Israel Matzav

Jordan's King Abdullah and the Muslim Brotherhood

Jordan's King Abdullah is between a rock and a hard place in dealing with Jordan's Muslim Brotherhood.

But if today's volatile Middle East is the new normal, Admiral Mullen's presence may do little to prevent instability in Jordan. Contagious political protests have emboldened the monarchy's existing opponents. For the first time since "Black September," when Palestinians tried to hijack the country in the early 1970s, a small but growing group of anti-regime Jordanian activists openly seek to end the monarchy. Their new websites allege human-rights abuses, corruption, and worse. Meanwhile, 36 influential tribal patriarchs have warned of an uprising if the King's wife Queen Rania, who is of Palestinian descent, continues to build "power centers" that threaten the traditional Hashemite leaders.

But it is Jordan's Muslim Brotherhood, known as the Islamic Action Front (IAF), that may be best poised to stir up popular unrest. In Jordan, as in Egypt, these Islamists are well organized. The king, seeking to stave off a crisis, met with the IAF earlier this month for the first time in nearly a decade. The group opposes the king's recent appointment of Prime Minister Marouf al-Bakhit, who they rightly note does not qualify as a reformer. More importantly, the IAF seeks to amend Jordan's election laws. This is where King Abdullah skates on thin ice.

If the law is amended, the IAF could regain significant parliamentary power, and possibly even a majority. The IAF could then challenge secular Jordanian laws, the king's economic ties with the U.S., and Jordan's unpopular peace with Israel.

Then again, if the king keeps the country's election laws as they are, the IAF could intensify its protests and prompt the King to suppress them with force, thereby weakening the regime's credibility and international standing.

Read the whole thing.

Jordan is yet another country where we made peace with the leader and not with the people. On top of that, Abdullah is nowhere near as warm to us as his father Hussein was.

What could go wrong?

Labels: Jordanian King Abdullah, Jordanian-Israeli peace treaty, Muslim Brotherhood

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 8:27 PM