AhlulBayt News Agency (ABNA): Military aids and arms sales to various countries, along with establishment of military bases, have always been among the American instruments for advancing Washington's foreign policy. Jordan, meanwhile, in recent years has become one of the main destinations of the American military aids.
The military aids to this small country in 2020 reached $500 million and in 2021 the country was the third destination of the annual American military aids.
The State Department's Bureau of Political-Military Affairs announced in a tweet on Sunday that it is processing a deal to sell F-16 fighter jets to Jordan worth $4.21 billion. According to the US State Department, the deal is fully funded by the US government and is part of foreign military assistance programs.
This significant military aid comes at a time when the White House has recently refused to offer military aids to another of its key allies in the region, Egypt. During his campaign addresses, Joe Biden pledged to focus his foreign policy on defending human rights and democracy abroad. In February 2021, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken stated that Washington would ensure that "those who commit human rights abuses are held accountable." However, why is Jordan excluded from the White House's restrictions?
The State Department's 2020 human rights report on Jordan referred to cases of cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment as well as arbitrary punishment and detention of activists and journalists. When it comes to democracy, the situation in Jordan is not better than in Egypt. Parliament has little real power, and the King Abdullah II plays a dominant role in government, including the power for removing and appointing prime ministers. Last year, the Jordanian judiciary outlawed the Muslim Brotherhood, the most important political faction of the opposition, in a controversial step.
Biden's foreign policy priorities on Jordan
The US-Jordan relationship went frayed under Donald Trump as the latter cracked down on the Palestinians and put aside the Arab-proposed two-state initiative. Trump policies resulted in reduced Jordanian role in the Palestinian developments. But Biden has chosen to rebuild ties with Amman, with Biden administration never publicly criticizing the Jordanian monarch for his media censorship and mass arrest of the opposition figures despite Washington's human rights advocacy claims.
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in an article published in September last year wrote: " "Stability in its decades-long relationship with Jordan will be a priority [for Washington], because the Biden government cannot leave out another close ally."
The Taliban takeover in Afghanistan and Jordan Muslim Brotherhood's congratulation to the group for victory over the "barbarous US occupation" ringed the alarms for the White House. Having in mind that the Brotherhood strongly favors the Taliban, the Jordanian king very likely would face no consequences from the Americans trying to crackdown on the Islamist movement.
It seems that Biden has decided not to put strains on Amman for human rights abuses and instead embarked on helping solidify King Abdullah rule and defend the strategic American interests in Jordan.
Jordan now hosts about 3,000 American troops, and it was one of the first Arab countries to normalize relations with the Israeli regime in 1994. Israeli security is a top American priority in the region.
The American attention to Jordan is inevitably influenced by its position in the the US strategy to scale down its military presence in West Asia. Although the US seeks to reduce its military presence and spending, it also wishes to maintain the Israeli security, fulfill its regional obligations, and maintain its desired order in the region. Washington's goals of creating consensus via political and security mechanisms and weakening and containing the regional and international rivals in West Asia give Amman a special place in the White House's new strategy given Jordan's political stances and geopolitical position that make it a buffer zone among Syria, Iraq, and the occupied Palestinian territories.
Also, generally, military bases in Jordan can provide appropriate support for the American forces across West Asia, enabling the US to guard against anti-American attacks on the hand and use Jordan's geopolitical position to protect its allies in an emergency on the other hand. Particularly, the American forces and their bases in Jordan are part of the Washington's regional policy to protect the very Israeli existence.
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