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Jordan Jordanian-Syrian Relations
Despite a long history of hostility, between 1975 and 1977
Jordan's major regional ally was Syria. During 1975 Jordan and
Syria agreed to coordinate their defense, foreign policy, economic,
information, education, and cultural activities. They established
a joint military command to provide a single defensive line against
Israel. Syria halted anti-Hussein propaganda and imposed
restrictions on Syrian-based Palestinian activities that might be
considered prejudicial to Jordan's sovereignty.
The marked improvement in relations between Hussein and Syrian
president Hafiz al Assad primarily reflected a shared desire to
minimize the role of the PLO in any future Middle East peace
negotiations. Despite the commitments made at Rabat, neither Jordan
nor Syria wanted the PLO to emerge from Middle East peace talks as
leader of a proposed Palestinian national entity in the occupied
territories. Their opposition to the PLO, however, stemmed from
very different sources. Jordan opposed the PLO because of
conflicting territorial objectives; Hussein wanted to reintegrate
the West Bank as a part of a pre-1967 Jordan. Assad opposed a PLOled ministate because he feared that such an entity would reduce
Syria's regional role and would significantly lessen the chances of
Syria regaining the Golan Heights. At the same time, Damascus
rejected Hussein's claims to the West Bank and vehemently opposed
any Jordanian attempts to reach a separate peace agreement with
Israel. This position severely limited the flexibility of Jordanian
diplomacy and ultimately divided Jordan and Syria.
In 1975 Lebanon became engulfed in a bloody civil war that had
major ramifications for the regional political balance. Like the
Black September incident of 1970, the Lebanese Civil War pitted a
rapidly expanding Palestinian political infrastructure against a
sovereign Arab state. Between September 1970 and 1975, the
Palestinians created in Lebanon a "state within a state." They had
their own military establishment, an autonomous political
structure, and separate collection of taxes. Unlike Jordan in 1970,
however, Lebanon had a weak and badly divided political structure.
As a result, in the spring of 1975, after a number of skirmishes
with Lebanese Christian militias, the Palestinians allied with an
array of leftist Lebanese forces and began an offensive. In the
spring of 1976, it appeared that the Palestinians and their leftist
allies would win the fighting. President Assad, fearing a radical
Palestinian force on Syria's southern border, entered the fray on
the side of the Christians and tilted the military balance in their
favor. Jordan supported the Syrian intervention, fearing that a
Palestinian victory would give the PLO a base of operations from
which to destabilize the region.
Jordan's relationship with Syria also improved as Jordan became
increasingly disenchanted with its relationship with the United
States. Since the early 1970s, Jordan had negotiated for the
purchase of a US$540 million air defense system from the United
States to be financed by Saudi Arabia. When the United States
Congress objected to the arms sale, Hussein commented that
relations with his one-time sponsor had reached "a sad crossroads."
In 1976, with Syrian encouragement, he traveled to Moscow to sound
out the Soviet Union on its willingness to provide a similar
system. In the face of persuasive American and Saudi lobbying,
Hussein eventually opted to purchase the American Improved Hawk air
defense system
(see Jordan - Military Cooperation with the United States
, ch. 5). His trip to Moscow, however, marked a significant
improvement in Jordanian-Soviet relations and was a factor in his
decision to support the concept of a Middle East peace conference
attended by both the Soviet Union and the United States.
Data as of December 1989
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