Part 8 (2/2)

The OIC again reaffirmed its support for the Arab Peace Initiative the following year, at the foreign ministers' meeting in Tehran in June 2003 and at the full OIC summit meeting of heads of state in Malaysia in October. But the Israelis showed no interest in this unprecedented opportunity.

In April 2002, in one of its most controversial decisions, Israel announced that Sharon had authorized the construction of a twenty-six-foot-high wall between Israel and the West Bank. Although the stated purpose was to prevent ”terrorists” from crossing into and attacking Israel, parts of the wall were built on West Bank territory occupied by Israel in 1967, not along the 1949 armistice line. Reaching into the West Bank, in some cases up to twelve miles, the wall was constructed so that some 80 percent of the settlers in the West Bank would be on the Israeli side. Its path in some cases cut through the middle of Palestinian villages and in others trapped Palestinian towns on the Israeli side.

We, along with the whole Arab world, suspected that Israel's real intention was to create a de facto border and, contrary to international law, to annex land occupied in war and thereby preempt final status negotiations. In December 2003, the UN General a.s.sembly requested a ruling from the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on the legality of the wall.

The Palestinians began to prepare their case, and in light of our historical and legal responsibility for Jerusalem, Jordan offered to a.s.sist them. Civilized nations settle disputes through the law, and we were determined to present the best case possible. We recommended to the Palestinians that they engage Professor James Crawford of Cambridge University, a recognized expert in international law, and the Jordanian team engaged the services of Sir Arthur Watts, a distinguished British lawyer who formerly had been the legal adviser to the Foreign Office.

In February 2004, a.s.sisted by our permanent representative to the United Nations, Prince Zeid bin Ra'ad, the Palestinian and Jordanian teams presented their case to the ICJ, arguing that Israel had no right to build a wall, or anything else, on territory occupied illegally in the 1967 war. On July 9, 2004, the court ruled by a majority of fourteen to one, with the dissenting vote cast by the American judge, Thomas Buergenthal, that the wall violated international law, saying, ”The construction of the wall being built by Israel, the occupying Power, in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including in and around East Jerusalem, and its a.s.sociated regime, are contrary to international law.” The ruling further stated that Israel should stop violating international law and that it should pull down the existing wall and compensate Palestinians for damage caused by its construction. The Israeli government ignored the ruling, and Prime Minister Sharon ordered construction of the wall to continue.

Throughout history, from the Warsaw Ghetto to cold war Berlin, walls built to divide or imprison people have never proved strong enough to stand against the tide of human hope. In the end, Israel cannot gain the security it seeks by imprisoning the Palestinians in a ghetto of their own construction, or by re-creating the Berlin Wall in East Jerusalem. The security that all Israelis and Palestinians crave most, that of a normal life, can be achieved only by tearing down the barriers that separate them and learning to live in peace.

The war drums continued to beat throughout the spring and summer of 2002. I returned to the United States in the spring, and on May 8 again saw President Bush at the White House, where I continued to stress the importance of restarting the peace process. The month before, I had pointed out in a letter that we had been ”instrumental in building consensus for the Saudi initiative, which had been translated into a collective Arab commitment to end the conflict with Israel, guarantee its security and establish normal relations between all Arab states and Israel.” This effort to line up the Arab world behind a plan for peace was threatened by Israeli actions. I urged Bush to work for the withdrawal of Israeli troops from Palestinian cities, which they had taken almost complete control of by then, and to press for the restarting of negotiations.

But the president seemed to view Arafat as a failed leader, and kept stressing his inability to deliver on his promises. He also bemoaned the fact that Sharon, by attacking Arafat's headquarters in Ramallah and keeping him a virtual prisoner, had increased Arafat's domestic support. ”I don't know who else can emerge,” he said. Bush said Sharon made a hero out of Arafat, who would remain on the stage. But he pointed to the need for ideas that would allow younger people to come out and lead.

