Lion of Jordan (34 page)

Tall was one of a tiny group of Jordanian prime ministers who were capable of standing up to the king, in matters of foreign relations as well as domestic policy. He believed, and tried to persuade the king, that foreign policy should be based on the Jordanian national interest and not on purely dynastic interests. Relations with Iraq were a case in point. Hussein's attitude towards republican Iraq continued to be influenced by the bitterness he felt at the murder of his cousin in 1958. Tall, who became the first Jordanian ambassador to Baghdad after the murder of Faisal II, was more influenced by cold calculations of
realpolitik
. He saw Iraq as a rich and powerful state, and wanted to ally with it in building a broader regional coalition to balance the power of the radical group headed by Nasser.
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Tall had especially strong and distinctive views on the Palestine question. Although he ended his career as the scourge of the Palestinians, he began it as one of the foremost supporters of their cause in Jordan. To his way of thinking Jordan and the Palestinians were not rivals but partners in the long-term struggle against Israel to which everything else should be subordinated. His starting point was that Israel was a usurper state and as such had no legitimacy. He described Israel as a cancer in the Arab body politic and argued that they had two options: to eradicate it or to be destroyed by it. Tall emphasized that the failure of the Arab states to coordinate their diplomatic and military strategies in 1948 was a major factor in the loss of Palestine. He therefore wanted the Arabs to build up their military forces and to prepare themselves carefully and rationally for the final showdown with the usurper state. He never spoke of throwing the Jews into the sea, as some Arab leaders did. The Jews as individuals were welcome to stay under Muslim rule. But Palestine was an Arab land, and there was no room and no legitimacy for a Jewish state on it. Finally, and this was crucial, Tall wanted to make Jordan the spearhead of the Arab fight against Israel.
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Tall's vision of Jordan as the key to the liberation of Palestine was outlined in the White Paper on Palestine that he issued in July 1962, in which he argued that Jordan's long border with Israel, large refugee population and close historic ties to the West Bank gave the country the right to direct the Arab effort to liberate Palestine.
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In the meantime, he suggested that Jordan should be regarded as the guardian of the rights of the Palestinians and that its economic, political and military strength should be built up to enable it to perform this role. Predictably, this suggestion was rejected by the radical Arab states because they were never willing to accord to Jordan a central role in the Palestine question. The idea foundered on the cross-currents of inter-Arab suspicions, jealousy and recriminations.
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While allowing his radical prime minister to take the lead in internal affairs and in the Palestine question – which straddled internal affairs and foreign policy – Hussein retained his pre-eminent position in the conduct of foreign policy, especially in relation to the more traditional Arab states. As one of Hussein's aides remarked, ‘Arab loyalties are very personal. In the Arab world of the 1960s, foreign policy was still conducted on a ruler-to-ruler basis, not by foreign ministers. It was a tribal tradition that the chief of the tribe spoke directly to the chief of the other tribe and it was even considered disrespectful to send a subordinate. This is how business was done in the Middle East from time immemorial.'
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At first sight Hussein may not seem a natural candidate for this traditional role because of his Western education and Western orientation. But he was, in fact, a versatile person, equally fluent in English and Arabic, and capable of switching in a second from a Western to an Eastern mode of doing business.

Hussein's dealings with Saudi Arabia at this time are a good example of the king in his Eastern mode. In July 1962 he met a sick and frightened King Saud in Rome. The Saudi king was demoralized by Nasser's relentless propaganda attacks and angry with America for the economic aid it gave him. The foundation was laid for a revival of the old trade union of monarchs. At a subsequent meeting of the two monarchs in Taif in late August, a joint communiqué was issued, announcing a military union between the two countries, the formation of a joint military command, and the coordination of their foreign and inter-Arab policies. Hussein came back with an impressive sounding series of agreements providing for close economic and cultural cooperation, but resistance
on the part of Crown Prince Faisal ensured that there was no follow-up. Hussein had been hoping for economic assistance and help in modernizing his army, but by the end of the year nothing had materialized. On the other hand, the public reception of the Taif agreements in Jordan was decidedly unfavourable. The liberals who welcomed the reforms of the Tall government were taken aback at this close association with the feudal Saudi monarchy.
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The outbreak of a war in the Yemen in September 1962 preoccupied both countries and had the effect of further deepening the division between the pro- and anti-Nasser camps. A military coup by the pro-Egyptian commander of the Yemeni Army, Abdullah al-Sallal, resulted in the flight of Imam Muhammad al-Badr from Sanaa and the proclamation of the Yemen as a republic with Sallal as its president. Nasser immediately announced his recognition of the republic and began to send troops in ever-growing numbers to fight on the republican side. This brought Nasser into conflict with King Saud and his brother Faisal, who replaced him on the throne in 1964. The Saudis backed the exiled imam as part of a broader policy of keeping the Arabian peninsula under their influence and denying Nasser a foothold in the area.
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As a result of this external intervention, the conflict between the republican and the royalist sides in the Yemen became one of the dominant issues in inter-Arab politics until 1967.

