March 26, 2003	Wednesday	Muharram 22, 1424

AMMAN: Jordan’s King Abdullah is walking a political tightrope at home and abroad that becomes more dangerous as the US-led war against Baghdad rages on and Iraqi casualties mount, analysts say.

Jordan has offered discreet cooperation to the Americans over Iraq. But angry anti-war street protests have served as a reminder that ordinary Jordanians — many of Palestinian origin — mistrust US policy in the Middle East, particularly over Israel.

Analysts say the carrot for the authorities is the possibility of Jordan’s fragile economy reaping trade and other financial benefits if the war ends with Iraq back in the world fold as a major oil producer.

The kingdom has long had to perform a balancing act between a heavy reliance on US economic aid and being at the heart of Middle East politics, wedged as it is between Iraq, Syria, Saudi Arabia, and Israel and the occupied West Bank.

Officials have reluctantly admitted Jordan is hosting US troops with Patriot anti-missile batteries to defend its airspace, and do all they can to keep the Americans out of sight.

It is another balancing act. The Arab world is divided over Iraq between states strongly opposed to the US-led war and those offering tacit or open support.

Security officials have voiced concern that Muslim extremists could exploit tensions to whip up violence in a country where unemployment is around 15 per cent and a third of its five million people live below a $1-a-day poverty line.

“The longer the war takes the more threatening it will be for regimes,” said a former royal palace official, Adnan Abu Odeh.

Abdullah, who worked harder than most Arab leaders for peace over Iraq, signalled his awareness of just how dangerously wobbly the tightrope could become when he urged Jordanians on Friday to moderate their public expressions of anti-war feeling.

The protests so far have not been on the scale of the passionate support for Iraqi President Saddam Hussein during the 1990-91 Gulf crisis.

Abdullah’s father, the late King Hussein, backed Baghdad at the time and Jordan had to endure diplomatic and economic pain as a result.

Officials made little secret of the fact that when the war was unleashed last week, they hoped it would be over quickly with the minimum of bloodshed.—Reuters