I warned the president that there was a false impression of quiet in the region and that a great deal of anger was simmering under the surface. The temporary period of quiet, I said, was due to the hope generated by Powell's visit the previous month and America's subsequent efforts to restart the peace process, but more violence could easily erupt if there was no movement in the next few months. I restated the position that political change would depend on a political settlement with a timeline and a Palestinian state as an outcome.

The president listened but stressed his desire to avoid what he saw as the mistakes of the Clinton administration in focusing too much on the details of finding a solution to Jerusalem and forgetting about Israel's security concerns. ”I can imagine how Sharon feels when he starts his meeting with me with the news of a suicide bombing,” he said. The tragic events of 9/11 had understandably given the president greater empathy with other leaders whose people were targeted by suicide attacks. But it also obscured the administration's grasp of Palestinian suffering. Then the president told me that he still had his eyes on Iraq.

President Bush continued to criticize Arafat, notably in a speech he gave on June 24, 2002, when he set out his policy toward Israel and the Palestinians. He began by stating his commitment to a two-state solution. ”My vision is two states,” he said, ”living side by side in peace and security. There is simply no way to achieve that peace until all parties fight terror. Yet at this critical moment, if all parties will break with the past and set out on a new path, we can overcome the darkness with the light of hope.” ”But,” he continued, ”peace requires a new and different Palestinian leaders.h.i.+p, so that a Palestinian state can be born. I call on the Palestinian people to elect new leaders, leaders not compromised by terror.” In return, Bush said, the United States would support a provisional state of Palestine pending negotiations between the Israelis and Palestinians on borders and other issues, with a settlement envisaged in three years.

The idea of ”leaders not compromised by terror,” sadly, was one that would be hard to implement-on both sides. In American eyes, the Palestinian leader, Ya.s.ser Arafat, was compromised by terror. But in Palestinian eyes, the Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon, was equally compromised by his role in the ma.s.sacres at the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in Lebanon in 1982. In the Middle East, everyone was stunned by Bush's comments. Arafat had represented the Palestinian people, for better or worse, since the 1970s. He had won the n.o.bel Peace Prize in 1994 for his bold partners.h.i.+p with Rabin and Peres. How could the U.S. administration imagine that it could sweep him under the table? Sharon harbored an old animus against Arafat and had decided to lock him into his compound in Ramallah. But what I did not want was for the U.S. administration to take the same line.

In April, to try to revive the stalled peace process, we floated the idea of a ”road map,” a set of specific actions accompanied by a timeline that could be used to measure progress by both sides. On a visit to Jordan in early June, William Burns, the a.s.sistant secretary of state for Near Eastern Affairs, said he thought the idea of a detailed action plan with benchmarks was a good one and promised to promote it inside the U.S. government.

Many in the Bush administration, however, continued to be obsessed with Iraq. The desperate situation in Israel would be relegated to the back burner, with disastrous consequences.

Israel supported the approaching war. By constantly conjuring an imminent threat in the public's imagination, Israeli politicians have managed to keep their citizens in a state of perpetual alarm. This approach has its risks, because it can easily be exploited by those seeking short-term political gain. That is not to say that Israel does not face real threats. But the most effective way to neutralize these threats would be to do the one right thing: negotiate a lasting peace with the Palestinians. If Israel were to do so, it would be recognized by the entire international community, and accepted by the Muslim world. Sadly, many decision-makers inside Israel are ideologically opposed to this. Others are unable to quantify, and therefore to understand, the long-term gains that peace would bring.

Since the 1960s Israel has tried to play the United States against the countries in the Middle East that it has perceived as its biggest threat. In 1967 the Israelis made the argument to the United States that they would have to strike first against Egypt because it was preparing to attack them. In the run-up to the 2003 war they encouraged the United States to launch war on Iraq. Israeli politicians tried to portray Saddam Hussein as a strategic threat to Israel's existence. At the same time in the United States a group of neocons with administration ties played up the threat to America, fanning the flames of war. Iraqi expatriates, with personal interests in mind, joined in, feeding the government of the United States with inaccurate and exaggerated information.

