King Muhammad also treated Colin Powell with contempt during the Secretary's recent tour of Arab nations. He kept him waiting for three hours and then informed him of a change of location for the meeting. Powell won no backing for a united front against Iraq and was treated to the by now routine hectoring on Israel.

In Syria, Bashar Assad came to power after his father lowered the age requirement for president. Assad senior is a hard act to follow for brutality, but the son was swift in implementing control through a policy of intimidation, fear, and anti-Western rhetoric. He greeted the Pope in Damascus with a barrage of anti-Semitic slurs: "There are always those who seek to recreate [Jesus'] journey of suffering and pain among people....We see our brothers in Palestine being killed and tortured.... We see them (Israel) attacking sacred Christian and Muslim places in Palestine... They try to kill the principle of religions in the same mentality in which they betrayed Jesus Christ.... We expect you to stand by them [the Palestinians] against the oppressors so that they can regain what was unjustly taken from them."

In January 2001, Bashar made a state visit to Teheran, accompanied by several high-ranking ministers. The hosts and guests issued a joint communique praising the "heroic intifada and all groups fighting for the liberation of Arab lands" controlled by "barbaric" Israel.

Bashar Assad has cemented Syrian ties to Iraq by joining the Arab League in calling any aggression against Saddam Hussein an aggression against the Arab world. He recently ratcheted up terrorist acts against northern Israel, causing the Egyptian government-controlled press to issue a warning that Egypt would not permit itself to be drawn into a war with Israel by Syria's "boy president."

While Jordan's Abdullah appears pro-Western, his refusal to enter any coalition against Iraq puts him in harmony with the Arab League. And although the late King Hussein of Jordan had poor relations with Syria, particularly after he sided with Saddam Hussein in the Gulf War and signed a peace agreement with Israel, the sons have become friendly. When Abdullah visited Syria (the first state visit between both nations since the late 1980s) he was greeted with a 21-gun salute. Abdullah has also made state visits to Teheran, invoking a brotherhood of Muslims.

While Abdullah has not broken ties with Israel, his rhetoric has grown harsh and his wife led a large anti-Israel demonstration in Amman, something his father assiduously avoided. Abdullah reigns with a weaker hand and has inherited a more complicated set of circumstances than his father. Hussein was able to enjoy a de-facto peace with Israel while the latter controlled the West Bank. His son is faced with the possibility of a PLO state and he recognizes it would not be long before the PLO would set its sights on eliminating the Hashemites and unifying all of Palestine, comprising present day Israel and Jordan. Furthermore, the PLO remembers "Black September" when his father killed several thousand terrorists and expelled an equal number to Lebanon. It has become easier and more practical for the son to join rather than fight militant Islam.

In Saudi Arabia, the sons, all crown princes, are also increasingly anti-Western. While the older kings stirred their oil wells, the sons, fearful of being challenged for their anything-but-Islamic personal lifestyles, have instituted a more stringent form of religious orthodoxy, fueled by hatred of Western values and "infidels."

All this suggests that those policy mavens who wistfully await a democratic generation of Arabs are deluding themselves. Probably the best we can hope for, at least in the near term, is a strongman like Musharraf of Pakistan, who prefers an alliance with the West to the endless brutality of Islamic revolution.

(Continued on p.10)

July-August 2002               - 9 -               Outpost