Jordanian King Warns Of Growing Arab Rage
By Alan Cooperman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, May 13, 2002; Page A08
If Osama bin Laden is alive, he is gaining adherents in the Middle East because of the recent Israeli incursions into the West Bank, and a U.S. attack on Iraq would only further destabilize the region, King Abdullah of Jordan said yesterday.
"People are angry -- the rage is on," Abdullah said on NBC's "Meet the Press." He added that one of the messages he is trying to convey in his visit to Washington is that "although there seems to be a relative calm now, that is only temporary. . . . If we don't articulate a vision in the next couple of weeks, that rage is going to come back, and it's going to be twice as strong."
The young king was asked whether he thought that bin Laden was winning the psychological and public relations war. "In the past three or four weeks, since the start of the Israeli incursions into the West Bank, definitely, if he is alive, his position would be stronger," he answered.
Abdullah, whose tiny country is one of America's main Arab allies, said he was particularly worried about the 75 percent of the Arab population that is younger than 30.
"It's a very young generation that has a chance to move forward," Abdullah said, adding that some of the rhetoric on Arab satellite television is "just talk about hatred and anger."
Abdullah, whose late father, King Hussein, refused to join the U.S. coalition in the 1991 Gulf War, declined to say whose side he would take in the event of a new U.S. attack on Iraq.
"The danger is, when you get into an armed conflict, especially with the Iraqi scenario, where you really don't know how you're going to come out of it, I'm very worried that you could spill the regional or the Iraqi problem into a regional confrontation," he said, adding that Jordan would "continue to advocate dialogue" rather than military action.
© 2002 The Washington Post Company
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