On July 29, 2002, concerned that the march to war in Iraq was gaining momentum, I gave an interview to the Times Times of London. ”Ask our friends in China, in Moscow, in England, in Paris,” I said. ”Everybody will tell you that we have concerns about military actions against Iraq. The international community is united on this . . . Military action against Iraq would really open a Pandora's box.” I criticized the neoconservative members of the Bush administration, saying they were ”fixated on Iraq. . . . You can talk till you're blue in the face and they're not going to get it.” The United States was now irrevocably heading down the path to war. of London. ”Ask our friends in China, in Moscow, in England, in Paris,” I said. ”Everybody will tell you that we have concerns about military actions against Iraq. The international community is united on this . . . Military action against Iraq would really open a Pandora's box.” I criticized the neoconservative members of the Bush administration, saying they were ”fixated on Iraq. . . . You can talk till you're blue in the face and they're not going to get it.” The United States was now irrevocably heading down the path to war.

Many leaders in the Middle East stayed away from Was.h.i.+ngton to express their displeasure with the Bush administration's policies. But I thought it was important for me to go to Was.h.i.+ngton regularly to attempt to influence the debate and remind the Bush administration of the importance of moving forward on the establishment of a Palestinian state. I went back again at the end of July, traveling to Was.h.i.+ngton via Europe, where we discussed the rising tensions between the United States and Iraq with President Jacques Chirac of France in Paris and Prime Minister Tony Blair in London. I knew that my plain speaking would not be welcomed by some in Was.h.i.+ngton. But Jordan is an old friend of America, and we would be doing the United States no favors by hiding our concerns at such an important moment.

In preparation for my visit, I asked my foreign minister, Marwan Muasher, to prepare a draft of a proposed road map for peace that we could discuss with the president. He reported back that he and Bill Burns had made great progress but that Condoleezza Rice, who was then the U.S. national security adviser, was dead set against the idea, believing it was a ”nonstarter.” Rice never gave a rationale for her objections.

I told Marwan that no matter what she thought, we would present our proposal to the president. When I landed in the United States I discovered that my candor with the European press had provoked an angry reaction inside the administration. I was welcomed on arrival by a call from Condoleezza Rice, who said, ”The president is very upset with your statement.”

”I'm just saying in public what I heard from Chirac and Blair,” I said. ”So don't shoot the messenger.”

The morning of August 1, 2002, I met President Bush at the White House. Our main agenda item was the peace process, particularly the concept of the road map to move the process forward and reach a two-state solution. Normally the president greeted me warmly, but this morning he was quite stiff and formal. As we walked into the Oval Office, he was drinking a c.o.ke with plenty of ice. Crus.h.i.+ng the ice cubes between his teeth as he spoke, he said that he was upset about my recent newspaper interview outlining the risks of war. But President Bush and I had developed a good personal relations.h.i.+p and he warmed up as the meeting progressed.

Giving his views on Iraq, he said that there was a huge amount of hyperventilating about Saddam. He said we were facing a historic moment and that he did not want people thirty years from now to say that President Bush and King Abdullah had the opportunity to forge a lasting peace but did not do it. ”We should not be threatened by thugs,” he said.

I reiterated my opposition to war and then said, ”Mr. President, if you've decided to go to war in Iraq just be straightforward and tell your friends.”

His reply was firm. ”I haven't made that decision yet,” he said. ”When I do, you will know.” Then he said he had to deal with the Europeans, who did not understand that what was happening in Iraq was a crime against humanity. He said he would not allow it to go on any longer.

Then we moved on to a discussion of the peace process, and I asked Marwan to present the concept we had come up with in Amman. ”We need to a.s.sure people of our seriousness,” Marwan said. ”We need a road map that starts with security and inst.i.tutions, and addresses the humanitarian situation in the Palestinian territories, but that also outlines the remaining steps to be taken going forward until mid-2005, so that Palestinians know exactly what they are getting, and so the international community can gain more support for their work on security.”

