria than to the United States. He has even led efforts to sabotage Jordanian-Saudi rapprochement. He is also more positively disposed toward Saddam Hussein, in part because of his antipathy toward Jordan. In short, Asad and Abdallah share a regional strategic view.

Most observers would argue that the survival of the Saudi regime as we know it rests upon the presence and connection of the royal family to the Americans. The Gulf War, the reliance on U.S. forces, and the close ties to the Bush administration have so identified these royals with the American relationship that they could hardly survive its souring. The terrorists who attacked the Khobar towers were surely aware of this, and it is likely that they understood that attacking the American presence would threaten the position of these royals.

To make sense of Syria’s involvement, if true, indicates that there must be a more nuanced understanding of Syria’s calculus toward Saudi Arabia. The increasingly acute succession struggle in the Saudi kingdom may provide context.

In late December 1995, King Fahd of Saudi Arabia became ill, passing de facto power to Prince Abdallah, known for his sympathies to Syria. This dress rehearsal for the real transfer approaching, which included visible jostling for power between Princes Sultan and Abdallah, clarified for Syria both its opportunities as well as dangers at that moment. Abdallah had been placed in temporary charge of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia when King Fahd was incapacitated through illness. Yet, during Abdallah’s brief absence for a state visit to a neighboring Gulf state, his main al-Sudairi rival, Prince Sultan, asserted power back in Riyadh. Abdallah had to hurry home and reassert his temporary, but paramount ruling status. Part of this effort to reassert power, according to Lebanese information, involved inviting Syrian operatives into the kingdom. Some of these operatives also assisted Lebanese terror groups in establishing a stronger foothold in the kingdom.

While Syria may not be interested in destabilizing or antagonizing Saudi Arabia as a nation, it may be interested in undermining Saudi Arabia’s relations with the United States by encouraging and even helping forces within the kingdom who want to eject the Americans.

The close U.S.-Saudi relationship is essential for the survival of the al-Sudairi branch of the royal family that controls the regime currently. It is not so essential, and may even be detrimental, for other elements of the royal family. Some branches, such as those around Abdallah, are much more anti-Western, and even regard Saddam favorably. Even the most virulent of the local, anti-royal, fundamentalist-Sunni movements that call for violence and may have been involved in the Dhahran bombing, understand this distinction and seem to focus their wrath primarily on the al-Sudairi branch of the al-Saud family. In the words of al-Masari’s Committee for the Defense of Legal Rights (CDLR),

Brothers have had reservations with regard to using the generalized term ‘Al-Saud’ and of criticism of the Royal family in general. These brothers claim that there are actually several respectable members within the Royal family. They mentioned that some members of the family are also sympathetic towards the reformers and the reform project [i.e.-revolutionary movements like the CDLR], and, therefore, the general criticism of Aal Saud may lead to the loss of support to such people. This is valuable advice, but we would like to comfort our brothers in that most of our criticism is directed to a limited number of personalities headed by Fahd, Sultan, Salman, and Naif, and their direct responsibility for the crimes of the regimes.

Crown Prince Abdallah is glaringly absent from this list.

It is possible that Syria is undermining Saudi Arabia’s relations with the United States in order to sabotage the position of the al-Sudairis and assist others in the royal family closer to the Syrians, more opposed to the United States and Jordan, more tolerant of Iraq and less hostile to Iran. In other words, if the succession struggle in Saudi Arabia is on Asad’s mind, then assisting those who wish to remove the U.S. umbrella from Saudi Arabia through terror attacks, is in Syria’s interest, precisely because Saudi Arabia is so important for Asad. Syria needs to ensure that succession flows in the direction of Abdallah and those who share his sentiments, and away from those who draw closer to Jordan.

Syria has interfered before in Saudi Arabia. In summer 1995, Asad conspired with Crown Prince Abdallah — who is a married to a member of the prominent Sunni Itri family in Damascus that is very closely aligned with the Asad clan — to engineer a crisis that would sabotage improving Turkish-Saudi ties, according to the Turkish journal, Nokta. A number of Turkish nationals who had been selling drugs from Syrian-controlled territory in Lebanon and transferring them through the Hatay province in Turkey, were arrested in Saudi Arabia. When a death sentence was passed on these Turks, the Turkish government sent high-ranking emissaries to Riyadh to argue for commuting their sentence. However, the Turks were executed on Abdallah’s order even though the Turkish emissaries had been reassured by King Fahd this would not happen.

