atlssa
FULL MEMBER
- Joined
- Mar 5, 2014
- Messages
- 220
- Reaction score
- 0
- Country
- Location
Turmoil in the Arab World — The JORDAN factor — Middle East News — Medium
and how Israrel could get dragged into ISIS’s War
Published: July 9, 2014
ISIS militants / Reuters
THE ARAB world is in turmoil. Syria and Iraq are breaking apart, the thousand-year old conflict between Muslim Sunnis and Muslim Shiites is reaching a new climax.
The rise of ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Al Sham) in Iraq and Syria is a source of major concern across the Middle East. The Islamist group’s ambition to create an Islamic state is not limited to Iraq and Syria, as confusion over its name may suggest. Rather, a seizure of power in Jordan would fit in with ISIS’ ultimate aim of creating an Islamic state straddling Iraq and Al Sham, an Arabic term that has, over time, come to mean an area in the Middle East encompassing Iraq and Syria but also Jordan, Israel, the Palestinian Territories and Lebanon. Together, it forms what historians call the Fertile Crescent, the green region around the top of the desolate Arab desert.
For most of history, the Fertile Crescent was one country, part of successive empires. Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, Arabs, Ottomans and many others kept them united, until two foreign gentlemen, Sir Mark Sykes and M. Francois Georges- Picot, set about cutting them up according to their own imperial interests. This happened during World War I, which was set in motion by an assassination that happened 100 years ago.
With sublime disregard for the peoples, ethnic origins and religious identities, Sykes and Picot created national states where no nations existed. They and their successors, notably Gertrude Bell, T.E. Lawrence and Winston Churchill, put together three quite different communities and created “Iraq”, importing a foreign king from Mecca.
“Syria” was allotted to the French. An imperial commissioner took a map and a pencil and drew a border in the middle of the desert between Damascus and Baghdad. The French then cut Syria up into several small statelets for the Sunnis, Alawites, Druze, Maronites etc.. Later they created Greater Lebanon, where they set up a system that installed Maronite Christians on top of the despised Shiites.
The Kurds, a real nation, were cut up into four parts, each of which was allotted to a different country. In Palestine, a Zionist “national home” was planned in the middle of a hostile Arab population. The country beyond the Jordan was cut off to provide a principality for another Emir from Mecca.
This is the world in which we grew up, and which is crumbling now.
What ISIS is trying to do now is simply to eradicate all these borders. In the process, they are laying bare the basic Sunni-Shiite divide, and for that they’ve already declared an Islamic Caliphate.
One of the ideas discussed by the Caliph Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi envisages focusing ISIS’s efforts on Jordan, where Islamist movements already have a significant presence. Jordan was also chosen because it has shared borders with Iraq and Syria, making it easier for the terrorists to infiltrate the kingdom.
A Jordanian soldier near the Al-Karameh border point with Iraq on June 25, 2014. / Photo by AFPJordanian political analyst Oraib al-Rantawi sounded alarm bells by noting that the ISIS threat to move its fight to the kingdom was real and imminent.
A Jordanian ISIS terrorist wearing a suicide bomb belt and holding his Jordanian passport declares his willingness to wage jihad in an ISIS video. (Image source: All Eyes on Syria YouTube video)The ISIS terrorists see Jordan’s Western-backed King Abdullah as an enemy of Islam and an infidel, and have publicly called for his execution. ISIS terrorists recently posted a video on YouTube in which they threatened to “slaughter” Abdullah, whom they denounced as a “tyrant.” Some of the terrorists who appeared in the video were Jordanian citizens who tore up their passports in front of the camera and vowed to launch suicide attacks inside the kingdom.
This is a logical next step for ISIS in achieving their goals of an Islamic Caliphate across parts of the Middle East. The reportedly small number of ISIS fighters presently in Jordan may be the first stumbling block for ISIS to overcome, but reports of money flooding into Jordan to rectify this ‘problem’ presents immense concern not only for Jordan and the USA but also Israel.
