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Economics and Shifting Alliances: Jordan's Relations with Syria and Iraq, 1975–81

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 April 2009

Laurie A. Brand
Laurie A. Brand
Affiliation:
teaches at the School of International Relations, University of Southern California, VKC 330, Los Angeles, Calif., 90089, U.S.A.
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Extract

A key characteristic of inter-Arab politics since World War II has been seemingly ever-shifting alliances. In attempting to explain patterns in Arab state behavior, Arab and Western analysts alike have generally attributed the sources of alignment decisions, implicitly or explicitly, to the personalities of the leaders or to ideological positions. Although such explanations may be intuitively appealing, the historical record is replete with examples that challenge such an analysis: Syria and Iraq's rapprochement in 1979, secular Syria and theocratic Iran's alliance during the Iran–Iraq War, and conservative Jordan's honeymoon with Iraq during the 1980s. These are only a few of the numerous, significant examples of alignments that suggest a rethinking of the bases of Arab interaction may be in order.

Type
Articles
Information
International Journal of Middle East Studies , Volume 26 , Issue 3 , August 1994 , pp. 393 - 413
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1994

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References

NOTES

Author's note: Field research for this article and for the larger work of which it is a part, Jordan's Inter-Arab Relations: The Political Economy of Alliance Making (Columbia University Press, forthcoming), was carried out in the fall of 1991 and summer of 1992, and was made possible by a Fulbright Islamic Civilization grant and by support from the School of International Relations, University of Southern California. Research assistance in Los Angeles was provided by the Center for International Studies at the University of Southern California.

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70 It is not always clear in documents or journal reports whether the dinar in question is Jordanian or Iraqi. At the time, the Jordanian dinar was worth about U.S. $2.80–$3.00 and the Iraqi dinar about U.S. $3.30.

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86 H-5 is a small town that developed around one of the pumping stations on the old Iraq Petroleum Company pipeline in eastern Jordan near the Iraqi border.

87 MEED, 21 11 1975Google Scholar.

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98 Ibid.; MEED, 19 September 1980.

99 MEED, 26 09 1980Google Scholar.

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101 MEED, 30 03 1979Google Scholar.

102 Ibid., 13 April 1979.

103 Ibid., 2 May 1980.

104 Ibid., 3 October 1980.

105 “Developments in the Meeting of the Joint Jordanian–Iraqi Industrial Committee, 14 September 1980”, in Majmūʿat al-Ittifāqiyyāt, 168–70Google Scholar.

106 MEED, 18 05 1979Google Scholar.

107 Ibid., 1 February 1980.

108 Ibid., 29 February 1980.

109 Ibid., 25 April 1980.

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112 “Agreement on Economic and Technical Cooperation between the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan and the Republic of Iraq, 2 May 1980”, in ibid., 155–61.

113 Ibid., 155.

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116 Terrill, W. Andrew, “Saddam's Closet Ally: Jordan and the Gulf War”, Journal of South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies 9, 2 (Winter 1985): 46–47Google Scholar.

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118 For a more detailed discussion of the applicability of the budget security concept to Jordan's position during the Gulf crisis, see Brand, , Jordan's Inter-Arab Relations, chap. 8Google Scholar.