Jordan's King Sees Pitfalls in a Strike on Iraq

WASHINGTON -- Jordan's King Abdullah II is urging the Bush administration to abandon ideas of taking on the regime of Saddam Hussein, predicting that any U.S. military action against Iraq could produce an "Armageddon" in the Middle East.

In a telephone interview as he arrived in California for a visit that began this weekend, Abdullah warned that a U.S.-led operation could too easily go "completely awry" and even backfire, producing a civil war in Iraq that could involve neighboring countries--and even have a ripple effect in the United States and Europe.

"It's the potential Armageddon of Iraq that worries all of us, and that's where common sense would say, 'Look, this is a tremendously dangerous road to go down,' " Abdullah said in his first interview since Vice President Dick Cheney visited him last week to discuss Iraq and the Israeli-Palestinian crisis. "If our aim is to win against terrorism, we can't afford more instability in the area." The king's words were blunter than a Jordanian government statement after the Cheney meeting. And coming from one of the closest U.S. allies in the Arab world, his warnings are particularly ominous as the Bush administration begins sorting through the options in its pledge to confront Hussein as part of the next stage in the war on terrorism.