Israel’s concern towards ISIS and the situation is two-fold:
First, any potential rise of ISIS in Jordan represents another Islamist group on the Israeli border. Along with the presence of ISIS in Syria already, this development increases the scope for terrorist attacks within Israel and the possibility of facing ISIS as a military threat. Calls to “liberate Palestine” are nothing new for Israel to deal with and it fits in with the ultimate aim of ISIS, whose territorial claims extend across Israel and to Jerusalem, known as ‘al Quds’ to Muslims. It is not clear that ISIS has the military capability to seriously threaten the IDF (Israeli Defence Force). However, Israeli security is threatened by any group with the ability to launch attacks against its civilians and whilst the “liberation” of Palestine may not be a realistic aim of ISIS, Jordan is an effective springboard to launch terrorist attacks against Israel from.
Secondly, the rise of ISIS across Iraq and Syria has prompted what is unthinkable in Israeli eyes — support for Iran. The UK has deemed circumstances ‘right’ to reopen its Iranian embassy, whilst discussions are on-going between Iran and the USA on how to respond to the crisis. What, therefore, is clear is that, from an Israeli perspective, it is not just the rise of yet another Islamist group on its border that is of concern, it is the unlikely bedfellows that this rise has seemingly “forced”.
Israel, at the moment, seems content to let ISIS, Iran and Assad’s forces weaken each other. This is what Netanyahu means when he suggests that the USA should weaken both Iran and ISIS — let them fight it out, without offering support to either. Perhaps paradoxically, the rise of ISIS in Iraq and Syria has weakened Israeli enemies in Assad. The rise of ISIS in Jordan, however, would change this somewhat. The presence of ISIS on two of Israel’s borders is of obvious concern. Should ISIS become a serious force in Jordan, the Israeli response is likely to be a swift mobilization of Israeli troops in the territory surrounding the River Jordan.
If ISIS were to draw Israel into the regional conflict it would make the region’s strange politics even stranger. In Iraq and Syria, Israel’s arch nemesis, Iran, is fighting ISIS. Israel, on the other hand, has used its air force from time to time to bomb Hezbollah positions in Syria and Lebanon, the Lebanese militia aligned with Iran. If Israel were to fight against ISIS in Jordan, it would become a de facto ally of Iran, a regime dedicated to its destruction.
But Jordan is also an important ally for Israel. It is one of two countries (along with Egypt) to have a peace treaty with the Jewish state. Jordanian security forces help patrol the east bank of the Jordan River that borders Israel and both countries share intelligence about terrorist groups in the region.
For now the one thing Iran and Israel do agree on is that U.S. intervention in Iraq is risky. Khamenei has told Obama to just stay out. Netanyahu was more subtle, warning that Obama should not promise Iran anything in the nuclear negotiations that might entice its cooperation in Iraq. His advice was for Obama to weaken both sides.
But behind the scenes, Israeli diplomats have told their American counterparts that Israel would be prepared to take military action to save the Hashemite Kingdom.
Thomas Sanderson, the co-director for transnational threats at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said Israel and the United States view the survival of the Jordanian monarchy as a paramount national security objective.
Turmoil in the Arab World — The JORDAN factor — Middle East News — Medium
and how Israrel could get dragged into ISIS’s War
Published: July 9, 2014
ISIS militants / Reuters
THE ARAB world is in turmoil. Syria and Iraq are breaking apart, the thousand-year old conflict between Muslim Sunnis and Muslim Shiites is reaching a new climax.
The rise of ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Al Sham) in Iraq and Syria is a source of major concern across the Middle East. The Islamist group’s ambition to create an Islamic state is not limited to Iraq and Syria, as confusion over its name may suggest. Rather, a seizure of power in Jordan would fit in with ISIS’ ultimate aim of creating an Islamic state straddling Iraq and Al Sham, an Arabic term that has, over time, come to mean an area in the Middle East encompassing Iraq and Syria but also Jordan, Israel, the Palestinian Territories and Lebanon. Together, it forms what historians call the Fertile Crescent, the green region around the top of the desolate Arab desert.
