press-clips.com © 2013
By David Alexander
AMMAN, Jordan (UPI) -- In the gift shop of the posh Marriott Hotel in downtown Amman, dozens of thumbnail-size Saddam Hussein buttons smile up at shoppers from a tray near the cash register.
The Iraqi president's likeness is plastered on walls and windows across the hilly city. Taxi drivers sport Saddam's picture on their rear windshields and some merchants have even covered their own business signs with his photograph to show support for the man the West loves to hate.
Nearly three months after Iraqi forces invaded Kuwait, the United Nations has pressured Jordan's King Hussein into becoming a reluctant ally in the economic blockade against Iraq, but Saddam Hussein still owns the hearts and minds of the Jordanian people.
"America and Europe, they say Saddam is like Hitler, but we say he is like Saladin," said taxi driver Ibrahim Hassan, referring to the 12th century Moslem Kurdish general who recaptured Jerusalem from the Christian crusaders. "Saddam Hussein, he can make one nation from the Arabs."
The Iraqi president's popularity in Jordan stems from the colonial experience following World War II, when Britain and France carved up the region, laid boundaries and created nations.
Remembering stories about a time when one could travel by camel from Damascus to the holy city of Mecca without a passport, many Arabs ignore their own internal divisions and blame the West for the region's post-independence failure to achieve the dream of a unified Arab state stretching from Baghdad to Cairo.
And in Jordan, where about half the people are Palestinians, residents point to Israel and claim that its creation by the colonial powers launched a struggle for Palestinian rights that still has not ended after 40 years and five wars.
"Palestinians and Jordanians feel they have been cheated by the West over a long period of time," said Taha Heyari, the manager of a tour company. "What they have so far received from the West is promises, words, pledges and sympathies but no concrete measures."
The reaction to the killing of 20 Palestinians outside Al Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem by Israeli security forces Oct. 8 offers a prime example of why Jordanians support Saddam Hussein, Heyari said.
"It's the double morality of it, the two standards," he said. "On the one hand it's, 'Please Mr. Yitzhak Shamir, we would like it if you can restrain your soldiers to minimize Palestinian casualties' while you send 200,000 soldiers to protect 200 members of one Kuwaiti clan, one family."
"Why? So he can marry a woman every week, this Mr. Sabah? ... I mean, there's got to be something wrong here," Heyari said.
Even before the invasion there was no love lost between Kuwaitis and Jordanians, many of whom worked in the country for years while being barred from obtaining permanent residency under the nation's strict citizenship laws. Jordanians were happy to see Kuwaitis get their comeuppance.
"Saddam is rising up against the corrupt regimes," Heyari said. Besides, he added, "Kuwait is Iraq. It was carved from Iraq by the British Foreign Office."
"They do not invest their money to develop their own country and they do not invest the money for development in other Arab countries," added Sameer Al- Layali, the director of the newly created Public Opinion Center, a survey research organization.
"I believe that if we want to fight Israel, we do need a power equivalent to the Israelis," said Dr. Helmi Sari, who teaches sociology at the University of Jordan. "We have to rely on ourselves in defending our rights. Iraq is the country we think can face Israel."
He said before the Arab countries can begin to develop into modern states, they must shed their colonial past by uniting under a common flag, and Saddam has provided an opportunity to do that.
"I think Saddam has tried to unite the Arabs by ending the tribal states in the Gulf," Sari said. "Even if it was by force, whatever my attitude about Saddam personally, regardless of my opinion of what is inside Iraq, I would put that aside at this stage and look at this step as a revolutionary step toward Arab unity."
Al Layali said Saddam had a populist appeal for Jordanians and other people in poor Arab countries.
"Saddam represents the poor people. Saddam tries to unify the Arabs and he is closer to the poor than the rich ones," he said.
Because of his appeal, Saddam Hussein paraphernalia is selling like hotcakes in Jordan, along with T-shirts urging the world to rise up against his American nemesis and "Push Bush out."
Asked if the Marriott sells many Saddam Hussein buttons, the clerk behind the gift shop counter smiled.
"Yes," he said. "We do."
Lapel pins, above, showing images of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein on the left and King Hussein of Jordan on the right were on sale at hotels in Amman. Kuwaitis, below, produced their own buttons and stickers calling for a free Kuwait.
October 27, 1980
Jordanians see Saddam as leader who can unite Arabs