Posted on 07/18/2002 10:19:39 PM PDT by HAL9000
ONE of the more lively moments at last week's get-together of a group of Iraqi dissidents was when Prince Hassan, Jordan's elder statesman, strode into their London meeting-place. He then embraced a scion of King Feisal, his murdered cousin and the last king of Iraq. In conversation, Jordan's Hashemite prince spoke of “assuming his ancestral responsibilities” in the region, harking back to the first world war, when his great-grandfather was the British-appointed king of the Arabs, and his great-uncle the king of Iraq.A waft of Hashemite nostalgia was in the air. Courtiers reminded people that Spain, after Franco, brought back the Bourbons to hold together another post-dictatorship seething with separatist tendencies. Nor was it lost on anyone that the rebels held their conference on the anniversary of the downfall of the Iraqi monarchy on July 14th 1958.
Mischievous onlookers suggested that Prince Hassan has been searching for a throne ever since his elder brother, King Hussein, dumped him as his successor a month before he died. After three years in the political wilderness, Prince Hassan seemed to revel in the media spotlight. But he is not an Iraqi. And the Iraqis, battered by outsiders for over a decade, are fiercely nationalistic, even in opposition.
Jordan nervously awaits an Iraqi response. For the past week, Jordanian ministers have been tirelessly denying media reports that the kingdom is in cahoots with America and the Iraqi opposition to topple Saddam Hussein. Now Prince Hassan seems to have given his open blessing to a militant branch of the opposition that favours all means of bringing the regime down, including an American strike.
The prince insists that he was at the meeting in a personal capacity. Conspiracy theorists wonder if, for all Jordan's naysayers, King Abdullah and Prince Hassan are playing a game of good cop, bad cop as they scheme to exploit the political vacuum looming over Iraq. The rose-tinted old guard in Jordan still hanker after the brief Hashemite union in 1958, when King Hussein ruled Jordan and his cousin ruled Iraq, and both aspired to Kuwait.
But this theory has serious flaws. King Abdullah belongs to a younger generation of Arab rulers who believes it is success enough to hold on to one's own throne, let alone grab anyone else's. Moreover, the king and the prince do not get along. Prince Hassan still believes he would make a better monarch than his nephew. He may even enjoy stirring the Iraqi pot in the hope of upsetting the king.
But this is a dangerous game. Iraq's potential for trouble-making in Jordan is considerable. This week, the Iraqi press agency reported that the Iraqi ambassador to Amman had received a pledge of allegiance from the chieftain of Jordan's powerful Beni Hassan tribe. And so fearful are Jordanians that Iraq might plug their supply of oil, that the state-owned news agency, Petra, took the unprecedented step of publicly disowning the former crown prince's Iraqi debut.
A 1000 years ago Al-Hassan daughter of Fatima supposedly spawned these illegitimates.
Aside from that, I find this very intriguing. It's like watching something from another world- another time. This is literally what it looks like when a Middle Ages Culture meets a highly advanced one- this is the stuff of many science fiction novels and here it is playing out right in front of us.
His ancestral responsibility has nothing to do with Iraq.
Don't get me wrong-I'd give him Britney Spears for his harem if he helps us with Iraq (thereby improving both countries).
His ancestral responsibility, however, is being Sherif of Mecca and Medina. His ancestors controlled the holy places of Islam for 1000 years prior to 1932. This has been my proposal since 9/11-give Mecca back to the Hashemites, internationalize the oil, and let our "friends" the Saudis eat sand.
There may be forces at work in Persia and Araby that we have no knowledge of-yet.
Let's hope so.
The problem is, there are no "Iraqi" people.
The terrorized inhabitants of the former Ottoman provinces of Mosul, Baghdad, and Basra are as different from each other as they are from "Jordanians" or "Syrians".
The political boundaries of Ottoman Arabia are arbitrary and reflect no linguistic, ethnic, or geographical divisions.
If "Saudi Arabia" conquered "Iraq" tomorrow, the next day all the Arabs living there would be "Saudis". If "Iraq" conquered "Jordan", all the Arabs living there would be "Iraqis".
This all was invented on map tables in Whitehall and the Quai D'Orsay in 1920. It hasn't worked out.
Think big! These bastards declared war on the United States on 9/11. The usual outcome of such foolishness is that you get defeated and reorganized.
Let's do it right for once. Dissolve the fake "states" of Araby, give our friends like the Hashemites the spoils, give our enemies the rope, and give the "Iraqis" their freedom.
Just don't bind them to a nonexistent British fantasy called "Iraq".
It certainly is!
But think bigger. The Sunnis of Araby, collectively, must have the worst government(s) on the planet. Let's rethink the whole thing.
This policy worked in Japan and Germany after the mid 20th century unpleasantness. Both countries became excellent trading partners and didn't cause any more trouble in their region. In fact, Germany's economic success helped bring down the Soviet empire. Japan has helped stabilize it's region and could become a bulwark against Chinese expansion.
There is nothing wrong with invading and reforming your enemies. Are Germany and Japan better off now than they would have been under their wartime regimes?
What shows up on the newswires is just the tip of the iceberg....or sand dune as the case may be.
Exactly so.
And people said much worse things about supposed Japanese medievalism and group psychosis than has ever been said about the Arabs.
Just do it.
Turkey is strongly opposed to doing that.
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