Abstract
In what was seen as a setback for the cause of reform, in early October 2008
King Abdullah replaced
Basem Awadallah, who had been his closest reform
adviser, appointing instead Nasser al-Lozi, a former
minister from a
prominent tribal family. Awadallah, a US-educated 43-year old technocrat of
Palestinian
origin, had been seen as an outsider by the traditional
conservative establishment. They feared he was
seeking to give the
monarchy wider powers and to set up a parallel administration that would
interfere
with the day to day running of the government. There were also
concerns that on Awadallah’s advice the
privatisation programme was
being pushed faster and further than approved by parliament. On the
political front, there were rumours that the adviser backed a plan to merge
Jordan with the Palestinian
West Bank, if a peace agreement between Israel
and the Palestinians could not be achieved. Awadallah
denied these claims.
Officials cited by news agency AFP said that Jordan ‘strongly opposes
all American
or Israeli attempts to merge it with a part of the West
Bank’. The conservative ‘old guard’ was seen as
being
particularly strong in the country’s powerful intelligence agency. King
Abdullah, for his part, made
his closeness to Awadallah clear in a letter
accepting his resignation. The officially-released text said ‘As
you
leave your post… I tell you that you will always be the subject of my
respect and will remain close to
me as you have always been’.
Jordan continues to perform a regional diplomatic, defence, and security
balancing act. Under King
Abdullah the country remains an important US
ally in the Middle East, quietly lobbying the US
administration to coax
the main regional players towards an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement,
which
still remains a distant prospect. Alignment with Washington carries
both benefits (not least over half a
billion dollars in annual economic
and military assistance) but also costs. Supporting the US military
intervention in neighbouring Iraq has been at times a diplomatically lonely
affair. It also exposed Jordan
to attack from al-Qaeda and other Islamist
extremists, most notably in the Amman hotel bombings of
November 2005,
which left scores of Jordanian dead and injured. In domestic politics the
government
also faces dilemmas. Minded in principle to move towards a more
open political system, the King and his
officials now fear that relaxation
will benefit the opposition Islamic Action Front (IAF), the political wing
of the Muslim Brotherhood. As in Egypt, the government cannot make its mind up
if the Brotherhood is a
legitimate political movement or the thin edge of
a wedge that leads to fundamentalism and sectarian
violence.
Increased
US military aid has supplemented Jordan’s traditionally low military
expenditure. Such aid has
accelerated Amman’s modernisation
programme through the provision of advanced military exports to
Jordan and
foreign investment in its defence industry. Jordan’s indigenous defence
industry provides the
country’s armed forces with many of its
defence requirements, and represents a respectable upgrade
capability that
is attracting attention across the region and increasingly into the global
arena. Production
aside, Jordan is a recipient of an extensive range of
advanced Western military hardware.
In such a volatile region, King
Abdullah is well advised to hold his current course. He must maintain
good
relations with the West and keep a lid on the country’s Islamists
without losing the support of the
Jordanian people. While in favour with
the West, Jordan is likely to continue to develop its military
relationship with the US. US military aid has accelerated extensive
modernisation programmes, especially
for the Jordanian Air Force, which
would otherwise be hampered by the need to maintain low operational
costs.
If all continues as planned, and Jordan welcomes international investment in
its defence industry,
the Kingdom could be set to become a significant
player in the region.
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