Jordan hides doubts over Bush's Mideast peace drive

By Alistair Lyon, Special Correspondent - Analysis

AMMAN (Reuters) - Jordan publicly applauds U.S. President George W. Bush's late-term dip into Middle East peacemaking, but many Jordanians, including some officials, voice deep skepticism about prospects for success.

The contrast points up Jordan's curious role. It is arguably the best friend the United States and Israel have in the Arab world. Yet its people, many of Palestinian refugee origin, are broadly hostile to U.S. and Israeli policies in the region.

Jordanian officials say King Abdullah, along with other Arab leaders, had helped prod Washington last year into reviving Israeli-Palestinian peace talks that had been left to stagnate for the first seven years of Bush's presidency.

"There was a feeling that the United States was not paying any attention whatsoever to the Palestinian issue," Royal Court chief Bassem Awadallah told Reuters in an interview.

"There was no real effort by anyone in Washington to connect the dots between events in Iran, Iraq, Lebanon and Palestine."

Jordan is anxious to end a conflict it sees as fuel for Islamist militancy and for Iran and its allies to exploit.

Awadallah said King Abdullah's efforts to win renewed U.S. engagement had been closely coordinated with Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates, whose authoritarian rulers are all viewed by Washington as "moderate" Arab allies.

Breaking the ice with Damascus, the Jordanian monarch also visited Syria to urge it to attend the U.S.-hosted conference in Annapolis in November that kicked off the new peace drive.