L.A. Times Article!!! Jordan's Fate

This is an article posted in the L.A. Times on October 1st, 2006.
Apparently the writer has a somewhat less optimistic view on the Fate of Jordan, but who are we to judge what is the fate of a country. Comments anyone??? I might have a few.

Here it is...

Jordan's King Risks Shah's Fate, Critics Warn
Abdullah II, who has closely allied himself with the U.S., is accused by reformers and traditionalists alike of alienating his people.
By Borzou Daragahi, Times Staff WriterOctober 1, 2006

AMMAN, Jordan — A politically inexperienced king takes control of a Middle Eastern monarchy from his powerful father, surrounds himself with U.S. military hardware and spies, loses touch with his people and is finally ejected in a popular uprising. That was the tale of Mohammed Reza Shah Pahlavi, the pro-American ruler of Iran whose ouster ushered in the reign of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and three decades of Islamic rule.
Now many in this Arab country of more than 5 million people fear that a similar fate could befall King Abdullah II, the Jordanian monarch who assumed power after his charismatic father died in 1999. "Until now in Amman we don't have a Khomeini," said one mid-ranking official serving the Jordanian Cabinet. "If there was a Khomeini, then this family would be in trouble." The king's father, Hussein, deftly balanced his country's contradictory pressures. He paid respects to the conservative East Bank tribes' demands for stability while also attending to calls from the nation's more cosmopolitan majority Palestinians for democratic change. But critics on both sides of the Jordanian divide say the 44-year-old king has failed to garner popular support. Descendants of the tribes that are the monarchy's base criticize the king for failing to abide by tribal customs and losing touch with his supporters. They whisper the name of Abdullah's popular younger brother, Hamzeh. Palestinian groups and activists fear that the government in Amman has gotten too close to Washington, has adopted the Bush administration's with-us-or-against-us worldview too thoroughly and is sliding on human rights and democracy.
"King Hussein was an artist," said Ivan Eland, for 17 years a staff member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and now an analyst at the Oakland-based Independent Institute, a think tank. "He was roundly criticized for supporting Saddam [Hussein] in the first Gulf War. But in retrospect, he looked pretty smart. "The son has gotten more in bed with the United States," he added. "He hasn't been distancing himself from American policy. That has put him in a hole he hasn't been able" to get out of.Numerous parallels exist between the shah's rule and that of Abdullah. Like the shah's SAVAK security and intelligence service, Jordan's General Intelligence Department, now in a new hilltop complex in an Amman suburb, operates as a "subdivision" of the CIA, said Alexis Debat, a former French Defense Ministry official who is a counter-terrorism consultant and a senior fellow at the Nixon Center in Washington. By Debat's estimates, the Jordanian intelligence agency receives at least $20 million a year in U.S. funding for operations and liaison work. "They're doing all the legwork for the CIA," he said. The Jordanians have become one of Washington's closest allies in the intelligence-gathering business, second only to Britain's MI6, counter-intelligence experts say. They are closer to the CIA than the Mossad, Israel's much-touted intelligence agency, which is considered to have too much of an agenda of its own to be completely reliable, Debat said. Like the Iran of the 1970s, Jordan has become a receptacle of U.S. interests and trade. American aid to the kingdom has totaled $3.59 billion over the last five years, compared with $1.36 billion during the previous five years, according to the Congressional Research Service. Like the shah's regime, the Jordanian monarchy has surrounded itself with American hardware. Just before Hussein's death, Amman took delivery of 16 advanced F-16 fighter jets. "That was a sort of threshold that Jordan crossed," said Michael R. Fischbach, a professor of history at Randolph-Macon College in Virginia. "They got truly advanced weaponry. It made Jordan have aircraft on par with Israel."
U.S.-made military hardware abounds on Jordan's streets. Jordanian soldiers carrying American-made M-16 assault rifles and riding in olive-green U.S.-made Humvees watch over sensitive military and political sites in Amman, the capital. Convoys of U.S. military transport trucks move in and out of the country.Perhaps most controversially, say Amnesty International and other human rights groups, Jordan has become an important nexus in U.S. intelligence's subterranean "renditions" network, in which terrorism suspects are secretly detained and interrogated in countries with blemished human rights records. Jordanian officials deny participation in the program. Many worry that bolstering Jordanian security forces amid widespread reports of abuses against detainees has hampered the country's baby steps toward democratization. "The security forces are improving at the cost of democracy," said Hamzeh Mansur, a leader of the Islamic Action Front, the main Islamist parliamentary bloc. Jordanian officials say the security apparatus has been ramped up and civil liberties laws tightened out of fear the country will become a staging ground for secretive cells plotting violent operations in Iraq, Israel and the Palestinian territories. Jordan has also been victimized by terrorism, including the Nov. 9, 2005, bombings of three Amman hotels that killed dozens. "You have to combat terrorism while it's in its planning stage," said Nasser Joudeh, a government spokesman. "We will not allow Jordan to be used as a scene for any activity relating to non-Jordanian problems. We will not allow anyone to bring militant or extremist ideas into Jordan or export them elsewhere." But the Hashemite kingdom's evident close ties with Washington and its leap into the U.S.-declared war on terrorism threaten to put the government on what some call a collision course with many of its people, especially in light of a sharp increase in anti-American sentiment after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 and Israel's recent bombing of Lebanon in the Jewish state's war against Shiite Muslim militants.

