NEWS ANALYSIS : Jordan’s King Could Make, or Break, U.S. Gulf Effort

WASHINGTON — The unexpected emergency mission to Washington by Jordan’s King Hussein, America’s oldest ally in the Arab world, marks the emergence of a new player in the Persian Gulf crisis--a player with the singular power to make or break the U.S. effort to force an Iraqi retreat from Kuwait.

U.S. officials believe, and fear, that the king will present President Bush with proposals for diplomatic compromise that could seriously complicate the task of maintaining international unity against Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait--especially in the Arab world. The king’s sudden trip follows an equally dramatic mission, by helicopter and then car, to Baghdad, where the Jordanian leader talked at length with Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

The king’s expected effort to stimulate compromise stirs concern among U.S. officials on two counts. The Bush Administration believes, first, that the likely proposals offer no serious basis for negotiation. Far more important, U.S. officials fear that any diplomatic back-and-forth now could sow disunity at a time when Bush is seeking to impose a controversial naval quarantine.

The king’s proposals for Bush are believed to contain a compromise formula based on the plan offered Sunday by President Hussein (no relation to the Jordanian leader). That plan has already been rejected by the Administration. Saddam Hussein’s proposal, among other things, made Iraqi withdrawal from Kuwait conditional on Israel’s withdrawal from all occupied Arab lands--an issue that the United States considers unrelated to the seizure of Kuwait.

Arab envoys in Washington portrayed the plan as important not for its contents but for the signal it sends. “It is an opening,” Iraqi Ambassador to the U.S. Mohammed Mashat asserted in an interview with The Times.

“There has been an opening,” agreed Clovis Maksoud, the Arab League envoy to the United Nations. “It may be small, but it’s an opening.

“King Hussein wants to widen that opening and therefore defuse the level of tension and restore a negotiating mechanism. He is, after all, the only man who can talk to all sides--the Iraqis, the Americans, the Saudis, the Kuwaitis,” Maksoud added.

Senior Administration officials, by contrast, believe that no variation on Iraq’s initiative will be acceptable because it falls short of a total Iraqi retreat and restoration of the previous government of Kuwait.

“There’s no room for a deal that allows Iraq any control over Kuwait, however distant,” said one ranking U.S. official.

Administration officials also are skeptical about reports Tuesday that the cornered Baghdad regime is offering an olive branch because of fear that the United States and other members of the multinational military force being assembled in Saudi Arabia eventually intend to invade Iraq.

“Iraq knows exactly what our intentions are,” the ranking official said dismissively.

If the talks between the king and President Bush, scheduled for Thursday at the President’s vacation home in Kennebunkport, Me., fall short of laying the groundwork for a diplomatic resolution, Arab and U.S. officials fear that the king may tell the Administration bluntly that his country cannot afford to cut off Iraq totally. Jordan could then effectively provide the single lifeline, through land routes and Jordan’s Red Sea port at Aqaba, that Baghdad needs to survive otherwise-crippling economic sanctions.

For his part, Bush used a news conference Tuesday afternoon to warn the king even before his arrival here that any such attempt to supply Iraq through Aqaba could lead to a blockade of the Jordanian port.

The “plucky little king,” as the diminutive Jordanian monarch is widely known in the Middle East for his political daring, has few options.

Although he has assisted virtually every U.S. initiative in the Middle East since he came to power in 1952 after his grandfather’s assassination, King Hussein’s largest trading partner is Iraq. About 95% of Jordan’s oil comes from Iraq. Kuwait supplied the remainder.

Also, income from Baghdad’s use of Jordanian roads and ports to transship goods accounts for the largest share of the foreign exchange earnings Jordan needs to do trade with the rest of the world. About 500 trucks traverse Jordan’s searing desert each day en route to Iraq. And about 25% of Jordan’s exports are bought by Baghdad.

Without outside help, Jordan’s deeply indebted economy could not afford to cut off Iraq. Annual U.S. aid to Amman provides only $50 million.

“Clearly in terms of implementation, we just don’t turn off a switch in our dealing with Iraq,” Jordanian Crown Prince Hassan, the king’s younger brother and foreign affairs adviser, said Tuesday.

“Jordan respects the U.N. mandate . . . but (sanctions) would bring our economy to a standstill. Any country affected by these sanctions is clearly eligible for compensation.”

Yet while Bush in his news conference held out some hope of further aid to Jordan, Administration officials conceded that neither the United States nor even the oil-rich gulf states may be in a position to offset Jordan’s total earnings from Iraq.

“The Saudis and Kuwaitis are already begining to stretch themselves a little thin in compensation to other nations and in paying for some aspects of the military deployment,” said one senior U.S. analyst.

Two other factors exert pressure on the king: a restive Jordanian population and a strategic border with Iraq that could become vulnerable to attack if Jordan blocks transshipments. The king’s last trip to Washington in 1989 was cut short because of riots over food prices at home.

Pro-Saddam Hussein demonstrations in Jordan, especially among Palestinians who account for more than half of Jordan’s population, have underscored the polarization in the Arab world since the crisis began two weeks ago. Even Palestinian members of the Israeli Knesset have voiced support for Iraq and criticized the United States for its military intervention.

Rhodesia, another landlocked nation sanctioned by both East and West in 1967, survived 13 years because of South Africa’s trade and ports. Not until South Africa decided to squeeze Rhodesia in 1980 did the white minority government finally agree to majority rule.

“Jordan’s compliance is absolutely necessary to pull this off,” one State Department analyst said. “Without the king, we could be looking at years of stalemate.”