Sixty per cent of Jordanians are Palestinian. In the last Gulf War, Jordan called it wrong and sided with Saddam. Tim Judah in Amman assessesthe current mood
As the countdown to war begins, Jordanians joke wryly that God has dealt them a cruel hand. For, they say, He has set their country firmly between Iraq and a hard place - that being Israel and the Palestinians.
The overwhelming majority of Jordanians oppose a war, so now as it approaches, they are angry, frustrated and frightened. Officially the government opposes a war but small numbers of US and perhaps British special forces have been operating out of this country for months already.
According to one former minister, who asked not to be named, Jordanians are frustrated because their government appeared unwilling or unable to stand up firmly against the US and ask its troops to leave.
"We are weightless," he said. "We claim to be friends and to be influential in Washington but really we are only recipients of US aid and advice. The government must lie and say there are no American troops, but in the east [of the country] people can see them, but we can't ask them to leave."
The reason for this, he said, was that the fate of the government was too closely tied to the US and this was true of many other Arab countries.
If weakness breeds frustration, it is the perceived double standards of the US which make people angry here.
Of Jordan's 5.32 million people, some 60 per cent are of Palestinian origin. During the last Gulf War in 1991, Saddam Hussein, who threatened to burn half of Israel and attacked it with Scud missiles, was so popular here because of this stance that the then King Hussein was forced to side with Saddam - a move which many other Arab states have neither forgotten nor forgiven.
Today, Saddam's popularity has gone, but according to Taher Masri, a former Jordanian premier and foreign minister, rage boils beneath the surface because Jordanians, like other Arabs, feel "humiliated".
"This is not about Saddam, it is about Iraq, American hegemony, Palestine, threatening Arab sovereignty and controlling a major source of income - oil," he said.
But Jordan's official opposition to the war is also about oil. Ever since the Gulf War, while Iraq has descended into penury Jordan has enjoyed vast handouts of free or cheap oil courtesy of Saddam Hussein, keen to keep Jordan friendly. Today all of Jordan's oil comes from Iraq. Every year it imports between $900 million to $l billion worth, but of that, says Bassem Awadallah, the Minister of Planning, $500-600 million is either free or at a discount.
The $400 million which Jordan then needs to find to pay for the balance is not paid for in cash, but rather by barter, with pro- ducts from Jordanian factories, many which survive on this trade alone. In a post-sanctions post-Saddam Iraq, all of this Iraqi largesse, the free oil and the jobs and exports which come with the barter trade, will be lost and the immediate direct impact of this shock will cost the Jordanian economy about $1.5 billion, from the present value of about $7 billion, according to Mr Awadallah.
But for some, the economic shock has already begun. While Amman's food markets bustle - many families are laying in stocks, not because they fear shortages but rather price hikes when the fighting begins - other downtown areas are markedly quiet.
One reason is the intifada in the Palestinian territories. Until it began two years ago, Palestinians who worked in Israel often came to Jordan to shop. Now Israel is closed to them and there is little work on the West Bank either.
Then came September 11th and the world economic downturn and now, fear of a new war with Iraq. Tourism, previously a mainstay of the economy, is, of course, also now dead.
Sipping tea in his shop selling bolts of cloth, Samir Fouad said he didn't like Saddam, didn't like the US and would like an Islamic government in Jordan.
According to Mr Fouad, there was no democracy in the Arab world and this was the fault of the US because if people could elect their governments freely, they would elect Islamic parties and the US and Britain did not want this.
As for changing Saddam, he said: "This is not the business of the US."
Ahmad, a young Palestinian who runs a restaurant, echoed his views. Asked if he thought that Iraqis might actually welcome US troops and thank them for liberating them from a cruel tyrant, he said: "Some may be happy to see them but other Iraqis will fight against the US army but not because they like Saddam.
" In the Arab world we consider our land like our honour. No one can touch it. Everyone will hate the US - they do already - they will do something, crazy things, I don't know what."