-Caveat Lector- Some good background on King Hussein and the Middle East beyond the corporate media hoopla. flw >Global Intelligence Update >Red Alert >February 8, 1999 > >>Reflections on the Death of King Hussein > >Analysis: > >King Hussein's death causes us to reflect on the origins of >Jordan and the other nation-states in the region. Their origins >help explain their present and future. The region's nation- >states have their origins in political accident, confusion and >hidden agendas. Hussein of the Hashemites, came from a family >that had governed Mecca for seven hundred years. Driven out by >the Saud tribe, Hussein's mission was to remain alive and in >power so that he or his heirs could one day return and reclaim >this place of honor. Palestinian issues, Israel, Iraq were for >him tactical issues, matters of transitory importance. He did >not expect to return in his life or even his children's, but >memory is long among the Hashemites and everyone else in the >region. Long memory and patience marked King Hussein's life. >Men who never forget and are infinitely patient are unlikely to >be willing to make lasting peace, no matter what they say. They >will simply wait and remember. That is why there can never be >more peace in the Middle East than there is now. This is as good >as it gets. > >Analysis: > >The death of King Hussein causes us to reflect about the origins >of Jordan as well as those of other countries in the region. >When we think about these things we realize that God truly has a >marvelous sense of humor. The history of the region in the >twentieth century can only be described as both absurd and >deadly. Most important, in spite of King Hussein's apparently >sincere dedication to the concept, the idea of a comprehensive >Middle Eastern peace should be met with gales of laughter from >all reasonable people. Rather than thinking about the future as >we usually do, the death of Hussein of the Hashemite is an >occasion to reflect on the past. > >Until the end of World War I, Ottoman Turks ruled the area from >the Mediterranean to the Persian Gulf, as well as the entire >Saudi peninsula. Allied with Germany, the Ottomans struggled to >hold on to an empire that had been in retreat for centuries. The >British badly wanted to defeat the Ottomans. Having built the >Suez Canal, which gave them rapid access to India and China, they >had to protect it. They needed to secure the sea-lanes of the >eastern Mediterranean and drive the Turks away from the Canal and >its approaches. The British conducted a series of campaigns to >break the Turks, including the disastrous Gallipoli landings and >the more successful invasion of the province of Syria by General >Allenby, who was supported by a Bedouin army recruited from the >Arabian peninsula. Controlled by British intelligence and >special operations teams, including that of the famous Lawrence >of Arabia, they first loosened Turkish control over Arabia and >then supported Allenby's attack on Jerusalem and Damascus. King >Hussein's tribe, the Hashemite, was the engine behind the >operation. > >The British were allied with the French, which meant they had to >share the spoils of war. The British kept Iraq and the Arabian >Peninsula for themselves. They did agree to divide the Ottoman >province of Syria, which contained today's Israel, Jordan, >Lebanon and Syria. The division, codified in the then secret >Sykes-Picot agreement, was extraordinarily arbitrary. A line was >drawn through the province. Everything to the north would be >French. Everything to the south would be British. > >The French had been making trouble in this area since the 1880s, >when they had intruded into another Lebanese civil war, siding >with Christian factions. The French owed the Christians a great >deal. They also wanted to cement their control of the region by >creating a pro-French Christian state. The Christians were at >the time in the majority (they no longer are), but the area >reserved for them contained Shiite, Sunni, and Alawite Muslims, >Druse, and a wide variety of Christians. The religious groups >were further divided among themselves along clan lines, with some >of the bitterest hatreds dividing clans of the same religion. >The nation was a contrivance without any reality. It didn't even >have a real name, so they named it after a prominent geographic >feature, Mount Lebanon. It was as good a name as any. >Fortunately, the French ran out of ideas for improvements and >left the rest of Syria intact, not even changing its name. They >did, however, get rid of the Hashemite King the British had >selected. The British gave him the consolation prize of the >Iraqi throne. > >The British were busy double-crossing everyone. They had made >many promises to many people. They had promised various >competing Bedouin