The odd couple: Ending the Jordanian-Syrian "cold war"

Middle East Journal

Volumn 60, Issue 1, 2006, Pages 33-56

  Ryan, Curtis R ^a  

^a APPALACHIAN STATE UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS; POLITICAL CONFLICT; POST-COLD WAR;

ASIA; EURASIA; JORDAN; MIDDLE EAST; SYRIAN ARAB REPUBLIC;

JORDANIA;

EID: 33644689184     PISSN: 00263141     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.3751/60.1.12     Document Type: Article

References (95)

1. Author's interviews with officials in Amman, June 2001 and May 2005.
2. Malcolm Kerr, The Arab Cold War: Gamal 'Abd al-Nasir and His Rivals, 1958-70 (London: Oxford University Press, 1970).
3. See also Patrick Seale, The Struggle for Syria: A Study of Post-War Arab Politics 1945-1958 (London: Oxford University Press, 1965)
4. and Bruce Maddy-Weitzman, The Crystalization of the Arab State System 1945-1954 (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1993).
5. On Syrian foreign policy, see Bishar al-Ja'fari, al-Siyasa al-Kharijiyya al-Suriyya 1942-1982 [Syrian Foreign Policy 1942-1982] (Damascus: Tlas, 1987);
6. Raymond A. Hinnebusch, "Revisionist Dreams, Realist Strategies: The Foreign Policy of Syria," in Bahgat Korany and Ali E. Hilal Dessouki, eds., The Foreign Policies of Arab States: The Challenge of Change (Boulder: Westview Press, 1991), pp. 374-409;
7. Raymond Hinnebusch, "The Foreign Policy of Syria," in Raymond Hinnebusch and Anoushiravan Ehteshami, eds., The Foreign Policies of Middle East States (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 2002), pp. 141-165;
8. and Fred H. Lawson, Why Syria Goes to War: Thirty Years of Confrontation (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1996).
9. On Jordanian foreign policy, see Laurie A. Brand, Jordan's Inter-Arab Relations: The Political Economy of Alliance Making (New York: Columbia University Press, 1994);
10. Marc Lynch, State Interests and Public Spheres: The International Politics of Jordan's Identity (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999);
11. and Curtis R. Ryan, "Jordan: The Politics of Alliance and Foreign Policy," in Jeanne A.K. Hey, ed., Small States in World Politics: Explaining Foreign Policy Behavior (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 2003), pp. 135-155.
12. On the political development of Jordan and its national identity, see Joseph A. Massad, Colonial Effects: The Making of National Identity in Jordan (New York: Columbia University Press, 2001) and Lynch, State Interests and Public Spheres.
13. Lynch, State Interests and Public Spheres.
14. On Syria, see Malik Mufti, Sovereign Creations: Pan-Arabism and Political Order in Syria and Iraq (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1996).
15. Author interview with one of Jordan's generals and key military advisors to King Husayn. Amman, March 1993.
16. Joseph Nevo, "Syria and Jordan: The Politics of Subversion," in Moshe Ma'oz and Avner Yaniv, eds., Syria Under Assad (London: Croom Helm, 1986), pp. 140-156.
17. Author interviews with Syrian government officials. Damascus, April 1993.
18. Author interview with Ahmad 'Ubaydat. Amman, 1993.
19. Author interview. Amman, 1993.
20. Author interview. Amman, May 2005.
21. "Al-Husayn: Hal al-Niza'a fi al-Itaar al-'Arabi Faqat" ["Husayn: Solution to the Dispute in an Arab Framework Only"] Al-Dustur, (Amman) August 5, 1990.
22. For a broader discussion of the entire crisis and Arab politics, see Azmat al-Khalij [Gulf Crisi] (Beirut: Markaz Dirasat al-Wahda al-'Arabiyya, 1991).
23. For the Jordanian government's explanation of its own position during the crisis, see Government of the Hashimite Kingdom of Jordan, White Paper: Jordan and the Gulf Crisis, August 1990 - March 1991 (Amman, 1991).
24. Author's interview with former Foreign Minister Marwan al-Qasim, Amman, April 6, 1993 and with former Ambassador to the United Nations Adnan Abu 'Awda, Amman, February 28, 1993.
25. Author interview. Damascus, April 1993.
26. One of the classic statements of Neorealism can be found in Kenneth N. Waltz, Theory of International Politics (New York: Random House, 1979).
27. On the balance of threats argument and its specific application to the Middle East, see Stephen M. Walt, The Origins of Alliances (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1987)
