This Week's Editorial(8/1): Views from the Middle East

Guest Editorial by Josephine Noe

I was bouncing along in the back of an Amman taxi, fighting my second bout of Jordanian food poisoning when I got the inevitable question asked by every cab driver, "min wain?" "From where?" they all question, and some raise their right hand from the steering wheel to give the twisting motion that accompanies a question of location as their eyes appraise you from the rearview mirror. You obviously aren't from Jordan. Amrika, I say, or America if I'm feeling lazy. "Ah, Amrika," they all say, knowingly, and then most proceed to tell me how much Jordanians like Amrikians and how much they hate Bush, all in one breath. Jordan and America are friends, they say, and in my travels around the country I've never been given a reason to dispute this claim. Everyone is friendly, helpful, and welcoming, and some especially so when they find out I'm American.

This particular driver was slightly different in his approach. He rushed through the Jordan-America friends bit and jumped right into the "You like Bush? Bush not good" speech. Then he began talking about the recent beheading of an American in Saudi Arabia. Yes, yes, very bad, I responded in my stilted Arabic. The conversation usually moves on at this point--to some relative who is in the States or a long ago visit there. "You know Los Angeles?" is usually the next question. But then he swooped in with his brilliant argument. "Were people beheaded when Clinton was President?" he asked, rhetorically. "No. People only started losing their heads when Bush became President. Why? Because Bush is a bad man." No arguments from me. Most of the Jordanians I've met in the past five months don’t employ the same impeccable logic, but every single one is sure that Bush should not be the leader of a powerful country like America. Or a leader at all.

Most feel that America-the-country is just fine, even great. Most carry on a surely unhealthy hero worship of the Clinton era. But all are ready to condemn Bush for the current chaotic state of the Middle East and the problems of the world in general. To be sure, if Gore had won the 2000 election (as some argue he did) we may not have gone to war with Iraq. I do have my serious doubts, though, that the Middle East would then be a mecca of peace as many Jordanians would like to believe, even if one were to also ignore the ever present (and our partisan involvement in) the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

So what has caused the near-mythical condemnation of Bush, and only Bush, by Jordanians? On one side there is the war with Iraq. On the other is Israel. Jordanians are surrounded by violence, and the United States appears to to be in the center of all that violence. With nearly half of the Jordanian population consisting of former Palestinians or refugees, Bush's buddy-buddy talks with Ariel Sharon and refusal to talk with Yasar Arafat haven't gone over well in this country. The massive amount of money we give to Israel every year to support an army regularly seen crushing Palestinian homes and small children hasn't helped either.

And then to the East you have Iraq. Oh, Iraq. I've heard it said that Jordan is a bit of an anomley in the arab world in their love of Saddam, and rest assured 90% of the Jordanians I've met believe that Saddam was a good, strong arab leader. They didn’t want Saddam gone in the first place (granted, virtually none of them ever lived under his tyrannical regime). Add to this Bush's paltry excuse--or lie, if you will--of weapons of mass destruction. When these weren't found Bush became a more apparent liar to these people than it appears he has to the people who elected him.

So now Arabs have even less reason to trust the Leader of the Free World. He has, to all appearences here, lied to the world about his selfish reasons for war and gotten away with it. After the war "ended", utter chaos proceeded to rein in Iraq, with Bush not seeming to have any post-war plan and therefore not appearing to care that much for those dear people he had just liberated. Nor has the problem been resolved in the months since. By the time we get to the prison abuse scandal, you’ve got Jordanians basically shrugging their shoulders and saying to each other, "what did you expect?" It was quite clear to everyone by this point that Bush's motives for going into Iraq were far from altruistic.

Of course none of this reflects Jordan's political stance. King Abdullah and Bush have a good relationship. The two govenments are considered friends, as they have been for years now. Abdullah regularly meets with Bush and other government officials, as King Hussein met with Bill Clinton. Officially, Jordan and America are the best of allies, and for us Americans in the country, this is something to be thankful for. But now everyone waits with bated breath for the fall elections, hoping that America will get it right this time, myself included.

I began by saying that most Jordanians think America is a fine country, that only Bush is the problem, but this sentiment is changing. In speaking to ex-patriots who have been in the country a couple of years now (compared to my 6 months) they claim there is a very tangible change in the attitude toward Americans, and not for the better. And one can't ignore that virtually the first question I'm asked by the people I meet is "tahabi Bush?" (Do you like Bush?). No, I don’t, and neither does the rest of the world, it seems. Now we just need to convince our fellow Americans.

Josephine is a Peace Corps volunteer, teaching English in M'Hai, Jordan. She arrived in the country in early 2004. The views expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the Peace Corps.