tribes that they would be given responsibility >for Mecca, just as they promised in the Balfour Declaration that >they would give the Jews a homeland while they also promised the >Arabs that they would control their own destiny. They were >particularly close to King Hussein's tribe, the Hashemites, who >had governed Mecca since the 13th century. Having spearheaded >the British campaign against the Ottomans, you might have thought >that the Hashemites were in good shape. Unfortunately, a rapidly >rising Bedouin tribe, the Saud who were Wahabi Moslems, had >become more powerful than the Hashemite, and the British double- >crossed the Hashemites, turning the Arabian peninsula and the >guardianship of Mecca over to them. > >The British had to figure out what to do with the Hashemites. >The royal family could be given thrones, but the tribe itself had >to get out of Arabia, since they would be torn apart by the Sauds >or, at the very least, destabilize the region. The British >decided to settle them in the middle of nowhere. There was not a >whole lot east of the Jordan River, so the British decided to put >them there. The region had no name, since it was primarily a >wasteland of little interest to anyone. So they named it for >where it was -- the other side of the Jordan or, to be fancy, >Trans-Jordan. After independence in 1948, the word "trans" was >dropped out and the modern state of Jordan or, to be more >precise, the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan was born as a homeland >for a displaced band of Bedouin with nowhere else to go. > >The rest of the "mandate" was left with the same name it had when >it was a county within the Ottoman province of Syria, Filistina, >after the Biblical people that produced Goliath. The British >kept that name and it became bastardized into English as >Palestine. And so the modern map of the region was born. >Palestine consisted of small villages surviving on agriculture >and small merchants. Divided among Moslem, Christian, Druse and >Jewish communities, much of the land was owned by absentee >landlords. The people of Palestine had as much in common with >the Bedouins across the river as a New Yorker has with a Montana >cowboy -- enough not to like each other a lot and not to >understand each other at all. They were now all neighbors. > >So, the French invented Lebanon, the British invented Jordan, a >county became Palestine, and the Syrians claimed everything. >Then the Jews showed up. If things weren't wild enough before, >Jewish intellectuals from Poland, who argued the finer points of >German philosophy, decided to come and farm in the middle of this >insanity. The fact that they couldn't speak Arabic merely added >to their charm, since they also knew nothing about farming. Jews >living in London purchased the land from Arabs living in Paris >and Cairo, thereby throwing people who had farmed the land for >generations off their land. Out of this, the State of Israel was >born. > >There is no point in going on. You get the picture. > >The Jews settled primarily along the coastal plain as well as in >the Galilee. There were relatively few settlements in what is >today the West Bank. The Lebanese were not unhappy with creation >of Israel, since they were Christian and liked anything that gave >the Moslems a headache. The Hashemites were not too unhappy >either. They had never really gotten along with their >Palestinian brothers. After the War of Independence in 1948, the >West Bank remained under Arab rule. Since at that time no one >had yet thought of an independent Palestine (the main thinking >was that Palestine belonged to Syria), governance of the West >Bank fell to the only Arab country physically connected to it, >the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. > >This was big trouble for the Jordanians, since the Hashemites >didn't like the Palestinians and the Palestinians didn't like the >Hashemites. Hussein's grandfather held secret talks with the >Israelis on a peace settlement designed to keep the Palestinians >under control. Unfortunately for him, the peace talks didn't >stay secret and he was assassinated. From 1948 until 1967, >Hussein, who succeeded his grandfather, was in constant danger >from the Palestinians. In many ways he welcomed the Israeli >conquest of the West Bank, since it made the Palestinians their >problem rather than his. Unfortunately for him, there were >masses of Palestinian refugees living in Jordan after 1967, who >decided that it was time to get rid of the Hashemites and create >their own state. They tried to do just that in September 1970. >Unfortunately for them, the Bedouin Army that had been trained by >the British not only defeated the Palestinians but conducted a >brutal massacre, securing the Hashemite throne from its only real >threat, the