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Foreign Confidential ™

Foreign News and Analysis Since April 2005 -- formerly China Confidential -- What's Happening in the World

Saturday, October 06, 2012

 

Islamists Pressure Jordan's King

Will Obama Throw Abdullah Under the Bus?

Islamism is rising in Jordan--click here for the story--where Palestinians, who constitute a majority of the population, are increasingly restive as a result of the regime's apartheid policies.

Prediction: the so-called Arab Spring will soon threaten to topple the Jordanian monarch; and the Obama administration, in line with its support for the Muslim Brotherhood, will effectively embolden the Islamist insurrection, which will be led by the Egyptian-based Muslim Brotherhood but will also include even more extreme, so-called Salafist elements, including, as was the case in Libya and as in the case in Syria, outright Al Qaeda sympathizers.

Endnote: Jordan is Palestine, of course--that is to say, most of historic Palestine. But an Islamist/Palestinian overthrow of the pro-Western regime would be a menacing development for both Israel, with which Jordan has been at peace since 1994, and the United States, Jordan's longtime ally. On the one hand, the King's ouster would put an end to the irrational international obsession with creating a third Arab state in historic Palestine, after Jordan and the de facto, Hamas-ruled Gaza mini-state; on the other hand, the Muslim Brotherhood would most likely take power in Amman, following the (Obama-assisted) Egyptian model. Should that happen, Israel would be faced with three Islamist neighbors, including Hezbollah-run Lebanon and assuming Gaza links up with the new Jordan-Palestine. Make that four, should the U.S.-aided Islamist overthrow of the Syrian regime put the Muslim Brotherhood in power in Damascus, capital of Israel's still secular, but steadily Islamizing other northern neighbor.

The Islamist encirclement of Israel is proceeding--and accelerating--thanks in large measure to the Obama administration's alignment with rightwing political Islam. Under political cover of decimating Al Qaeda and killing its leader, the monster Osama Bin Laden (will Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney explain this during the next Presidential campaign debate?), the administration has narrowed the definition of the Islamist enemy to the terrorist group alone while appeasing and engaging or attempting to engage (collaborate with) practically all other Islamist organizations and regimes, including Islamist-led Turkey--Iran's imperialist rival--which is aiming to revive the Ottoman Empire.

Even if current events in Iran lead to a "Persian Spring," the administration (assuming it is or remains in power when and if this happens) is more likely to support reform rather than revolution in Iran. Real regime change is not favored by the administration, which believes in oxymoronic "moderate" radical (rightwing political) Islam, regarding the clerical fascist creed as fundamentally (no pun intended) unstoppable and inherently progressive--a force that is somehow on the right (again, no pun intended) side of history, in sync with its "moral arc," etc.

# posted by Confidential Reporter

Friday, October 05, 2012

 

The Case for Real Deterrence

On deterring Iran from developing nuclear weapons. Read the essay here.

Another point: there needs to be truly meaningful deterrence against an anonymous atomic attack. The President of the United States should let the nation's enemies know that if it is ever struck by a nuclear weapon of any kind, retaliation--using nuclear weapons--will be immediate and automatic. All suspect nations will be obliterated.