"Jordan first": Jordan's inter-Arab relations and foreign policy under King Abdullah II

Arab Studies Quarterly (ASQ), Summer, 2004 by Curtis R. Ryan

      For our relations with Syria, it's natural it would get
   better because the two old pillars have disappeared and with
   that came two new leaders, without the same inhibitions. And
   they're the same age and generation ... Now, Jordan has
   diluted its role in the region. There is no clear role to play
   now. It used to be that good relations with Syria meant Iraq
   was angry with you, or good relations with Egypt and Saudi
   Arabia was angry with you. But with Jordan's diminishing
   role and the disengagement from the Palestinian cause and
   issue, and the real and genuine acceptance that Ararat and the
   PLO or PNA represents the real entity called Palestine, there is
   now no reason to have a quarrel with Jordan over this. (18)

While Jordan's peace with Israel did indeed change the strategic conditions of regional politics, this is not to say that the move was met with universal acceptance. Jordanian-Syrian relations had already been strained for years, and that relationship predictably deteriorated still further following the Jordanian-Israeli Peace Treaty. The fall of 1998, for example, saw a particularly virulent barrage of attacks against Jordan within the state media in Syria, especially in a series of statements by Syrian Defense Minister Mustafa Tlas, who accused Jordan of having been entirely co-opted by Israel. Tlas managed also to jab the Hashemite regime over what he saw as an emerging Jordanian-Israeli-Turkish alliance, and he even complained of Jordan's limited commitment to the 1973 Arab-Israeli war. (19)

Following the death of King Hussein in 1999, however, the two countries' bilateral relations began to improve. In that year, both countries revived the Joint Jordanian-Syrian Higher Committee, marking the first such organized meeting in more than a decade. In 2000, King Abdullah and President Bashar al-Asad exchanged a series of state visits to each other's capitals, thereby pushing the warming trend still further. Each bilateral summit produced further evidence of cooperation, especially in trade and other economic issues.

As noted above, however, Jordan's various foreign policy links--especially those with Western countries, the Gulf monarchies, and even Israel--are not only of political but also of paramount economic importance to the regime. Jordan is dependent not only on financial aid, but also on external sources of water. That fact, for example, was an incentive in securing a peace treaty with Israel in the first place, but it is also an incentive in maintaining that treaty, and with it, access to water transported from Israel to Jordan. But even then, with droughts and politics intervening to reduce the amount of water sent from Israel, the kingdom had to turn to Syria in the summers of 1999, 2000, 2001 and 2002 for additional water supplies. The Jordanian-Syrian entente, in short, quickly proved valuable in at least partially alleviating the kingdom's chronic water shortages.

But beyond the specific questions of water supplies or indeed even of Jordanian-Syrian relations, it is clear that external ties are seen as so economically vital to the kingdom: the regime has tended to exhibit limited tolerance for domestic opposition to its foreign policy decisions. This is especially noticeable in the continuing rift between the government and the political opposition over the peace treaty with Israel. Opposition forces have continued in their campaign to halt normalization of ties with Israel, a campaign led largely by the professional associations--that is, the organizations within Jordanian civil society that represent specific professions such as pharmacists, engineers, lawyers, medical doctors, journalists, and so on. These associations in turn overlap to some extent in membership and outlook with numerous political parties, such as the Islamic Action Front and various leftist and pan-Arab nationalist parties.