I feel the weight of geography every time I visit Amman. Jordan’s fate is to adapt to it. This is difficult when your neighbor’s name is Menachem Begin, Ariel Sharon, or Benjamin Netanyahu, when your other neighbors happen to be Saddam Hussein, with his wars and recklessness, and then the factions, or Hafez al-Assad, with his quiet intrigues, followed by his son Bashar, with his arrogance and total intransigence.
It is difficult, too, when the weight of geography floods your country with refugees and threatens you with more. When it leaks al-Qaeda cells and ISIS militants into your land. For the winds and poisons of Captagon to blow from your neighbor to your territory. For missiles and drones arriving from territory that is supposed to be friendly to take you by surprise.
By virtue of its location, belonging, and memory, Jordan cannot resign itself from the Palestinian wound, which has been increasingly inflamed since “Sinwar’s Flood.” There is anxiety over the practices of the occupation in the West Bank in the offices of Jordanian officials and in their conversations. Jordan cannot ignore its relations with Iraq and the extent to which the “factions” comply with the principles of good neighborliness. During the American-Israeli war on Iran, some Iraqi factions did not withhold “gifts” to Jordan. One day, they struck a radar at a Jordanian army post that does not host American forces. The military submitted the report to the supreme commander, King Abdullah II, noting options for retaliation. The king instructed the government to contact the Iraqi authorities and avoid slipping into an exchange of blows that would complicate relations between the two brotherly countries.
The idea of the weight of geography haunted me even more this time because I was returning from a dinner during which sirens blared: missiles were preparing to cross the airspace and that Jordanian missiles were preparing to intercept them. The truth is that, for many years, Jordan has stood on the line of contact with Iran, which has failed to consolidate itself in Jordan as it did in Syria and Lebanon. Jordan rejected Iran’s “tourism” offers, which began with the restoration of religious shrines. Its security services diligently foiled attempts at infiltration through third parties. Jordan held to its sovereignty even when, for years, it lived between “Soleimani’s armies” in Iraq and Syria. I noticed that the restaurant’s patrons were not alarmed by the sirens; in recent months, Jordan has been targeted by more than three hundred missiles and drones.
Amman has been waiting, like other capitals, for the implications of American-Iranian negotiations to become clear, amid the accompanying leaks, camouflage, and disinformation. It waited to learn whether the memorandum of understanding would provide a basis for seeking to restore stability to this region, exhausted by conflicts, interventions, and breaches. The people of the region have every right to maintain caution or patience; Iran is not about to give up on its project or its lexicon, and the Trump administration is rushing to complete the dish and time it to the mood and schedule of Mr. President. Observers, too, have the right to wait for implementation to determine whether this is merely a memorandum of misunderstanding that will lie in wait, only to reappear under other circumstances.
In Amman’s offices and political salons, stability is a word one hears more than any other. Most are inclined to believe that stability hinges on several factors.
The first factor is which Iran will emerge from the expected agreement with America. There is no doubt that Iranian officials will speak of victory over the “Great Satan.” Such rhetoric is needed to push through any agreement with America, the same America that the IRGC once dreamed of expelling from the region after sinking its ships in Gulf waters. Will Iran be satisfied with the security guarantees, financial gains, and the few regional privileges the agreement provides, or will it behave like a wounded tiger, accepting the agreement to dress its wounds of war and prepare to go back to old ways? Will the new Supreme Leader, who needs to consolidate legitimacy, agree to purge the “death to America” rhetoric from the discourse and to enter into an open-ended truce with the “cancerous tumor” that his predecessors had demanded be eradicated? And do the leaders of the IRGC fear that lowering the temperature could fuel domestic demands, including the desire to live in a normal state preoccupied with development, progress, and adapting to the age?
The conduct of some pro-Iran factions has led some Iraqis to focus their attention on what their country will become in the coming stage. It is clear that the Jordanian side is ready to engage positively with Ali al-Zaidi’s government, which is finding its footing as it dreams of “confining weapons” and repairing investment relations with the “Great Satan.” Jordan has taken a positive approach with the governments of Mohammed Shia al-Sudani and Mustafa al-Kadhimi, but attacks by factions left disappointment. If the question of which Iraq will emerge preoccupies Jordan, it is only natural that it should also preoccupy the Arab Gulf states, which have likewise received the factions’ gifts.
If Jordan is waiting to see which Iran will emerge after the Iranian-American agreement, and which Iraq will take shape, it is also asking: which Israel will emerge after the general elections in the coming months? It is clear that Jordan is deeply concerned by Netanyahu’s policy in the West Bank, especially the policies of ministers under the cloak of his government, foremost among them Ben-Gvir and Smotrich. Netanyahu’s insistence on continuing this aggressive pursuit of domination was entrenched after the Sinwar Flood in Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, and Syria- this is a source of immense anxiety in Amman. However, the elections also raise a difficult question: would any alternative to Netanyahu be much more than a cosmetic adjustment to policies that do not differ in essence, given Israeli society’s continued shift toward the right and extremism.
Which Iran? Which Iraq? Which Israel? These are difficult questions that also concern Lebanon, suspended on the ropes of the region. They also concern Syria, which will long be occupied with dressing the wounds of its economy and all the other wounds left behind by the “Assad era.” It is difficult to speak of stability without knowing Israel’s borders. And it is difficult, too, without knowing Iran’s borders.
