Perdicaris alive or Raisuli dead!
Sometimes it’s easy to wish that the determination behind that phrase, which once was a famous byword in American popular lore, continued to govern America’s diplomacy. The reality is not so simple, though, as is the case with U.S. citizen Bassem Awadallah, who as of April 3 has been held in a Jordanian prison under dubious circumstances for a full calendar year. (As will be discussed shortly, if you bear with me.)
First, consider the lore, as further mythologized in the movie The Wind and the Lion. According to the mythology, the best and most obvious way to rescue American captives held in the Arab world is to make clear that the captors know they have become targets. In the incident involving captured U.S. citizen Ion Perdicaris in 1904, most of the country was led to believe that President Theodore Roosevelt’s pledge to kill kidnapper Mulai Ahmed er Raisuli was what eventually secured Perdicaris’s safe release. The truth was somewhat otherwise as there also were some complicated negotiations and concessions involved.
All of which is to acknowledge in advance that some situations are not entirely simple. Then again, even amid complexity, it is also true that tough talk backed by legitimate force can help protect American lives and interests. One reason that the negotiations worked in the Perdicaris incident was that Roosevelt did, after all, send U.S. warships to back up his famous ultimatum.
All of which is instructive in the case of Awadallah. While nobody should suggest that the interests of the United States would be helped by a life-or-death ultimatum, it is long past time for the Biden administration to put public, well-calibrated pressure on the Jordanian regime to secure the safe release of Awadallah. So far, entirely quiet diplomacy has utterly failed.
As noted in several columns last year, Awadallah is a U.S. citizen with Jordanian roots who rose to a high position in Jordan’s government before being accused of “sedition” for daring to engage in business negotiations in Israel that apparently displeased King Abdullah II. It is indisputable that he was tried and convicted in a Jordanian military court without being allowed to try to rebut the alleged evidence against him or to call witnesses on his own behalf. It is indisputable that Awadallah has never been allowed to meet with his American attorney, Michael J. Sullivan, the onetime head of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (and an associate of former U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft). Furthermore, Sullivan alleges, with copious reason to believe him, that Awadallah has been tortured repeatedly while in captivity.
This is intolerable. Even if Awadallah somehow did more to run afoul of the king than what is publicly known, there can be no doubt that Jordan has violated his basic human rights and the country’s own international commitment to basic, world-recognized standards of due process. And the allegations of torture, which are eminently believable, make Jordan’s behavior inexcusable.
The Biden administration has rebuffed my requests for an interview about this situation, but a Department of State spokesperson emailed this to me on “background”: “We continue to follow Mr. Awadallah’s case closely and take seriously our responsibility to assist U.S citizens abroad and we will continue to provide all appropriate consular services. We have stressed to the Jordanians the importance of fair, transparent proceedings. Consular access has been granted 15 times since April 2021, and most recently a consular officer visited on April 6, 2022.”
This is fine in that it confirms the administration is at least paying attention to the situation. But it is not nearly enough. Consider that even those “consular visits” are conducted not in private but on what surely is a recorded phone line across a glass barrier, behind which Awadallah remains in solitary confinement.
The obvious solution, as I wrote last October, is for the king to get Awadallah out of his hair by releasing him to U.S. custody with a lifetime banishment from Jordan and perhaps some sort of gag order. If Awadallah is at home with his family in the U.S. and is prohibited from a specified set of activities, he can’t possibly be a threat to King Abdullah.
It’s not as if Biden lacks leverage. Even though U.S. interests are well served by Jordan’s mostly constructive role as a “moderating” influence in the Middle East, the undeniable reality is that the U.S. is the senior partner in the relationship, with Jordan heavily dependent on U.S. aid. Moreover, the king himself has been engaged in some rather dubious financial dealings and apparent feather-nesting in palatial U.S. estates, where he spends a significant amount of time. The king now benefits from America’s generosity and perhaps a “see-no-evil” approach to his financial affairs.
Unlike in the Perdicaris case, it would be wildly inappropriate to threaten the king’s life or health. The U.S. can, though, make clear that his nation’s aid money, along with some of his own personal money, and his legal status here, is not inviolable. The message should be not just private but, as in the case of Roosevelt, very public.
Bassem Awadallah freed — or King Abdullah’s dealings under a microscope. It may not be as good a rallying cry for the public, but it would get the message across.
