The Iranian political regime (and not its citizens who we have supported in their fight for democracy ) have been the self-declared enemy of the West since the 1978 Islamic Revolution, when the Mullahs took over the country. They’ve repeatedly spewed hatred, issued threats and sounded entirely unstable as a result. The crazy, corrupt, election-rigging hobbit, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has talked about his plan to deliver a “telling blow” to the world’s leading powers, has mocked Obama’s attempts at dialogue, and openly expressed his desire to “wipe Israel off the map.” Even Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat expressed regret over such a statement when he declared:
“I reject his comments (Ahmadinejad’s). What we need to be talking about is adding the state of Palestine to the map, and not wiping out Israel.”
This writer’s all time favorite quote from the Iranian Hobbit includes his thoughts on the whereabouts of Osama Bin Laden:
“I heard that Osama bin Laden is in Washington DC…Yes, I did. He really is there. Because he was a previous partner of Mr. Bush. They were colleagues in fact in the old days. Everybody knows that. They were in the oil business together. They worked together. Mr. Bin Laden never cooperated with Iran, but he cooperated with Mr. Bush because they are friends.”
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei , Khomeini’s successor as the country’s “spiritual” leader, chimes in with his own rants from time to time, recently promising that Iran was set to deliver a “punch” that would stun world powers during the anniversary celebrations of the Revolution. No much happened by the way.
In the end, such statements are little more than desperate attempts by the nation’s rulers to distract attention from their domestic issues and instill hatred of the West into as many of their citizens as possible. Iran, with its incessant ramblings, has managed to unite even the United Sates and Russia (a difficult task these days) along with virtually the entire international community, in their call for Iran to stop enriching uranium in its pursuit of nuclear power.
Even if you disagree with the concept that those outside a sovereign nation can control what happens within it, one can, at the very least, see why there are those who would want to monitor Iran’s nuclear activities.
The Kingdom of Jordan, on the other hand, is a different story altogether.
Recently, a new enemy of Israel has been slowly rising. King Abdullah II has been more critical of Israel that at any other point in his reign. He open declared that Jordan was better off before his father, King Hussein, signed the now infamous 1994 peace treaty with the Israelis. In a straight forward statement this past spring the King also stated, “The political trust (with Israel) is gone.”
He was also recently quoted as saying:
“I have to say that over the past 12 months, everything I’ve seen on the ground (in terms of the Israeli / Jordanian / Palestinian relations) has made me extremely skeptical, and I’m probably one of the more optimistic people you will meet in this part of the world.”
Just last month even Queen Rania,the wife of King Abdullah, offered harsh criticism of Israel in regards to their attack on the Humanitairn Flotilla headed for Gaza – the kind of criticism that rarely emanates from the state of Jordan.
“The attack stunned the world because of its blatant and absurd disregard for anything resembling international law, human rights, and diplomatic norms. Its glaring outrageousness stunned, but didn’t surprise, me. It cannot be viewed in isolation. It is another upshot of a dogma long fermenting on Israel’s political landscape. It is a doctrine that lives for itself and off others. It survives by tapping into the subliminal and cognizant levels. It implants into public consciousness a set of tenets that see Israeli’s very existence as eternally under threat, to be defended through any means preferably through use of force to show the enemy who’s boss.”
Now what does this all have to do with Iran?
Jordan is a terribly poor country, with almost no natural resources of which to speak. The nation imports 95% of its electricity to the tune of billions of dollars per year. A recent geological discovery however, could greatly help the tiny country with its economic woes. Nearly 70,000 tons of uranium ore was found in the deserts of Jordan, and suddenly the impoverished nation finds itself laying claim to the 11th-largest deposit of uranium in the world.
Jordan is now excitedly receiving bids from the international community to build a 1,100-megawatt reactor. This would only be the first in a series of plants that would not only allow Jordan to fulfill its own energy needs, but eventually export power, at a very tidy sum, to its neighbors.
The international community, headed by the United States, is in the habit of convincing countries, most especially those in the Middle East, not to produce atomic fuel. Why? The fear is that uranium enrichment, even at its lowest levels, would lead to enrichment of high-level bomb-grade materials. Worse still, this could trigger a regional arms race within a region filled with corrupt dictators that answer to no one. By extension, American diplomats are trying to prevent Jordan from receiving the necessary technology to enrich uranium.
The United States wants Jordan to agree to the same deal the United Arab Emirates signed. Set to open a 20 billion dollar nuclear reactor, the UAE has agreed to buy uranium on the international market, as opposed to enriching it themselves. Saudi Arabia and Bahrain are also set to sign similar agreements. Why doesn’t Jordan fall into place? The difference is none of these countries have their own uranium deposits, and in the end have no other choice. Jordan does and as mentioned earlier, is sitting on top of one the largest uranium deposits in the world. Enriching it will have a great economic impact on a state in desperate need of a shot in the arm.
King Abdullah has been extremely angered by the attempts to block nuclear development and most especially, because they have no doubt resulted from Israeli pressure on the United States. The King’s recent willingness to criticize Israel is directly connected to these circumstances. The effect could very well be the destabilization of the Israeli / Jordanian relationship and by extension, the region itself. From this angle, it would in fact actually serve Israel’s best interest to support Jordan’s call to enrich its own uranium.
Jordan is a pro-Western, politically stable Arab country. They are the only Arab country to sign a peace agreement with Israel, albeit symbolic at best. Most importantly, however, Jordan signed the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, which in turn, under international law, allows participants to enrich uranium for peaceful power production. Through all the discussion, King Abdullah has expressed his complete and utter willingness for transparency on anything related to the process.
Simply put, there is no reason to deny Jordan the right to produce its own atomic energy. Doing so only suggests that no matter what a Middle Eastern leader says or does, he will always be held in suspect. This does not help peace in the region, but undermines it.
Although it will be difficult, countries need to be dealt with in a case by case set of standards, and not painted with one broad stroke of a unilateral brush. Are the international community’s concerns with Iran’s development of nuclear technology legitimate? Absolutely.
And Jordan? Absolutely not.
Jordan and its King are simply not in the same category as the crazy wacked-out mullahs of Iran and their little wannabe-Stalin, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The international community, and most especially the United States, needs to foster relationships, one country at a time, and stop packing the entire Middle East into one simplistic profile. Jordan is as good a place to start as any.
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