The succession question is especially important because Abdallah and Sultan, the two most likely successors, are old, of questionable health and will serve at best as transitional figures. Their importance lies in the power wielded as king and in anointing the next generation of royal princes. Common wisdom holds that all the members of the royal family are keenly aware that their primary concern must be the survival of the royal family, and that even inter-family rifts over power are subordinate to the quest for family preeminence. Still, many observers concede that Saudi succession may be just as likely an unbridled and unprincipled struggle for power. Indeed, precisely because the survival of the family is on the line with every succession, precisely because the stakes are so high, the factional infighting may be intense as each views the other’s politics as leading to the family’s dishonor and destruction. Moreover, the vulnerability and importance of Saudi Arabia tempt other nations, such as Syria and Iran, to interfere in internal Saudi politics to shape the succession struggle, perhaps even without their Saudi benefactor’s being aware of this.

Thus, the stakes are not only over the next king, but over the institutionalization of the long-term direction which Saudi Arabia will take — toward the West and Jordan under the al-Sudairis, or toward Syria under Crown Prince Abdallah.

Undermining the INC in Northern Iraq

Jordan relied heavily on an alliance with the INC to pursue the Hashemite option. The INC encompasses the entire Iraqi opposition spectrum except some of those groups working with Damascus. By coordinating with the INC, King Hussein gave his Hashemite initiative an Iraqi facade. Moreover, the INC’s presence in northern Iraq gave Jordan a locally populated geographic base — northern Iraq — from which to operate.

Hussein Kamal’s defection to Amman in summer 1995 and Jordan’s introducing its initiative on Iraq coincided with an American-mediated cease-fire between Kurdish factions in northern Iraq in late summer 1995, dubbed the "Dublin Agreement." This was yet another blow to Asad since it thrust the INC functionally as the protectors of peace in northern Iraq, therein proving the organization’s effectiveness, reversing the weakness it faced as a result of the Kurdish infighting in spring 1995 which had left a void which Asad sought to fill. In short, King Hussein began forging an alliance with the INC to exploit traditional Hashemite ties to Iraqi society for the purpose of slowly infiltrating the tribal base surrounding Saddam. This transformed northern Iraq into a springboard and node of opposition activity associated with King Hussein’s initiative.

Given the INC’s importance to King Hussein’s initiative, and given the INC’s base of power in northern Iraq, the key battle ground between Syria and Jordan shifted in fall 1995 to northern Iraq. Iraqi opposition sources reported that Jordan was trying to "counter Syrian attempts to undermine its role in Iraq by establishing a ‘Jordanian presence’ in the Western-protected Kurdish enclave in northern Iraq." There were even reports that Israel had established an intelligence presence in northern Iraq in collaboration with Iraqi opposition leaders; whether true or not, these reports drew a strong warning from Syria and affected its perception of the situation.

While the "Dublin agreement" laid a solid geographical foundation for Jordan to pursue its Hashemite initiative, America did not use the "Dublin agreement" and cease-fire as a springboard to rejuvenate and forward the INC as a solution to the Iraq problem as a whole and to solidify its position on northern Iraq. Indeed, after the "Dublin agreement" was signed, America neglected northern Iraq and the role it would play in the competition for Iraq’s future. U.S. envoys promised economic, financial, and security assistance to the INC, but little, in fact, materialized. Without U.S. involvement, the working relations between the two main Kurdish factions deteriorated as the INC lost its mediating effectiveness. The INC had been born and based in northern Iraq; politically ignoring northern Iraq was tantamount to abandoning the INC. Iran and Syria, seeing the vacuum thus created, soon began to assert their influence in the north by exploiting their geographic advantages — a move which drew no American response. It is likely that Syria and Iran increased their involvement in northern Iraq's Kurdish areas and undermined the "Dublin agreement" in large part in order to sabotage King Hussein’s plans.

Two-weeks after the U.S.-brokered cease-fire in northern Iraq, the pro-Syria/Iran Kurdish faction, the PKK, attacked pro-INC Kurdish factions in an act, which Kamran Karadaghi, al-Hayat’s Iraq commentator, noted:

may have been...part of efforts to undermine U.S. influence in the enclave...which could be part of the broader rivalry between Washington and Damascus over the Iraqi opposition and post-Saddam Iraq. The PUK-KDP agreement [the August 1995 US-brokered ‘Dublin agreement’] provides for the INC to play a major role in policing the truce between them, and this runs counter to Syria’s attempts to supplant the INC with an Iraqi opposition coalition under its auspices aimed at thwarting what it sees as the ‘American project’ for Iraq’s future.