28. The classic argument regarding "budget security" and alliance politics is from Brand, Jordan's Inter-Arab Relations. On "omnibalancing" between domestic and international threats to regime survival, and its impact on alliances, see Stephen R. David, Choosing Sides: Alignment and Realignment in the Third World (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1991).
29. Author's interview with Prime Minister Ahmad al-Lawzi. Amman, April 20, 1993.
30. The Joint Committee was to alternate its meetings between Amman and Damascus, and included specialized subcommittees focusing on trade, electrical power, industry, transportation and communications, and water (specifically cooperation regarding the Yarmuk River basin). See Taylor, The Arab Balance of Power (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1982), p. 70
31. and Laurie A. Brand, "Economics and Shifting Alliances: Jordan's Relations with Syria and Iraq," International Journal of Middle East Studies, Vol. 26, No.3 (1994), p. 396.
32. Brand, "Economics and Shifting," pp. 398-99
33. and Taylor, The Arab Balance of Power, p. 70.
34. Author's interview with Zayd al-Rifa'i, Jordanian Prime Minister from 1973-76 and 1985-89. Amman, March 29, 1993.
35. See the discussion by Patrick Seale, Asad: The Struggle for the Middle East (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988), pp. 185-225.
36. Author's interviews with Jordanian military officers and political officials. Amman, February 1993.
37. Author's interviews with policy-makers in Damascus and Amman, 1992, 1993, and 2001.
38. In her study, Brand argues that "the key to understanding the role of economics in this case lies in focusing not only on what the bilateral economic relationship is, but also - because of the absence of aid in the bilateral equation - on what it is not. In the case of Syrian-Jordanian ties, the aid dependence of the two on third party states, not on each other, best explains or accounts for the role of economic factors." Brand, Jordan's Inter-Arab Relations, p. 195.
39. Paul A. Jureidini and R. D. McLaurin, "The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan," in P. Edward Haley and Lewis W. Snider, eds., Lebanon in Crisis: Participants and Issues (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1979), p. xv.
40. Nevo, "Syria and Jordan," p. 145
41. and Taylor, The Arab Balance of Power, p. 70.
42. On the specific rivalry between the two Ba'thist regimes in Damascus and Baghdad, see Eberhard Kienle, Ba'th v Ba'th: The Conflict Between Syria and Iraq, 1968-1989 (London: I. B. Tauris & Co. Ltd., 1990)
43. and also Malik Mufti, Sovereign Creations: Pan-Arabism and Political Order in Syria and Iraq (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1996).
44. Paul Jureidini and R. D. McLaurin, Beyond Camp David: Emerging Alignments and Leaders in the Middle East (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1979).
45. Others have since argued that Asad actually had a key role in the botched invasion. On Asad's role as Defense Minister and Commander of the Air Force during the invasion, and his later seizure of power, see Patrick Seale, Asad, pp. 154-165.
46. Interview with Zayd al-Rifa'i. Amman, March 29, 1993.
47. Laurie A. Brand, Jordan's Inter-Arab Relations: The Political Economy of Alliance Making (New York: Columbia University Press, 1994), pp. 188-195.
48. Brand, "Economics and Shifting Alliances," pp. 398-99.
49. Author's interviews with Jordanian and Syrian foreign ministry officials. Amman, March 1993, and Damascus, April 1993.
50. See also Brand, "Economics and Shifting Alliances,"p. 397.
51. Nevo, "Syria and Jordan," p. 149.
52. Author's interview with Dr. Jawad 'Anani, former Deputy Prime Minister of Jordan. Amman, April 10, 1993.
53. Author's interview with Zayd al-Rifa'i. Amman, March 29, 1993.
54. On inter-Arab politics during this era, classic discussions include Malcolm Keff's The Arab Cold War: Gamal 'Abd al-Nasir and his Rivals, 1958-70 (London: Oxford University Press, 1971)
55. and Patrick Seale, The Struggle for Syria: A Study of Post-War Arab Politics 1945-1958 (London: Oxford University Press, 1965).
56. Taylor, The Arab Balance of Power, p. 86.
57. Author's interviews with Syrian policy-makers. Damascus, April 1993.
58. See the detailed discussion of the failed Syrian Iraqi union in Mufti, Sovereign Creations, pp. 209-220.
