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 ozens
of statesmen turned out for the 1999 funeral of King Hussein of
Jordan. Few will be present at the funeral of Iraqi president Saddam
Hussein, regardless of whether the Iraqi president's death comes
as a result of Phase II of the war against terrorism, or two decades
from now. King Hussein may not have been a democrat, but he will
always be remembered for his moderation and genuine desire to advance
his nation. President Hussein will always be remembered with disdain.
At a decrepit
hotel near the Abdali bus station in Amman, Jordan, hangs a large
picture of King Abdullah II, and a smaller photo of the late King
Hussein tucked in the corner of the frame. While shop owners must
hang pictures of the current king, their adoration for the late
king is genuine. "We have a lot of problems, one student said,
but if it weren't for King Hussein and Prince Hasan [the late king's
brother], we'd probably have torn our country apart like the Iraqis
did." Jordan and Iraq were once quite close, both ruled by
different branches of the Hashemite family. Both monarchies sought
to distance themselves from the nationalist and political forces
tearing apart the region. The Jordanian monarchy was successful,
skillfully navigated through the Nasserism of the 50s and 60s, Palestinian
terrorism of the 70s, and five decades of Arab-Israeli conflict.
The Iraqi monarchy was less so.
The elderly
man shuffled down the icy street last winter in as-Sulaymaniyah,
Iraq, just down the street from the university. People nudged each
other and stared. A colleague of mine from the University of Sulaymani
grabbed my hand and introduced me to General Mustafa, an elderly
Kurdish Communist. As we continued on our way, my colleague told
me, "You just met the man who killed the king."
July 14, 1958,
is a date most Iraqis wish to forget. Just after dawn, soldiers
stormed the presidential palace. While General Mustafa denies his
responsibility, locals say that he entered the room where 19-year-old
King Faisal II sat with his family. When he left the room, the bullet-ridden
body of the young king and his family lay lifeless on the floor.
Brigadier Abd al-Karim Qassim became head of government. In the
heady days of Nasserism, the Iraqis masses were not entirely upset
that the monarchy had ended, but the violent death of the young
king engendered great sympathy. "He was just a young boy. He
didn't need to die," a retired Iraqi schoolteacher told me.
Qassim's government
brought neither stability nor prosperity. The next decade saw fighting
in the streets, massacres, assassination attempts, several changes
in government, and finally, on July 30, 1968, a coup by officers
of the ethnically chauvinist Arab Socialist Baath party. Ahmad Hasan
al-Bakr became president, while his young protégé,
Saddam Hussein, took the reins as deputy chairman of the Revolutionary
Command Council. Iraq's subsequent history is well known. Saddam
Hussein consolidated power beyond his position, finally seizing
the presidency for himself in June 1979. Within one month, 500 top-level
Baath officials — seen by Saddam to be possible competitors
— lay dead. Little more than a year later, Saddam invaded Iran,
a war that culminated in stalemate after one million men lay dead.
Saddam turned inward and attacked his own people. In a 1988 orgy
of violence, Saddam killed perhaps 182,000 Iraqi Kurds and other
non-Arabs, many with chemical weapons. Less than three years later,
Saddam was at it again, pillaging Kuwait and ultimately bringing
death and destruction down upon Iraq.
Today, most
Iraqis are fatalistic about their recent history. Chatting over
tea in Sulaymaniyah's main market, one merchant simply explained,
"Saddam is God's curse because the Communists killed the king."
Life may not have been perfect under the Iraqi monarchy, but compared
to Iraq's subsequent history, the kingdom represents the golden
era. Eating at a palace-turned-restaurant in Zawita, three different
people proudly told me that Jordan's prince Hasan used to spend
his boyhood summers there.
Iraqis are
not alone in looking back fondly upon bygone royalty. Iranians old
enough to remember the Shah used to visualize their society as European,
on par if not superior to Spain, Portugal, and Greece. But after
more than two decades of theocracy, they see themselves continuing
their headlong dive into the Third World. It is no surprise that
Reza Pahlavi, son of the late Shah, has arisen seemingly out of
nowhere to become the leading opposition figure not only among Iranians
in Los Angeles, but among Iranians still living under the mullahs
in Tehran. The Islamic regime has taken notice, especially given
the reconciliation role former monarch Zahir Shah has been playing
in Afghanistan.
Middle Eastern
dictators should be nervous, and bureaucrats in the state department
and the foreign office should take note. Instead of looking for
"moderate Taliban" in Afghanistan, as Secretary of State
Colin Powell once suggested, or "engaging" the mullahs
in an increasingly unpopular Islamic republic, or maintaining Saddam
in power in Iraq, a nonsolution for which American diplomats apparently
wish to settle, a clear alternative exists.
In Iraq, in
particular, the time may be ripe. Rather than proclaim that regime
change in Iraq is risky because of fear of the alternative, the
U.S. government should look toward moderate reconciliation figures
popular both inside Iraq and throughout the region. A role for royals
in Iraqi reconciliation would assuage the governments of the neighboring
Persian Gulf states, while at the same time compliment the work
of opposition leaders like Iraqi National Congress leader Ahmad
Chalabi. Next door in Amman, home to the remaining Hashemites, is
a model of the alternative, where royals and statesmen-many intimately
connected to Iraq and already enjoying a degree of respect and legitimacy
throughout the Middle East-wait in the wings to rebuild the Middle
East from the ashes left by dictators like Saddam.
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