”I thought I made that clear in my speech,” the president said, referring to his controversial remarks on June 24. ”If it wasn't clear, we are willing to work with you on outlining these steps,” the president added. He said he had no problem with what we suggested and that after improving security and building inst.i.tutions, issues such as occupation, settlements, and Jerusalem would be dealt with.

”We can take the speech and translate it into steps,” interjected Bill Burns, who was also in the meeting. The president agreed and called the meeting to an end. Condoleezza Rice later approached Marwan and reversed her earlier opposition to the road map, saying that the United States could work something out with Jordan. By December the road map draft was completed. The new initiative was eventually launched in mid-2003.

The larger meeting gave way to a smaller tete-a-tete in a side room off the Oval Office. But before that, the subject returned to Iraq. At one point President Bush said, ”You and I have two great fathers, and we both believe in G.o.d, and we have an opportunity to do the right thing.” The president spoke as if going to war against Iraq was a religious duty.

My brother Ali was with me and we were both surprised to hear the president invoke religion as a factor in his decision. Bush's statement gave us a clear impression that, despite earlier a.s.surances, he had already made up his mind to go to war. Back in Jordan, when I met with senior officials to brief them on the visit, I said, ”We've got to prepare. This war is going to happen.”

Chapter 19.

War in the Desert January 12, 2003, was a sunny winter's day in Portsmouth. A crowd of ten thousand people packed the docks and streets of this historic British naval city, waving good-bye to the Ark Royal Ark Royal, the Royal Navy's 20,000-ton flags.h.i.+p aircraft carrier. As the s.h.i.+p moved slowly out of the harbor, the sailors on deck stood at attention, listening to the shouts and cheers of the crowd. Ark Royal Ark Royal was heading up a naval task force of sixteen vessels, carrying three thousand Royal Marines. Although the fleet was officially headed for ”exercises” in Asia, its course would take it through the Arabian Gulf and, it was widely believed, to Iraq. As soon as I heard that the Royal Navy had set sail, I knew war in Iraq was imminent. From my time at the Staff College in the UK and in the British army, I knew that Her Majesty's Treasury would never spend that much money unless war was inevitable. was heading up a naval task force of sixteen vessels, carrying three thousand Royal Marines. Although the fleet was officially headed for ”exercises” in Asia, its course would take it through the Arabian Gulf and, it was widely believed, to Iraq. As soon as I heard that the Royal Navy had set sail, I knew war in Iraq was imminent. From my time at the Staff College in the UK and in the British army, I knew that Her Majesty's Treasury would never spend that much money unless war was inevitable.

I was against the war, though deeply sympathetic to the continuing suffering of the Iraqi people. I thought then, and still think now, that the Iraq war was a big mistake for the United States. I was alarmed by the prospect of another conflict on our borders, but there was little I could do to stop the war. Part of my responsibility as head of state was to antic.i.p.ate the likely turn of events, and I was convinced that there could only be one outcome: the United States would win. I did not want Jordan to be damaged afterward by appearing to have sided with Saddam. From my father's experience in the first Gulf War, I had seen the adverse impact on Jordan when we were perceived to be taking Iraq's side against the West. We had been frozen out by the Americans and British, as well as by a number of Gulf countries. I was determined to keep Jordan out of this fight while ensuring that we not be punished for our position.

This was probably the most difficult time I have faced in the last eleven years. Some people wanted me to side with Saddam Hussein, but I did not think that was the right thing to do. I was determined to do the right thing for Jordan no matter how unpopular our position would be. I felt that was what my father had expected me to do when he had given me this responsibility.

I was determined to fulfill my responsibility toward Jordan to the best of my ability. And, as ironic as it may sound, to be able to do this job well you have to come to terms with the fact that, more often than not, the right decision is not necessarily the popular one. Often the job of a leader is to resist the temptation to give in to widespread and strongly held popular sentiment. A leader has to make decisions based on reason and judgment, and on the long-term interests of his country.

The train was coming down the tracks and I was not going to be able to stop it. The best I could do was get Jordan out of the way.