Hussein reacted rather emotionally to the revolution in the Yemen. He saw it as a fresh victory for Nasser with grave implications for Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Aden and the whole British position in the Persian Gulf. Tall, an outspoken opponent of Nasser, thought that intervention in the Yemen would serve the Jordanian national interest. He therefore encouraged Hussein's penchant for foreign adventure, instead of reining it in. The two thus made an impulsive decision to join the Saudis in supporting the Yemeni royalists against the republicans. They dispatched 62 military advisers and 12,000 rifles to the Saudi–Yemen border, and mounted a vitriolic propaganda campaign against Nasser and his allies. Tall, who had been director of broadcasting and knew something about psychological warfare, was as emotional and vehement as the king about this issue. Jordan's role made little difference in the combat zone, but it provoked criticism at home. ‘If there was little public enthusiasm in Jordan for the association with Saudi Arabia, there was absolutely none for the restoration of the Imamate in the Yemen.' To
the British ambassador it seemed that the situation ‘brought out the obstinate, foolhardy worst in Wasfi's character'.
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When Egypt poured more troops into the Yemen, the temptation to commit the tiny Jordanian air force proved irresistible. Half a squadron of Hunter fighter planes was dispatched to Taif to help the royalists. This decision backfired disastrously. The recently appointed commander of the air force and two pilots defected with their planes to Cairo. Hussein was shaken and full of remorse, but Tall was unrepentant. ‘It was a good thing', he said, ‘that the mice have been flushed out.' The defection was only one symptom of growing opposition at home to the anti-Nasser crusade in the Yemen. Another sign of this trend was Dr Kamal Sha'er's resignation from his post as director of the Development Board. Sha'er resigned in protest against the government's policy towards the revolution in the Yemen. He was one of the most promising technocrats of the new generation, and his departure left the Development Board rudderless. Involvement in the Yemen thus threatened to wreck the liberal, reformist agenda of the Tall government. In the end, however, the king and his prime minister managed to weather the domestic storm. Relations with America also suffered. When America recognized the republican regime, Tall reacted angrily. It was clear, he said, that the Western powers were only concerned with the nuisance value of countries, taking their friends for granted. And these gloomy sentiments were echoed to the British ambassador by Hussein.
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In the spring of 1963 Hussein's fortunes took another turn for the worse. On 8 February a Ba'th coup in Baghdad deposed the Qasim regime, and exactly a month later, on 8 March, a military coup in Damascus brought the Ba'th Party to power. Both new leaderships were much more favourably disposed towards Nasser than their predecessors had been, and both were expected to bring their countries into the circle of Arab unity. Tripartite talks were held in Cairo, and, on 17 April, the three heads of government signed a document proclaiming the new United Arab Republic. Once again Jordan was dangerously isolated and vulnerable; it looked as if an ominous ring of anti-monarchist, revolutionary-minded regimes was closing in. Hussein began to pay more attention to the conservative elements, including Bahjat Talhouni, Habis Majali, Queen Zain and other members of the royal family. Hussein always had a problem reconciling the requirements of security with those of progress. Under the influence of the conservatives, he
placed a disproportionate weight on security. The conservatives regarded Tall as unstable and unreliable, and they strongly and persistently opposed the Tall ‘experiment' on the grounds that it endangered Jordan's stability. On 27 March, Tall tendered his resignation, and on the same day Hussein invited the diehard but experienced Samir Rifa'i to form a new government. Some fifty officers of doubtful loyalty were retired on security grounds, although there were no signs of a plan for a coup. Bahjat Talhouni, ‘venal but dependable', went back to his old post as chief of the royal court, and ‘Jordan returned to square one in an unedifying and largely unnecessary posture of closed conservative ranks.'
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Rifa'i was Jordan's traditional leader in times of crisis. This was his sixth government, and it was to be his last. It was also very short-lived. The announcement of the tripartite union between Egypt, Syria and Iraq had a profound effect on Jordan's internal politics. It was followed by stormy mass rallies in the main towns of the West Bank, Amman and the northern city of Irbid. The theme of Arab unity captured the popular imagination. Demonstrators chanted anti-monarchy and pro-Nasser slogans. Pictures of Nasser and banners with four stars expressed their fervent wish that Jordan should join the tripartite union. Mass rallies spread to the East Bank and quickly turned from calls for unity into riots and violent demonstrations against the regime. These were spontaneous, grass-root demonstrations, fuelled by the widespread Palestinian resentment of the regime. Royalists, however, denounced the demonstrations as interference by Nasser in internal Jordanian politics. The government decided to use the army to suppress the riots. A strict curfew was imposed on the West Bank cities. Special, hand-picked units were assigned to the task and succeeded in re-establishing order but at a price: 13 dead and 97 wounded. In the lower house of parliament, Rifa'i was openly attacked for his corruption and nepotism, and for using sledge-hammer tactics in excess to requirements to quell the riots. A vote of no confidence on 20 April persuaded him to resign. It was the first time in Jordan's history that a government had fallen as a result of a vote of no confidence in parliament.