Palestinians. > >The "Black September" massacre had two effects. It directly >spawned a wave of Palestinian terrorism and it turned King >Hussein into a wise statesman. Having taken care of his >Palestinian problem, he could now take the long view. In fact, >the last thing Hussein wanted to see was a Palestinian state. >Such a state, bordered by Israel and Jordan, would inevitably >seek to topple the Hashemite throne in order to break out of an >impossible encirclement. Hussein's brilliance was to appear to be >an urbane man and wise ruler utterly dedicated to peace while >doing everything possible to prevent the emergence of an >independent Palestinian state and shifting the blame to Israel. >We suspect that he was much relieved, if not very surprised, when >the Oslo Accords fell apart. > >The last thing Hussein wanted was Yasir Arafat feeling hemmed in >on the other side of the Jordan. His mortal enemies, the Saudis, >still rule Arabia (and we wonder how much Hussein's support for >Iraq in 1990 had to do with dreams of a return to Mecca after the >defeat of the Saudis). Syria still claims the entire old Ottoman >province including Jordan. No one knows what Saddam in Iraq will >do next. Hussein's exiled Hashemites had more than enough to >worry about. The last thing he wanted to see was an independent >Palestinian state threatening his throne in the year 2000 as it >had in 1970. So he acted the peace maker at the Wye Plantation >meeting, content with the knowledge that nothing could possibly >come of any of it. > >King Hussein's life and the recent history of the Hashemites >embody the wildly improbable history of the region. The heir to >seven centuries of Bedouin nobility, his presence in Amman was >pure accident and in many ways, utterly temporary. The >Hashemites eyes were always on Mecca and the usurper Saudis. >Israel, Palestine and all the rest were detours in Hashemite >history. Hussein was patient, but then everyone in the region >has learned to be patient. Patience and long memories are part >of the region's geopolitics, the one common denominator of all >nations and states in the region, regardless of the name they >were given by the last duplicitous conqueror. > >The point to all of this is that there are no permanent solutions >to the region's problems. All of the current structures are >merely temporary and artificial, some without any real substance >at all. How does one make peace in Lebanon when Lebanon is >neither a nation nor a state? How can Syria, which sees itself >as the rightful heir to Jordan, Israel and Lebanon, give up its >inheritance without giving up its identity? How can Israel, >which cannot decide if it is the Third Temple or a place to >produce low-cost microprocessors, make a lasting peace with a >Jordan whose real interest is to dream of a return to Mecca and >700 years of greatness? > >Hussein's death reminds us that there is nothing permanent in >this region save perpetual instability. What we have now is as >good as it will ever get. This is something that Hussein >understood. He did not believe in lasting solutions. He >believed in permanent, unchanging interests, the patience to wait >until they become possible, and the skill to stay in power to >take advantage of the day, when it comes. Hussein managed to die >while still king of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. That in >itself was his great achievement. There were many times that >people would have given long odds against him pulling that off. >Hussein endured, survived, waited and remembered. The rest was >meant for speeches at Harvard University. > >Hussein's secret mission was to survive and to never forget his >lost inheritance. That is everyone's secret mission in the >region. That means tension, conspiracy and war. The best that >can be hoped for is temporary periods of relatively little >mayhem. Peace is out of the question. Many conquerors have come >into this region from the outside, dreaming of permanent empire. >They all have gone away, many broken by the experience. American >dreams of permanent, stable arrangements would be funny, if they >weren't so dangerous. > >_________________________________________________ __ > >STRATFOR, Inc. >504 Lavaca, Suite 1100 >Austin, TX 78701 >Phone: 512-583-5000 >Fax: 512-583-5025 DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion and informational exchange list. Proselyzting propagandic screeds are not allowed. Substance�not soapboxing! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory', with its many half-truths, misdirections and outright frauds is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRL gives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credeence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. 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