I tried to walk the tightrope of opposing the war and staying out of it. But I was certain of one thing: the longer the war lasted, the more terrible the consequences would be and the more intense the pressures on Jordan would become. Adding to the complexity, at this time I came under sustained pressure from the American administration to allow U.S. troops to be based in Jordan. In the months before the Iraq war, Jordan began to be dragged into the debate about the staging of ground forces. Our long land border with Iraq was attractive to American planners, who saw it as an ideal strategic location from which to launch an attack into western Iraq.

The looming conflict was an emotionally charged topic, both in Jordan and in the wider Middle East. Throughout January, tens of thousands of people demonstrated from Ankara to Beirut, expressing enormous hostility to what they believed was an unnecessary war. On February 1, around five thousand protesters, organized by opposition parties, marched in Amman against war in Iraq, waving pictures of Saddam and chanting, ”Terrorist Bush, get out of our lands.”

We were determined to keep our borders sovereign and not to allow any of the potential combatants to cross over into Jordanian territory. During this period, one night an unidentified aircraft flew over Jordan without permission. It flew fast and low to avoid being spotted, but we picked it up on our radar and sent two Mirage fighter jets to intercept it. The plane was heading toward Iraq and our fighters intercepted the aircraft as it was approaching the Jordanian-Saudi border. They flew up next to it and identified it as a C-130 military transport plane, flying in the dark with no lights. It refused to answer repeated requests for identification.

As part of the coalition's military buildup, there were many C-130s and other transport planes in the air near our borders, and we wanted to know what this plane was and why it had entered Jordanian airs.p.a.ce covertly. We called coalition headquarters, as well as the Israeli military, but no one would admit to owners.h.i.+p of the mystery plane. The Jordanian pilots radioed my brother Feisal, who was the commander of the air force, and asked whether they should shoot it down. If we made the mistake of shooting down a coalition transport craft, it would create a major international incident. As the plane approached the Saudi border, Feisal told his men to hold their fire.

The next day Feisal followed up with the American military, who a.s.sured him that it was not a coalition plane. The United States agreed to try to track where the plane had gone after leaving Jordan. We subsequently learned that after entering Saudi airs.p.a.ce, it had landed in Israel.

The chief of staff of the Israeli air force at the time, Dan Halutz, called Feisal to a.s.sure him that it was not an Israeli plane. He said that it was most likely a cloud of chaff. A couple of days later a senior Israeli officer was visiting Jordan. I asked Feisal to go speak to him and to set out Jordanian policy clearly and directly. Feisal did not mince his words. ”We know it was a C-130, and we know it was yours,” he said. ”I want to make it very, very clear that the next time this happens we will pursue it very aggressively. We will not allow anybody to fly through our airs.p.a.ce. Anything that crosses the border will be shot at.”

During this period, General Tommy Franks was in charge of war planning. I had gotten to know General Franks when he took over at CENTCOM in 2000. One of the finest soldiers I have ever met, he was hard-bitten, no-nonsense, and profane. We hit it off right away. When I was commander of Special Operations, we went out in the field on military exercises together, and I learned that he, like me, was an enthusiastic biker. On my last visit to Tampa, where CENTCOM has its headquarters, he served me an amazing beef brisket. Although I had gone to school in New England, I understood enough about Texas to know that it is almost impossible to get a Texan to share a barbecue recipe. After lots of wrangling, he finally relented, and I now serve his beef brisket to official guests in Jordan.

General Franks was famous for his ability to chew out people using colorful and imaginative phrases. In fact, there should be a book written about his use of expletives. Provided the cursing is not being directed at you, it is pretty hilarious to watch.

He visited Amman to brief me on the war preparations, hoping to get my permission to deploy U.S. troops. Pulling out a huge board, he said, ”I want to bring twenty-five thousand troops into Jordan.” Then he proceeded to outline a detailed plan for the operation. He had a list of military units he wanted to deploy inside our country. He wanted to bring a Joint Special Operations Command, logistics units, Patriot batteries, and many other units.

<script>