ESSAY

By Murray Gart Murray Gart is a former chief of correspondents for TIME, former editor of the Washington Star and author of a forthcoming book on the Middle East.

There's nothing subtle about war, though some think of it as a form of diplomacy. It produces only extremes: winners and losers. When it ends, sweet victory's trumpeters sound off on TV and rush into print to praise the winners and tell how they did it. The losers are another matter. They suffer greatly and arouse human compassion, but who really cares? They're the objects of history, not the subjects, unless they somehow turn their defeat around.

Identifying the gulf-war losers -- Saddam Hussein, Yasser Arafat and King Hussein of Jordan -- is easy. They badly misled their people, who will pay the price for following them into trauma, tragedy and despair. Now each in his own way is fated to lose power and be remembered only as a failure. Of the three, however, Jordan's King Hussein has one last chance to recover. But he must move fast. The window of opportunity to preserve his honor and his throne will close as soon as Jordanians begin to need an outlet for their frustration. Saddam and Arafat are finished, period!

By all reckoning, the King should step down. His decision to back Saddam's fatal plunge into Kuwait was catastrophic. If the King looked at his situation clearly and not defensively, he would see that backing Saddam was sheer folly. Jordan, bereft of financial support, is depressed and dangerously unstable. Gross national product is down 50%. The population of 3 million -- 60% Palestinian -- teems with bitter, unemployed citizens and dispossessed gulf refugees. Anti-American chants in the streets of Amman will soon turn into cries for revenge. But abdication and exile are not the King's only means of escape. A far more honorable course is still open.

Hussein should summon all the dignity at his command and announce he is stepping up, not out. He should turn Jordan into a democracy by redefining the monarch's role, passing his governing powers to parliamentarians elected by his subjects, and granting them freedom to run the country. After that, he should continue to rule as England's Queen Elizabeth does -- proudly. Absolute Arab monarchies are on the downside of history's curve, and Hussein, at least, knows it. In late 1989, to the chagrin of hereditary Arab monarchs, he ordered up Jordan's first real election for seats in parliament, a body that serves only at his pleasure. His parliament is less than perfect as a vehicle for orderly transition to popular rule, but with time running out, it will have to do.

Hussein's transfer of power would have all sorts of redeeming effects. But establishing democratic government would accomplish one thing above all: it would transform Jordan into a Palestinian state. New Palestine (or whatever it got called) would be what Palestinians, and the King, have been struggling to create for two generations. Their efforts have focused on the West Bank and Gaza, unlikely places now for a Palestinian state, rather than Jordan. But the new government would reflect Jordan's bottom line: a large Palestinian majority in a nation where Palestinians control 75% of the wealth.

New Palestine would fulfill in Jordan the Palestinian statehood dreams of Arafat and the P.L.O. -- dreams that have always been beyond their grasp. Who then would need Arafat and his liberation organization to create a Palestinian state that already existed? Arafat's official power would vanish overnight. Talented Palestinian leaders brought to the fore to run Jordan would control the state. Arafat, discredited by his mindless actions of late, would have to retire and salvage what he could of his once revered status among Palestinians.

It would take courage for Hussein to democratize his country. Many loyal Jordanians would brand him a traitor. But their choices too have narrowed. If the King doesn't act, he'll lose power, leaving them without a monarch to help preserve their rights in New Palestine.

Saudi Arabia's King Fahd and Kuwait's Emir Jaber al-Sabah would be deeply distressed to find democracy and Palestine in their backyard. But they could do nothing about it. Other countries with a basic interest in the Israeli- Palestinian conflict, especially Syria and Egypt, would privately applaud Hussein.

New Palestine would send Israel into shock and generate feverish debate among Israelis. But in the end their only choice would be to face the new facts created by having a reconfigured neighbor. Given George Bush's search for a "bolder idea" than resuming efforts to bring Israel into talks to free Palestinians from military rule, a visionary move by King Hussein should quickly restore friendly relations with Washington. Who knows, Bush might even volunteer to join the King as a cheerleader for the new democratic state in the new world order.

New Palestine's prime foreign business would be to engage Israel in immediate, direct negotiations to determine how best to incorporate the West Bank and Gaza into the new state and to define the rights of Palestinians so that they could live freely where they are now, as new citizens of New Palestine with voting rights in Amman. With support and oversight from the U.S. and the Soviet Union, talks would be hard for Israel to refuse.

In advance, the issue of who represents the Palestinians would have been settled for the first time in 23 years. The negotiators would decide how to ensure Israel's security, withdraw the army of occupation, provide free access to Jerusalem's holy places and define how 1.7 million Arabs could share their West Bank and Gaza homeland with 210,000 Israeli Jews who also live in the territories.

If the King acted wisely now, he would win the applause of his friend in the White House and the world. And instead of being a king whose time ran out, Hussein would be remembered as a great peacemaker, the father of New Palestine.