"Being darlings of the U.S. is considered bad, bad, bad," said a Western analyst based in Jordan who requested anonymity.Jordanian government officials say the security forces have become less heavy-handed in their approach. "I am liberal-minded," said Maj. Gen. Mohammed Dahabi, the chief of Jordanian intelligence, who says he was appointed in December with a mandate to clean up the service's reputation as well as confront the growing threat of Islamic militants in neighboring Iraq and the West Bank.
However, confronted by the recent allegations of torture, the officials acknowledge that the past casts a long shadow on the country. "Old habits die hard," said Dahabi, who represents a segment of the tribal-dominated security forces that strongly supports the king. Few publicly speak out against the king because of a law that can be used to prosecute those who do. "Criticisms of the king and the intelligence forces are strictly taboo and carry serious penalties," says a January 2006 Human Rights Watch report. "Articles of the penal code criminalize speech slandering public officials, criticizing the king and his family, and harming relations with other states." But Abdullah has emboldened a legion of critics among the country's tradition-minded tribes that are the backbone of the monarchy. "He talks about information technology and foreign investment, but he doesn't really know his own people," said the government official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of his sensitive position within the Cabinet. "The tribes are very upset with him," said the Western analyst in Amman."The impression is that he's too Westernized."Many critics say the monarch has been too busy pursuing a Western agenda instead of forging ahead with a vision for uniting the country, which remains divided between the powerful tribes and the numerous Jordanian nationals of Palestinian descent. "He has ambitions to make Jordan a modern country," said Jean-Robert Leguey-Feilleux, a scholar of Middle East politics, diplomacy and terrorism at St. Louis University. "You can't do that without the support of the people."
daragahi@latimes.comTimes staff writer Josh Meyer in Washington contributed to this report.


Here are some of my thoughts, which might be of interest to our friend...

We all know that, as far as humanity is concerned, boundries and resources have always been on the top of the list of causes leading to disputes and wars. Nations had to seek as much power as possible in order ensure their survival within their designated areas, and alliances seemed to be a very logical move to most nations.

Jordan had a long history within a very turbulant geographical region in the middle east. Each of the nations around us as Jordanians had to make through their leaders certain strategic decisions that would eventually define the "fate" of their respective nations. I as a Jordanian would be proud to say that our leadership - within at least my time of 30 years- has made remarkable decisions that contributed to the well-being of our country. If we are to compare "pro's and con's" to these decisions which have decided to some extent my fate as well as that of many others, and we have seen great progress to most aspects of our live. Growth on all espects of the socio- and economic indicators on the rise, thanks to those strategic decisions that the leadership has made, part of which would be the alliances that our friend has mentioned. Jordanians are able (if willing) to live and prosper with chances offered to many, and many have prospered. Thanks to these alliances, Jordan has only created friends and no enemies. And this is prominantly seen based on comparisons to the similar countries surrounding Jordan.

Then we will ask our friend about his quoted "prominant figures". I would ask them on how they became prominant. I assure you it takes hard work, and the chances were offered to them as well as many others, and they have prospered to prominancy. All you have to do is walk through the streets of Amman and other cities, then compare on the development that has been achieved in these areas within the last 20 years, and more visbly recently.

So there are some who did not see the interest in these alliances, and how they served Jordan, but their choice of alliances led them to where they are. The long-sightedness of our leadership has to be commended. Our allies are the biggest and most powerful nations in the world, and these alliances created even more opportunities to Jordanians. The cooperation between the Jordanian government and foreign ones (our allies) has only ensured better security, more stability, more trade, and more income for many countries. We have become part of the world, just as in the cases of many others that have embraced globalization and cooperation.

But what about the people? For what is a leader without his people?

People have needs that have to be satisfied. It is true there are many dreams (realistic and unrealistic ones) that have to be satisfied as well. But what is the promise??? What is the role of the government???

What sounds better? A father that will provide a home to his children, put food on the table, have access to education, medicine, technology, and life. Or is it a promise of greatness with no visible reality? What did our otherwise "alternative" alliances have to contribute to our well-being as a nation. What access can they provide versus those of our current alliances. Let those who claim this come forward, or forever hold their peace.

Is this not the purpose of a government with wise leadership? To provide for their people, while ensuring the continuity to development and further access? Or is it just politics?

I implore all for their feedback.