REMARKS BY KING ABDULLAH II OF JORDAN
TO THE BROOKINGS INSTITUTION SABAN CENTER FOR MIDDLE EAST POLICY

Federal News Service

May 13, 2002

Excerpt

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MR. INDYK: Your Majesty, the last question is on Iraq. You'll be glad to know it's the last question.

The Bush administration seems intent on pursuing its efforts to topple --

KING ABDULLAH: Some members of the American administration, I think. (Laughter, applause.)

MR. INDYK: That wasn't in here. I'll correct it. (Laughs.)

KING ABDULLAH: I think we just answered the question. So you want to move on to another one? (Laughter.)

MR. INDYK: (Laughs.) Okay. Which -- the question was, with your call for dialogue, how do you propose to avoid Jordan and yourself being placed in the same situation as your father was when the last war between Iraq and the United States broke out?

KING ABDULLAH: Well, that question was asked to me on "Meet the Press" yesterday, and again I wanted to rearticulate sort of -- I remember living through that period with His late Majesty King Hussein when Iraq and Kuwait went into the conflict with each other. My father always believed that dialogue and reason, not war and violence, was the option out. And he had not only traveled around the Arab world, but to the West and to the Americans in particular, to say, "Look, there is a diplomatic way out of this, to solve the problem, not war, because once you start a military confrontation, you don't know to what extent it will develop."

And it was unfortunate that, I think, a lot of people, going back -- and I was a major -- a young man in the army in those days, and I remember seeing my father so depressed coming back from the United States. And I said, you know, "How successful were you?" And he said, "Well, you know, I tried to explain that, you know, we're opening Pandora's box here. We don't know where it will lead to, when I believe there is a political solution for this, there is dialogue to try and get the problem solved."

And I said, "Well, where did you stand?"

And he said, "Well, basically, I've been told that if 'you're not with us, you're against us.' And that's not what I'm all about. I'm trying to say that there is way out of this using dialogue." And so a series of events led us to be isolated as Jordan.

Looking back, in hindsight, I can't say that His Majesty was right, but I think you all agree that we can't say that he was wrong, either. And so at this day and age, you know, 12 years later, with the Israeli-Palestinian crisis going on, with the anger and frustration throughout the Middle East really at levels that people cannot take any more, another armed conflict in the region will be too much for people to bear. And I think that let's give dialogue a chance, and I hope to God that the -- you know, Iraqis need to know that international public opinion is very strong against them, that they need to make the right calls to move them out.

We in the international community need to encourage them in that respect. But if anybody has any sensitivity to what's going on between the Israelis and the Palestinians and how it's affecting the Arab street, to add Iraq on to the menu now, I think, would be devastating.

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