59. On Syrian-Iraqi relations see also Eberhard Kienle, Ba'th v. Ba'th: The Conflict Between Syria and Iraq 1968-1989 (London: I.B. Taurus, 1990).
60. Author's interviews with Syrian government officials. Damascus, March, and April 1993.
61. Taylor, The Arab Balance of Power, p. 88.
62. Author's interviews with Jordanian foreign ministry officials. Amman, March, and April 1993.
63. Author's interviews with Syrian government officials. Damascus, March, and April 1993.
64. Arthur R. Day, East Bank/West Bank: Jordan and the Prospects for Peace (Washington, DC: Council on Foreign Relations, 1986), p. 85
65. and Taylor, The Arab Balance of Power, pp. 93-94.
66. Author's interview in Damascus, April 1993.
67. On the succession and the Kingdom's other political and economic transitions, see Curtis R. Ryan, Jordan in Transition: From Hussein to Abdullah Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 2002).
68. Author's interview in Amman, July 2001.
69. Author's interview in Amman, July 2001.
70. Author's interview with Kamel Abu Jaber, former Foreign Minister of Jordan. Amman, July 13, 2001.
71. Jordan, in particular, had more realignment options. In the years that followed, however, Syria's options rapidly dwindled and its isolation increased following the assassination of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri in 2005 and the ensuing Mehlis investigation on behalf of the UN Security Council.
72. See, for example, Curtis R. Ryan, "Between Iraq and a Hard Place: Jordanian-Iraqi Relations," Middle East Report (Summer 2000), pp. 40-42,
73. or Ryan, "Jordan's Changing Relations," Middle East Insight (November-December 2000), pp. 83-87.
74. Rana Awad, "Jordan, Syria sign FTA," Jordan Times, October 9, 2001.
75. Lamis Andoni and Jillian Schwedler, "Bread Riots in Jordan," Middle East Report, 201 (October-December 1996): pp. 40-42;
76. Curtis R. Ryan, "Peace, Bread, and Riots: Jordan and the International Monetary Fund," Middle East Policy, Vol.6, No. 2 (1998), pp. 54-66.
77. Author interview with 'Abd al-Ilah al-Khatib. Amman, Jordan. May 14, 2005. In the government shake-up that followed the al-Qa'ida terrorist bombings in Amman in November 2005, al-Khatib was in December 2005 once again appointed Jordan's Minister for Foreign Affairs.
78. On questions of liberalization under Bashar and Hafiz al-Asad, see Najib Ghadbian, "The New Asad: Dynamics of Continuity and Change in Syria," The Middle East Journal, Vol. 55, No. 4 (Autumn 2001), pp. 624-641;
79. Eberhard Kienle, ed., Contemporary Syria: Liberalization Between Cold War and Cold Peace (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1994);
80. and Volker Perthes, The Political Economy of Syria Under Asad (London: I.B. Tauris, 1995).
81. Pete W. Moore, "The Newest Jordan: Free Trade, Peace, and an Ace in the Hole," Middle East Report Online, June 26, 2003.
82. Author interview with Fayiz Tarawnah. Amman, May 16, 2005.
83. Saad G. Hattar and Dana Charkasi, "Jordan asks Syria to Hike Flow of Yarmouk," Jordan Times, April 19, 2001.
84. Riad al-Khouri, "Syria and Jordan Both Look for Liquidity, but of a Different Kind," The Daily Star, (Beirut) August 28, 2001.
85. Al-Majd, (Jordanian newsweekly) July 23, 2001. BBC World Monitoring, July 23, 2001.
86. Al-Sharq al-Awsat, August 28, 2001.
87. The Damascus Declaration emerged in 1991 in the aftermath of the second Gulf War, and consists of the "Six plus two" framework linking Syria and Egypt to the six states of the Gulf Cooperation Council (Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates).
88. Author's interview with Kamal Abu Jaber. Amman, May 15, 2005.
89. Author's interview with Senator Layla Sharaf. Amman, May 17, 2005.
90. Author interview. Amman, May 2005.
91. Author interview. Amman, May 2005.
92. Author interview. Amman, May 2005.
93. For an insightful analysis of constancy and change in contemporary Syrian politics, see Bassam Haddad, "Syria's Curious Dilemma:" Middle East Report, No. 236, (Fall 2005.) Available online at http:// www.merip.org/mer/mer236/haddad.html.
94. Scott Greenwood, "Jordan's 'New Bargain': The Political Economy of Regime Security," The Middle East Journal, Vol.57, No. 2 (Spring 2003);
95. and Ryan, "Jordan: The Politics of Alliance and Foreign Policy."