Word: arabia
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...week, then marched away. For a few tense days, however, the two Arab antagonists had provoked international jitters that another hot war was about to start in the Middle East. After nearly a week of intense shuttle diplomacy between Damascus and Amman to devise a face-saving formula, Saudi Arabia's Deputy Prime Minister, Prince Abdullah ibn Abdul Aziz, proudly proclaimed that his peacemaking efforts had been "crowned with success." He announced that Syria had agreed to a gradual withdrawal of the troops it had dispatched to the Jordanian border. Officials in Amman, though, were initially skeptical. Said Jordanian...
Neither side really wanted to see the squabble erupt into open battle. One reason is that the Arab world is deeply fragmented as a result of the war between Iraq and Iran. The open support of Jordan and the tacit backing of Saudi Arabia and the gulf states for Syria's archenemy, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, has left Syria feeling isolated and threatened. Some military analysts believe that one of Assad's motives in provoking the border confrontation was to blunt the possibility that Jordanian troops would be dispatched to Iraq to help in its stalemated struggle with...
...Jordanian-Syrian confrontation began just before an Arab summit in Amman two weeks ago. Assad learned that the new "moderate" axis of Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Iraq intended to attack Syria at the conference for supporting Iran, a Muslim but non-Arab nation, in the gulf war. Syria abruptly announced that it would boycott the session, and so did Algeria, Libya, South Yemen and the Palestine Liberation Organization. At the same time, Syria massed a total of 36,000 troops along the Jordanian border to show its displeasure with King Hussein. The King responded by positioning 24,000 troops...
...since neither side was believed to have any real intention of going to war. But the military face-off between former allies did serve to dramatize how the Iran-Iraq war has split the Arab camp. Arrayed on one side are the so-called moderates, led by Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Iraq; on the other side is the more radical Steadfastness Front, consisting of Syria, Algeria, Libya, South Yemen and the P.L.O.-all of which, along with Lebanon, refused to go to Amman...
...effort to act as the Arabs' honest broker-despite its own pro-Iraq leanings-Saudi Arabia tried to persuade Syria to attend, and very nearly succeeded. Crown Prince Fahd flew to Damascus shortly before the summit, TIME learned, and personally pleaded with Assad. At first the Syrian leader agreed to come, provided the conference was postponed two weeks. But when he declared his intention to condemn Iraq and to say that the war was the result of collusion among Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Jordan and the U.S., Fahd told him to stay home...