Iraqi Row With Jordan Bares Deep Antipathy

A text message made the rounds of Baghdad cellphones recently, providing a tongue-in-cheek list of the Seven Wonders of the World. Among them: “a relaxed Iraqi, a good-looking Kuwaiti, a Palestinian with a country ... and a likable Jordanian.”

Long-standing sensitivities between Iraq and Jordan have come into focus again as a result of last week’s diplomatic spat between the two nations. The row erupted after an unconfirmed news report that a Jordanian was involved in a suicide bombing in Iraq.

The fracas seems to have died down, and the hastily withdrawn ambassadors have returned to their posts. But the sheer speed with which tensions escalated cast a spotlight on the strained, at times openly hostile, feelings that extend from ordinary Iraqi citizens to the new generation of politicians, many with standing grudges against the Jordanian government.

The incident also raised questions about how well the U.S.-backed elected Iraqi government will mesh with other American allies in the region.

It all started with an article in the Jordanian daily Al Ghad on March 11 that identified the suicide bomber who killed 125 people in the Iraqi city of Hillah, south of Baghdad, on Feb. 28 as Jordanian Raed Mansour Banna. The article also said that Banna’s family was celebrating his “martyrdom.”

From there, fed by rumor and rhetoric, the issue further fueled anti-Jordanian sentiment.

“Who celebrates that?” said Abu Youssef, a Baghdad electronics store owner. “Who says, ‘I’m happy my son killed 100 people’?”

The Hillah bombing had sparked outrage among an Iraqi population that had risked death a month before to vote in parliamentary elections. Thousands of residents staged daily protests demanding the resignation of provincial leaders and an explanation of the security lapse.

That anger found an outlet in the wake of the Jordanian report. Iraqi newspapers widely publicized the allegations, even after doubts emerged about whether Banna was the bomber or whether he died in a different insurgent operation.

Prominent Iraqi politicians and religious leaders took up the call. Interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi demanded an explanation. In the opening meeting of the new Iraqi National Assembly on March 16, top Shiite politician Abdelaziz Hakim said Jordan was not doing enough to stem the flow of foreign insurgents into Iraq.

Imam Nasir Swaidi, in a March 18 sermon at Baghdad’s Hikma Mosque, affiliated with anti-U.S. Shiite Muslim cleric Muqtada Sadr, accused Jordan of “sending the killers, backing the terrorists, letting them surpass its borders and nobody is stopping them.”

That day, more than 1,000 protesters demonstrated after prayers outside the Jordanian Embassy. The government in Amman, the Jordanian capital, quickly withdrew its ambassador, claiming fears for his safety, and Iraq responded in kind.

Jordanian officials blamed Ahmad Chalabi, a former Iraqi exile and now prominent politician who is wanted in Jordan on financial fraud charges, for helping manufacture the dispute.

At the very least, the former Pentagon favorite appears to be stoking the flames of the quarrel and reveling in Amman’s public discomfort.

A recent front-page headline in the Chalabi-sponsored daily newspaper Al Mutamar proclaimed, “The Jordanian Government Deals With the Hillah Crime With Its Usual Rudeness.”

Before the diplomatic row, Jordan’s King Abdullah II had sparked resentment with a warning that the Iraqi elections could produce a “crescent” of Shiite influence stretching from Iran, through Iraq to Lebanon.

The remark was taken as a slap against the prominent Shiite religious parties that went on to capture a majority of assembly seats. To many in Iraq, it was proof of a lasting bias among neighboring Sunni-led regimes against the rising Shiite Muslim political tide here.

Some of those Shiite leaders who felt slighted may be out to settle the score -- a move that detractors describe as immature stunt politics.

“We should not have had it on the agenda of the first meeting of the National Assembly,” said Hassan Bazzaz, a Baghdad University professor of political science and head of the Center Democratic Party. “We should not make every small thing a big political issue.”

But even if the scope of the Jordanian dispute was partially manufactured, it played on Iraq’s deep-running antipathy for its neighbor to the west.

The two countries became heavily intertwined in recent decades, particularly after the 1991 Persian Gulf War, and the forced familiarity has bred contempt.

Jordan served as a vital back door for Iraqi commerce during 12 years of United Nations sanctions. As a result, many here believe that Jordan not only profited enormously from more than a decade of Iraqi misery, but helped prop up the Hussein regime in the process.

“Iraq was their milking cow,” said one Baghdad merchant. “Now the milk has been cut off.”

Imam Swaidi, in his March 18 sermon, charged that Jordan’s “hands were stained with Iraqi blood during Saddam’s time.”

In addition, many Iraqis immigrated to Jordan seeking employment, and some have returned with tales of second-class treatment.

One Baghdad merchant, who declined to give his name, recalled eating in an Amman restaurant and watching the Iraqi waiter catch abuse from both bosses and customers.

“You couldn’t treat a Jordanian that way,” he said.

In recent times, Jordanian militants, such as insurgent leader Abu Musab Zarqawi, have been blamed for fueling Iraq’s bloody insurgency. That perception is enhanced by a refusal to believe that Iraqis could be committing such attacks against fellow citizens.

Jordan moved swiftly to defuse the situation, interrogating the reporter and sending its ambassador back to Baghdad. But Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari indicated that the issue would not be forgotten.

“The Iraqis are very hurt by the inconsiderate manner in which Jordan dealt with the feelings of Iraqis after the Hillah attack,” he said.

Shiite religious leaders also made it clear that the bad blood was likely to linger.

“Our people will accept only an official apology from the king of Jordan,” said Sheik Jalaluddin Saghir at Baghdad’s Bratha mosque last Friday. “The people of Jordan should announce explicitly their disassociation from terrorism, and tell the Iraqi people that your blood is sacred.”

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Times staff writers Richard Boudreaux and Saif Rasheed contributed to this report.