Once the heightened emotions of crisis subsided at war's end, the Bush administration soon focused on the essential truth that as inconvenient as Jordanian policy had been during the crisis, every conceivable alternative to the king and his court was worse.  Congress' actions in March helped deepen the administration's focus on future consequences rather than past sins, and Bush worked to get a rider in the bill allowing the re-provision of aid when the president determines and certifies that Jordan was aiding the peace process.  As it happened, by then American Middle East diplomacy had developed to the point that a Jordanian role was both more likely and more necessary to keep the Arab-Israeli peace process from abject failure.  After Adnan Abu-Odeh, one of the king's oldest and closest confidants, spent three days in Washington at the end of March, a meeting between Baker and Jordanian Foreign Minister Taher al-Masri was arranged in Geneva on April 12, which was then followed by Baker's journey to Aqaba to see the king on April 20.

Criticism about these gestures is unwarranted.  They made sense as policy toward an ally of diminishing returns for two reasons, one concerning the peace process and one concerning regional stability.  Though no one in the administration was pitching the old idea of a "Jordanian option" for solving the Arab-Israeli crisis--in which Jordan provides the vehicle through which the Palestinian problem could be recontained as it was before the June 1967 war--a weaker version of the argument still retains attraction.

First, Israelis are far more inclined to consider territorial concessions to Jordan than to the PLO.  Second and more to the point, the extent to which Palestinian nationalism has eroded the importance of Jordan as a key player has been overstated.  Palestinian nationalism must eventually moderate its positions to set the stage for a stable settlement and, just as important, that moderation must stick.  Contrary to received opinion before the Gulf Crisis, genuine and stable PLO moderation is not yet an accomplished fact.

Although diminished, Jordan's role in advancing the peace process remains critical.  Its own Palestinian population and the regime's still considerable clout with West Bankers make Jordan a shield to protect any future settlement from radical Palestinians and their Arab allies.  Jordan's ancillary but still indispensable role, both present and future, explains the attraction for Israeli and American diplomats of both a joint Palestinian-Jordanian delegation to any peace conference and a Palestinian federation with Jordan thereafter.  Indeed, Jordan committed itself to this course in July when it agreed to attend a U.S.-sponsored regional peace conference.  Without Jordan brokering the Palestinian question, no Israeli government will order its military to leave any part of the West Bank and Gaza, and without some prospect of that, there can really be no peace process.

But the most compelling reason for the U.S government to help King Hussein these days has to do not with the peace process but with the stability of Jordan itself, for the two most likely alternatives to the king are plainly worse.  A post-Hashemite bedouin regime based on the army and the security service would be weaker, while a Palestinian-Islamist revolutionary regime would be ferociously anti-American.  A third possibility, civil war with multipartite foreign intervention, would be an outright horror.

True, supporting the king today does not offer many opportunities for uplifting rhetoric.  What he can do for U.S. foreign policy is subtle and complicated, and requires much discretion.  What his adversaries could do, however, were they to replace him, would be to create diplomatic stasis leading to disaster.  A weak regime would not be a practical partner for Israel in the peace process, and a radical regime would not be a willing partner.  As a result, all those in Israel who favor territorial compromise in the protective nest of a Jordanian-Palestinian confederation solution would be thoroughly stymied.  A stable, potentially conciliable Jordan is a sine qua non for any Israeli Labor Party foreign policy.  Without it, what is already a party in the wilderness is pushed further toward either utter confusion or embracing a PLO solution--which would ensure oblivion as far as Israeli electoral politics are concerned.

As for the United States, its patience and maturity have so far survived a serious test.  No sooner did the administration resolve to stand by the king than embarrassing reports surfaced in April and May of large-scale Jordanian economic aid to Iraq in defiance of continuing UN sanctions, aid that the royal palace may not have been able to control.  The administration gamely played down the reports, most of which were undoubtedly true.  It did so for the same reason it sent James Baker to Jordan on a number of occasions this spring--because there was really no other prudent choice.  Inconvenient?  Yes.  Frustrating?  Absolutely.  But diplomacy often involves swallowing one's pride, and we still need the King of Jordan, diminished ally or not.

Adam Garfinkle is a senior analyst at the Foreign Policy Research Institute in Philadelphia.

(1) Philip Shenon, "West is Rebuked by Jordanian King," New York Times, November 18, 1990; and Hassan bin Talal, "Does the World Want Jordan to Vanish?", Christian Science Monitor, November 28, 1990.