Is it any wonder?
Jordan asked Nixon to attack Syria according to 10,000 papers released by the Nixon Library in recently declassified papers. We have heard so much of how the U.S. is recently intruding into the Middle East but as these recently declassified papers show, the U.S. was more intimately involved, and more reluctant to commit troops to the Middle East, than the pundits would allow.
King Hussein urged a U.S. strike on invading Syrian troops in 1970 but Nixon did not agree and the attack was never launched.
Nixon, ever the "realist" in foreign affairs wisely cautioned the Saudis to distance themselves from the PLO's Fatah organization. All the Saudis have done in the meantime is to foster their own brand of financial fanaticism in the form of Wahabism.
Nixon apparently had concerns about some of the terrorist issues which plague us today.
One of the things revealed in the documents is that there was a move to get the Saudis more involved in solving the growing terrorist problem.
A 1973 diplomatic cable cites this objective: "isolate and undermine terrorisms [sic] and commandos [sic] by establishing another, more stable and respectable Palestinian political entity and political personality."
Nixon accepted the fact that Israel possessed nuclear weapons in 1969.
And in these troubled days, a telegram from Hussein reveals that he contacted the U.S. at 3 a.m. to ask for American or British help. "Situation deteriorating dangerously following Syrian massive invasion...," the document said. "I request immediate physical intervention both land and air ... to safeguard sovereignty, territorial integrity and independence of Jordan. Immediate air strikes on invading forces from any quarter plus air cover are imperative."
The documents reveal American involvement at a deeper level and during a time when the world was unaware that Middle Eastern leaders appealed to the U.S. for assistance. It becomes clearer that Bush hardly can be accused of jumping in too quickly in Iraq. The Eisenhower Doctrine initiated the principle and reason for U.S. involvement in the Middle East. Nixon was asked to be involved in Jordan. Bush the First led the U.S. in Persian Gulf I. In this light, the Iraq War is more of a continuum, rather than an exception.
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