Conversations: Jordan's Prince El Hassan Warns Against "Taking Another Go at Iran."

I shared a lemonade in Cairo last week, on the sixth anniversary of 9/11, with Prince El Hassan bin Talal of Jordan. He's one the Middle East's wise men: a deep thinker, prolific author and speaker, and former crown prince under his late brother King Hussein. Still just 60, he's also that rarity in the Arab world, a top leader who exited office before dying or being overthrown in a coup or a war. Even though he is known for his frank talk, I was taken aback by the depth of his frustration with the “black hole”—his term for the Middle East. He lashed out—at extremists of all faiths, at human rights abusers, at foreign powers who see the region as “a barrel of oil and a gun.”

El Hassan seemed most pre-occupied with the possibility of a U.S. attack on Iran, which he raised repeatedly in the one-hour talk. He warned that such an action would have dangerous consequences: “The whole Iraq situation is going to be thrown out of kilter again, because the Iranians are not going to sit by and watch it all happen,” he said, adding that Arab leaders will be “hard-pressed to face the Islamist militant rise of influence on the street.” “Taking another go at Iran," he said, "may bring about change, but who guarantees it's the kind of change that we want for stability in the region?”

His solution: A project like the Marshall Plan or a Dayton Agreement, in which the international community, leveraging the U.S.-led military presence in Iraq as well as the area's oil wealth, acts as a catalyst for developing regional cooperation and stability.

What's the essence of the problem in the Middle East?

In 1988, we launched a call for a new humanitarian order. We've had the knock on effect in the call for the fundamental rights of humanity and of human security. I worked with the concept of developing a racial equality index. Etc. Etc. But this is leading nowhere in this black hole which we call the Middle East. Simply because what's wrong is that everything is unilateral.

Why a “black hole”?

It has no institutional structure. It has no systemic representation. Anywhere you go in this part of the world, corruption is the first thing that comes to peoples' minds. What I see is that there was a time when public opinion mattered in this part of the world. Remember, What does the street think? They were hungry, they were deprived, they were marginalized. But they would demonstrate and express their views. Now, public opinion since the Global War on Terrorism, has been contained by the polarity of the confrontation between the state security services and the militants. There have been endless books about this. One of the most interesting is Baroness Kennedy's Just Law, where she and many others believe there has been a travesty of abuse of human rights by those states that have taken into their mandate in maintaining stability to close down anything and anyone they feel is rocking the boat. This region needs a legal empowerment of the poor, it needs a legal helpline. One assumes the masses are citizens in any civil society. Here the masses aren't even digits. There is no national information system which includes human economic and resource-based knowledge.

Why can't we have a supra-national body, supra-national commissions, with international guarantees, no sticky fingers, no ideologues saying “God promised me this, and international legality promised me that”? Remove the brand names, Palestine, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Egyptian, Jordanian, Turk and say, What is the carrying capacity?

Is the Middle East's problem too much religion?

Separation of church and state is crucial, if you put it in the right terminology. In this region, you need to elevate a moral authority of Jews, Christians and Muslims above politics. In the context of the management of holy space in Jerusalem, for example. What cuts across that is that there has not been a political or legal solution to the problem. But the longer you spend without a political solution, the more you are hot-housing the extremists who we all claim to fear. They are presenting their own home-grown solutions. The Christian Zionists who believe in Armageddon in our time. Islamists who believe that if things get worse, particularly if there is a strike against Iran, they will take over power.

There are other vested interests. Weapons. Look at the trillions of dollars spent on weapons. If I say that the cost of the Gulf War quoting American figures and accountability reports is $8 billion a month, that's immediately interpreted as criticism of American policy. All I'm saying is why are a few hundred million not being invested in a Cohesion Fund that improves the quality of life and human dignity? Why do we have hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children who can't afford medicine?

Who's to blame?

You can put a lot of blame on old colonialism and new colonialism. But it is a failure of leaders, governments and people in this region to recognize the importance of developing a regional approach and fighting for it. In this region, what matters at the end of the day is oil and weapons. Look at what the World Bank is saying: 100 million job opportunities need to be created by the year 2015. Is there any program that will give us the hope of getting anywhere near that objective? You come to the conclusion that constructive chaos, I think that's the term, is almost programmed, for lack of an alternative. Nineteen-ninety-one to 2001 was 10 years. A Marshall Plan could have been conceived in those 10 years to win the peace. But here we are still talking about winning the war. The sadness is you almost come away with the impression that what is important is the oil pipelines. The international world looks at this region as a barrel of oil and a gun.

How can the Middle East break out of the cycle?

By leveraging, with the use of the international force community, a series of agreements along the lines of Dayton, where everybody comes to the table and respects a template of “do's and “don't's.” Which means inclusion, which at the moment seems far-fetched because you have the “moderate” countries and the “pariah” countries. But they existed in the Balkans.