With the Kurdish issue unresolved, Iran and Syria increased their leverage in northern Iraq. Throughout the fall, Iran and Syria pushed hard to press both the KDP and PUK to regard them as the main power brokers. Iran moved SAIRI’s military wing, the Badr forces, into northern Iraq by December — an act which drew Turkey’s, but not U.S. concern.

Syria’s and Iran’s pressure began to pay off by late November, as evinced by the public agreements between the KDP, PUK, and SAIRI. The effects of the pressure were evident in the way in which both the PUK and KDP were forced to provide ostentatious receptions to visiting Iranian dignitaries, especially Iran’s Iraq policy supremo, Ali Agha Mohammadi. It is possible that the increasing difficulties that the INC encountered in late fall 1995 in northern Iraq led the two Kurdish factions by late November to enter discussions with King Hussein of Jordan to move their center of activity from northern Iraq to Amman, as some Iraqi opposition elements claim.

The PUK, located in the eastern part of the enclave, buckled and came to terms with Iran. The KDP, located in the western part, remained aloof and refused to disband its anti-Iranian wing, the KDP-Iran. By spring 1996, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards and Red Crescent Society intervened directly and freely in northern Iraq. Iran eventually invaded northern Iraq in June 1996, and pressed the PUK into active hostility against the KDP. The KDP was beleaguered in the face of Iran’s pressure. America still took no notice of these developments, highlighting its political disengagement from northern Iraq.

Iran and Syria succeeded by summer 1996 to force Kurdish factions in the north to submit to Iran’s and Syria’s domination or face obliteration.

Syria’s and Iran’s interventions in northern Iraq had another deleterious effect that would undermine Jordan. It highlighted the power vacuum that the north had become. Such a vacuum was sure to invite Saddam’s attentions. The efforts of Jordan’s King Hussein to undermine Saddam over the past year particularly threatened Saddam. By late summer 1996, Saddam was ready to respond to this threat. According to the Jordanian government, Saddam fomented riots in August 1996 in a number of Jordanian cities, including the worst in seven years in Kerak, to derail Jordan’s Hashemite option. Then, on August 30, displaying understanding that using power generates power, Saddam exploited the U.S. neglect of northern Iraq and invaded northern Iraq. While Saddam’s incursion into the north was aimed tactically at the Kurds, it served this much broader strategic purpose. He invaded to undermine Hashemite plans and reverse his image of weakness. Saddam acted in response to the fragility of his regime, which has tempted Iraq’s neighbors to compete for power in Iraq in preparation for Saddam’s departure.

Conclusions

The competition to inherit Iraq has been underway since the end of the Gulf War in 1991. Its course will profoundly affect the balance of power in the Middle East. The events of August 1996 in northern Iraq are only the latest chapter in this competition, with Saddam reasserting himself as a major actor as well.

It would be tempting for the United States to write off northern Iraq and let Syria, Iran, and Iraq brawl over the scraps. But King Hussein has launched an initiative that can manage the chaos that awaits Iraq and the Levant in a way that benefits the United States. It is in the West’s interest that Jordan prevail in this confrontation. Were the Hashemites to win, then they could become the cornerstone of a stable balance of power that also includes Israel and Turkey.

The United States should encourage a reshaping of the regional balance of power in which Jordan plays a major role. The king’s efforts have earned him the enmity of the most dangerous regimes in the Middle East: Asad’s, Saddam’s, and Rafsanjani’s. If left to stand alone, King Hussein’s initiative, perhaps even his regime, will be threatened in the face of such powerful opponents.

So this brings us back to the first questions of strategy. How should the West, particularly the United States and Israel, deal with the strategic competition over Iraq? To begin with, the battle over Iraq represents a desperate attempt by residual Soviet bloc allies in the Middle East to block the extension into the Middle East of the impending collapse that the rest of the Soviet bloc faced in 1989. The West must avoid repeating the mistakes at the end of the Cold War. It was futile and counterproductive in 1989-1991 to pursue stability in East Europe by trying to salvage communism and Gorbachev’s rule. It is equally unwise to pursue stability in the Levant by propping up secular-Arab nationalism.

Moreover, the effort to prop up secular-Arab nationalism in its crumbling weakness, is anchored to the belief that it can be "reformed" enough to be resurrected as a bulwark against Islamic fundamentalism. Yet, one of the main strategic objectives of the peace process is to perpetuate Levantine secular-Arab nationalist regimes. Indeed, the previous Israeli government believed that, "[Israel’s] role is to protect the existing regimes, to prevent or halt the process of radicalization, and to block the expansion of fundamental religious zealotry."