The king retaliated by dissolving parliament and brought in his great-uncle, Sharif Hussein bin Nasser, as a stopgap premier pending the holding of fresh elections. Dismissing a freely elected parliament was an astonishingly heavy-handed and arbitrary act on the part of the king.
He added insult to injury by telling the new government in a letter, ‘We are firmly confident that the manner in which members of the House withheld confidence in the Rifa'i government was due to personal motives and attempts to gain private advantage.' Members who had voted against Rifa'i, the letter said, were voting against the ‘national interests of the country'.
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The king's behaviour brings to mind Bertold Brecht's heavily comical suggestion that, if the people forfeits the confidence of the government, the government should dissolve the people and elect another.

In the first half of the year Hussein had two men of personality and character to advise him: Wasfi Tall and Samir Rifa'i. In the second half he ruled virtually by himself through the well meaning but nominal medium of his great-uncle. Sharif Hussein bin Nasser was depicted as ‘amiable but ineffectual' and standing at the head of a ‘Government of nonentities unable or unwilling to say boo to the Royal goose', according to the British ambassador, Roderick Parkes. Hussein promised to find honest ministers of vigour and calibre to support his great-uncle, but was himself a bad judge of character, and most of the men he selected turned out to be colourless or corrupt or both. Sharif Hussein remained in office but was unable to stand up to his nephew, and was often ignored or bypassed. In August, for example, the important decision to establish diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union – in order to gain leverage with the US – was taken without his knowledge. With no strong prime minister to guide or restrain him, and having already survived so many crises, the king became overconfident and, Parkes feared, in danger of regarding himself as infallible.
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Another worry reported by Parkes to Whitehall was the steadily worsening condition of Jordan's public finances. While its leaders tediously repeated their intention to achieve economic viability by 1970, the country was in a state of near-bankruptcy. Poverty apart, the root cause of Jordan's budget deficit was disproportionate expenditure on the armed forces. Parkes recognized that the preservation of Jordan's integrity was an Anglo-American interest and that this was postulated on the survival of the Hashemite dynasty, which in turn depended on the loyalty and morale of its armed forces. But he deplored the air of complete financial unreality in the palace, for which the king and his immediate entourage were responsible. Some of the court officials were venal and thus easy prey for unscrupulous businessmen. The king himself
was unable or unwilling to do his financial homework and constantly gave his consent to new extravagances. Jordan was completely dependant on Anglo-American budgetary support, but if the ambassadors dug in their heels, they could be accused of adopting a ‘colonialist' attitude. The answer, of course, was that Jordan would never be fully sovereign until it was financially self-sufficient. But Parkes suspected that Hussein calculated that in the last resort Britain and America would have no option but to bail him out, since Jordan's survival was an integral part of their Middle East policies.
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