Today you have more firepower than you had in the Balkans, and I don't see any diplomatic leveraging of the regional solution. People don't want to move from unilateral to regional. It's still “General Petraeus, and what about the gradual redeployment of forces?” My question in parallel with that is, What about calling upon the peoples of the region to fulfill their dreams? In recognizing what citizenship means, for example. What about a citizens charter that includes a clear call for a Cohesion Fund. If you look at the figures, they are really quite alarming. The Muslim Middle East share of world trade dropped some 75% in the two decades leading up to 9/11, and this is a period when the region's population almost doubled. We didn't keep that in mind. At the end of 2006, U.S. spending on Iraq reached $318.5 billion. Recent figures from U.N. indicate that $318 billion would have been enough to pay for the cost of 400 million people keeping from hunger for 13 years.

I'm not talking about escaping into the future. I'm talking about thinking about the future. One of the reasons for the black hole is the inability to think. The mind has atrophied.

How do you shake things into positive effective action?

Rand wrote a paper with a plan called the Marshall Plan in 1941 and the allied powers took it seriously and started implementing it. That's an example of how ideas are put into practice.

How do you jump start change, by imposing it from the outside?

It is not a question of imposing from abroad or talking of a “new Middle East.” But it's a question of bringing together a concept group, which I would welcome being international, which says the future of regional stability can be achieved along the following lines.

How do you shake up the leadership of the region?

The leadership of the region, if it actually comes to a strike against Iran, is going to be hard-pressed to face the Islamist militant rise of influence on the street. I think you are going to find a move away from focusing on regional solutions and pacification plans and economic regional plans rather than towards it. At this moment, we are at a crossroads. Either we move forward toward a regional impulse, security and cooperation, citizens charter, social charter, Cohesion Fund, while addressing the hot spots through a resumption of negotiation, which seems unlikely but surely is the civilized light at the end of the tunnel. Or we move towards further confrontation.

Does it require pressure on regimes to liberalize, to allow more participation?

Yes. I think it is not a question of unilateral pressure. It is a question of speaking to them collectively and saying you represent the region collectively, we believe this region is important. There is no concept of a stitch in time. The stitch in time here is to say, before the next upheaval in the region, this is the time to be reflecting on how to develop a regional approach. I want you people to come to a regional conference on the future of the regional. And within the same priorities that worked evidently in the Balkans, and South East Asia. South East Asia witnessed the Vietnam War. Vietnam is now one of the new success stories economically and socially.

How do you measure Bush's impact on the region?

The blow of 9/11 was enormously destabilizing for the world and Jeffersonian principles. It developed an understandable will to protect American citizens, protect the American way of life, to protect American interests. But the term “you are either with us or against us,” I've always asked, About what? I understand, “in the war on terror.” You know my country has been a firm supporter of the United States in the war on terror. At the same time, are there not other issues that need to be discussed? And while we are working against terror, should we not be working for not only our own happiness in our particular oasis, but in redefining regional commons and global commons? Effectively engaging on the region level has not emerged as a major priority.

What should be done in Iraq?

What should be done is to avoid the talk, if it's serious, about what can be done about a new strike into Iran. Because if that is going to happen, the whole Iraq situation is going to be thrown out of kilter again, because the Iranians are not going to sit by and watch it all happen. You and I have both lived in a region where you can within a few days or a few months expect a new war. And this is not the way to live. How many wars? The ‘67 war, the ‘73 war, every decade we have to have a major upheaval.

You brought up a possible strike on Iran several times. Why do you take it seriously?

I think it's being spoken of in great detail. Everybody including the president himself has said he has given his military commanders instructions to prepare for the worst. That isn't a mild statement. It is a very clear statement.

What is your concern?

I've always believed in not only winning the war but winning the peace. I have no doubt that American military might is capable of defeating any military response on earth. But on the other hand, I don't really see that this is necessarily...I am living in the region. I am living in the middle of the conflict zone. Anything that lands on Israel destroys my people. I'm not talking about an academic exercise. Compounding the loss of life that has taken place in successive Iraq wars with its neighbors, taking another go at Iran, may bring about change, but who guarantees it's the kind of change that we want for stability in the region?

What do you have in mind?

The destabilizing of existing of regimes. A rise in a visceral anti-Western feeling in terms of an Islamist movement confronting the so-called moderate regimes, and saying to them, what has your friendship with the West brought you? Other than further suffering? And against the background of the shortcoming of real life expectations of people. In the West Bank, 50-60% of people are below the poverty line, two dollars a day. As much as 80% in Gaza. Seventy-five percent of Iraqi women are illiterate. Some 6.5 million Iraqis are dependent on rations to meet their nutritional needs. Ten million land minds and explosive remnants of war in northern Iraq will take up to 15 years to clear. This continuing destruction, or MAD—mutually assured destruction--whether through convention means or terrorist action, is a scenario that unfolds where the Middle East may indeed become a black hole. You see the dismembering of the whole region into fragmentation, into disparate and desperate groups.

--By Scott MacLeod/Cairo