But the present study, which is the second IASPS Research Paper in Strategy to be published by the Institute, shows that the pursuit of comprehensive peace and the effort to harness secular-Arab nationalist regimes such as Syria’s in the battle to stem the fundamentalist tide is not only futile. It is also a dangerous strategic misstep. Five years ago, the West learned that resisting the tide of fundamentalism in Iran by embracing secular-Arab nationalism in Iraq was perilous. The attempt to play one against the other was an explosive mistake. The same lesson should now be applied to Syria. It is in both Israel’s and the West’s interest to expedite the demise of secular-Arab nationalism. Secular-Arab nationalism, which is indeed on the edge of collapse, is perhaps most dangerous in its final moments and should not be regarded as an "ally in waiting." The pursuit of the peace process is preventing this.

Secular-Arab nationalism, particularly Baathism, undermines regional stability and damages the West’s interests not only in its active role as a threat, but also in its more passive role as an obstacle to introducing more formidable, and beneficial, intellectual defenses among Arabs with which to stem fundamentalism. Secular-Arab nationalism offers no intellectual challenge to fundamentalism. It now holds onto power not by weight of its idea, but by the intensity of its terror. As long as this transitional, languishing circumstance continues, the Arab world is prevented from pursuing alternatives. Most of all, the effort to salvage secular-Arab nationalism, like the quest for "comprehensive peace," itself becomes dangerous and destabilizing to the region’s balance of power.

As the rejection of communism was necessary for the Europeans and Russians to move on to a government more able to resist dangerous ideas in former East bloc countries, so too is the rejection of radical secular-Arab nationalism necessary for the Arab world to move to a more healthy future. The West and its local friends must engage fundamentalism with better associates than Baathists.

Although the United States contains Iraq militarily, Washington and Jerusalem ignore Iraq politically. This too is, in part, a legacy of the peace process. U.S. and Israeli regional policies were informed almost exclusively by the quest for comprehensive peace, which replaced traditional strategic considerations, especially the balance of power, with European Union-style regional integration.

Israel’s policies toward Iraq have been largely driven by this concept of "comprehensive peace." Israel's Rabin, who had developed a close working relationship with Jordan's Hussein, grasped the significance of Jordan’s shift and supported Jordan's efforts. This support continued initially after Rabin's death. HaAretz reported that in Peres' December meetings with top American officials, he even proposed the creation of NATO-style alliance among Israel, Jordan, a post-Saddam Iraq, and Turkey. But Israeli commentators noted that all such cooperation was conceived more as a form of prodding Asad to accept comprehensive peace than as a strategic plan to contain, undermine, and eventually transcend Syria and secular-Arab nationalism. "Comprehensive peace," rather than balance of power, continued to inform Israeli policy on Iraq, as was revealed a month later when Syria balked returning to the negotiations. The stalling of the Syrian track, and the Israeli government’s desire to revive it, led Israel to concede to Syria its prominent regional role rather than to redouble its efforts to contain or undermine Asad. In this context, the United States, as Pelletreau’s statements indicate, and Israel, as Peres’s also indicate, sought to coopt Syrian President Asad by considering seriously his regional plans.

The American and Israeli quest for regional integration has proven flawed and unrealistic. It has caused the West to neglect the dangerous strategic competitions that still define the region, quite independent of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Such neglect has allowed a dangerous deterioration in the power and relative position of those forces potentially aligned with the West by allowing Syria to leverage the peace process both to block the United States from endorsing Jordan’s efforts, and to remove some of the teeth behind growing Turkish-Israeli collaboration — which will continue over the long-run despite Erbakan’s current administration. In short, the quest for "comprehensive peace" blocks Israel and the United States from pursuing a durable regional strategy based on the balance of power.

Lebanon is Asad’s Achilles heel. Iran is his strategic ally. Turkey’s Erbakan is his hope. Iraq is his objective. And an Abdallah-dominated Saudi Arabia is his shield from the West. The United States must support moves to challenge Syria’s position in Lebanon, to undermine Iran, to ensure Turkey’s long-term pro-Western tilt and integration into Europe, to support Jordan’s efforts in Iraq, and to understand better the dynamics of Saudi succession as they relate to its foreign policy. Otherwise, the West will still not get peace. Instead it will look beyond Israel’s borders at secular-Arab nationalism’s final legacy — a chaotic sea that resembles violent, medieval European feudalism (which will painfully intrude on the West), unfortunately infused with high-technology weaponry — rather than at a stable balance of power system that can serve as a more solid basis for the Arabs upon which to build their nations and contemplate effective governance.

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