US embassy cable - 05AMMAN5519

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 AMMAN 005519 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 07/09/2015 
TAGS: PREL, KPAL, ECON, JO, IZ 
SUBJECT: STAFFDEL TALWAR AND FM QASRAWI DISCUSS GAZA 
WITHDRAWAL, IRAQ, AND IRAN 
 
 
Classified By: Charge d'Affaires David Hale for reasons 1.4 (b) and (d) 
 
1. (C) SUMMARY: In a July 9 meeting, Jordanian Foreign 
Minister Farouk Qasrawi shared with Senior Professional Staff 
Member Puneet Talwar (SFRC) and Charge his opinions on 
regional issues.  The upcoming Gaza withdrawal, Qasrawi felt, 
should be followed up with further Israeli withdrawals and a 
concerted world focus on the economic development of the 
Palestinian territories.  To confront Hamas, the Palestinian 
Authority and Fatah would first have to reform themselves. 
The situation in Iraq would be improved by a lowered profile 
for U.S. armed forces and more visible and accelerated 
reconstruction efforts.  Ahmedinejad's election as president 
of Iran was bad for the region, and the Iranians 
unfortunately would not give up their nuclear program even 
with pressure. END SUMMARY. 
 
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GAZA WITHDRAWAL 
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2. (C) Minister Qasrawi stated that the Palestinians were 
disillusioned with the stagnation in the economy, their lack 
of freedom of movement, the continuation of construction of 
settlements and the barrier, the lack of basic public order 
in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and the disarray within the 
PA.  Even so, he said, the Palestinians must now show unity 
and ensure that the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza is allowed 
to proceed in a quiet, orderly manner.  Otherwise, the 
Palestinians would be the "big losers."  Unfortunately, said 
Qasrawi, there seemed to be a lack of coordination between 
Israel and the PA on the withdrawal.  (NOTE: In an aside, 
Qasrawi mentioned that prior to the meeting, he had been in a 
conference call with the Jordanian Embassy in Israel and 
Abdul Salam Abbadi, Jordan's Minister of Awqaf, regarding 
threat information shared by the government of Israel.  This 
information, he intimated, concerned the possibility that 
Jewish extremist groups might attempt something against the 
Islamic sites on the Temple Mount in order to disrupt the 
withdrawal from Gaza.) 
 
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NEXT STEPS 
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3. (C) In Gaza, economic development needed to happen 
quickly, Qasrawi said.  He was pleased by the appointment of 
James Wolfensohn to spearhead this effort, and said that the 
$3 billion that the G8 had promised the Palestinians would 
help to change their perceptions of their own potential. 
However, he said, Israel needed to continue its phased 
withdrawal as laid out in the roadmap, concentrating 
particularly on making good on promised withdrawals from West 
Bank cities.  Qasrawi noted in this context the Jordanian 
offer to send the remnants of the Palestinian Liberation Army 
(the "Badr Corps") to help with the security of the West 
Bank.  President Abbas had asked for them, they were 
depoliticized, and their lack of strong local ties after so 
many years abroad might be an advantage.  However, the 
Israelis had turned them down.  Qasrawi also noted that 
Jordan stood ready to train Palestinian troops in Jordan. 
 
4. (C) If there were no further steps to withdraw after Gaza, 
there would be further problems.  Qasrawi particularly 
worried that if Palestinians saw no hope, they would start 
trying to emigrate.  He noted that just the possibility of 
this happening was already the occasion for considerable 
domestic concern in Jordan, especially among the Parliament. 
Jordanians, both for demographic and economic reasons, saw a 
further influx of Palestinians as a threat, and they were 
alarmed at both the statements made by the Lebanese about 
sending their Palestinian population to Jordan and the 
imagined American and Israeli conspiracies to push the West 
Bank Palestinians over the river. 
 
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THE PA AND HAMAS 
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5. (C) Qasrawi noted that Hamas was already a potentially 
more powerful political force than Fatah.  Already, they were 
claiming credit for the withdrawal from Gaza, and they would 
likely win any elections held under Israeli occupation.  The 
PA had neither the firepower nor the popularity to take Hamas 
on; President Abbas was "not another Arafat" and was having a 
hard enough time dealing with the legacy of corruption within 
the PA and trying to counter disgruntled Fatah cadres who had 
lost their meal tickets in the PA.  Qasrawi pointed out that 
Israeli measures were only one of the factors causing Hamas 
to gain popularity; its social welfare network and reputation 
for incorruptibility were at least equally important.  The 
only hope for the PA, then, would be to reform and become 
more popular than Hamas.  Fatah, too, would have to 
democratize, leaving behind its historic role as a one-man 
show centering around Arafat.  Qasrawi noted that there was 
strong rhetorical support for Hamas even in Jordan, though he 
did not believe that they had any organization in the refugee 
camps of Jordan. 
 
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IRAQ 
---- 
 
6. (C) Qasrawi had definite ideas on ways in which he thought 
the situation in Iraq might be improved.  Most important, he 
felt, was the continued transfer of policing duties from the 
American soldiers to Iraqis.  Yes, Iraqi policemen could be 
brutal and had recently been savaged in an article in The 
Economist; nonetheless, Iraqis preferred dealing with them to 
dealing with the Americans.  The more the U.S. army lowered 
its profile, the further the demands for a timetable for 
withdrawal would recede.  The Sunnis were already more 
concerned about getting a "more-than-fair" voice on the 
constitutional drafting committee than about a timetable. 
 
7. (C) A second measure the U.S. should take, according to 
Qasrawi, was an acceleration of its reconstruction program 
with a focus on visible projects.  Such a measure would 
isolate the terrorists in Iraq, of which Qasrawi's Iraqi 
counterparts believed 80% were foreign. 
 
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IRAN 
---- 
 
8. (C) Qasrawi stated that while the recent election of 
Ahmedinejad as president had been a bad sign, it was not a 
completely unexpected occurrence.  Nobody had really been 
excited about Rafsanjani, and once the suspect first round of 
elections had narrowed the field to two candidates, Qasrawi 
said, he had predicted a victory for Ahmedinejad.  The 
Ahmedinejad victory, however, was not good for either Iraq or 
the Palestinians.  The ill effects of the election on the 
latter had been seen recently in Hizbullah-provoked incidents 
that could not have happened without the connivance of the 
Iranians.  Iran, Qasrawi said, did not care about the welfare 
of the Palestinians even at the popular level - but this fact 
only made them more dangerous, because they could play the 
issue in pursuit of purely cynical goals. 
 
9. (C) Qasrawi was equally pessimistic about the prospects 
for stopping the Iranian nuclear program.  Iran, he said, 
wanted to regain its role as the primary regional force, 
which it had lost in the Iran-Iraq War.  The nuclear program 
was one issue that the entire country could agree on; even 
liberal Iranians would not criticize it.  Therefore, even the 
likely European backlash against Iran in the wake of the 
election would not be enough to deter the Iranian leadership 
from using the program to unite the people behind them. 
 
10. (U) Puneet Talwar cleared this cable. 
HALE