For most of history, the Fertile Crescent was one country, part of successive empires. Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, Arabs, Ottomans and many others kept them united, until two foreign gentlemen, Sir Mark Sykes and M. Francois Georges- Picot, set about cutting them up according to their own imperial interests. This happened during World War I, which was set in motion by an assassination that happened 100 years ago.
“Syria” was allotted to the French. An imperial commissioner took a map and a pencil and drew a border in the middle of the desert between Damascus and Baghdad. The French then cut Syria up into several small statelets for the Sunnis, Alawites, Druze, Maronites etc.. Later they created Greater Lebanon, where they set up a system that installed Maronite Christians on top of the despised Shiites.
The Kurds, a real nation, were cut up into four parts, each of which was allotted to a different country. In Palestine, a Zionist “national home” was planned in the middle of a hostile Arab population. The country beyond the Jordan was cut off to provide a principality for another Emir from Mecca.
This is the world in which we grew up, and which is crumbling now.
What ISIS is trying to do now is simply to eradicate all these borders. In the process, they are laying bare the basic Sunni-Shiite divide, and for that they’ve already declared an Islamic Caliphate.
One of the ideas discussed by the Caliph Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi envisages focusing ISIS’s efforts on Jordan, where Islamist movements already have a significant presence. Jordan was also chosen because it has shared borders with Iraq and Syria, making it easier for the terrorists to infiltrate the kingdom.
A Jordanian soldier near the Al-Karameh border point with Iraq on June 25, 2014. / Photo by AFP
“We in Jordan cannot afford the luxury of just waiting and monitoring,” he cautioned. “The danger is getting closer to our bedrooms. It has become a strategic danger; it is no longer a security threat from groups or cells. We must start thinking outside the box. The time has come to increase coordination and cooperation with the regimes in Baghdad and Damascus to contain the crawling of extremism and terrorism.”
A Jordanian ISIS terrorist wearing a suicide bomb belt and holding his Jordanian passport declares his willingness to wage jihad in an ISIS video. (Image source: All Eyes on Syria YouTube video)
This is a logical next step for ISIS in achieving their goals of an Islamic Caliphate across parts of the Middle East. The reportedly small number of ISIS fighters presently in Jordan may be the first stumbling block for ISIS to overcome, but reports of money flooding into Jordan to rectify this ‘problem’ presents immense concern not only for Jordan and the USA but also Israel.
Israel’s concern towards ISIS and the situation is two-fold:
First, any potential rise of ISIS in Jordan represents another Islamist group on the Israeli border. Along with the presence of ISIS in Syria already, this development increases the scope for terrorist attacks within Israel and the possibility of facing ISIS as a military threat. Calls to “liberate Palestine” are nothing new for Israel to deal with and it fits in with the ultimate aim of ISIS, whose territorial claims extend across Israel and to Jerusalem, known as ‘al Quds’ to Muslims. It is not clear that ISIS has the military capability to seriously threaten the IDF (Israeli Defence Force). However, Israeli security is threatened by any group with the ability to launch attacks against its civilians and whilst the “liberation” of Palestine may not be a realistic aim of ISIS, Jordan is an effective springboard to launch terrorist attacks against Israel from.
Secondly, the rise of ISIS across Iraq and Syria has prompted what is unthinkable in Israeli eyes — support for Iran. The UK has deemed circumstances ‘right’ to reopen its Iranian embassy, whilst discussions are on-going between Iran and the USA on how to respond to the crisis. What, therefore, is clear is that, from an Israeli perspective, it is not just the rise of yet another Islamist group on its border that is of concern, it is the unlikely bedfellows that this rise has seemingly “forced”.
Israel, at the moment, seems content to let ISIS, Iran and Assad’s forces weaken each other. This is what Netanyahu means when he suggests that the USA should weaken both Iran and ISIS — let them fight it out, without offering support to either. Perhaps paradoxically, the rise of ISIS in Iraq and Syria has weakened Israeli enemies in Assad. The rise of ISIS in Jordan, however, would change this somewhat. The presence of ISIS on two of Israel’s borders is of obvious concern. Should ISIS become a serious force in Jordan, the Israeli response is likely to be a swift mobilization of Israeli troops in the territory surrounding the River Jordan.
If ISIS were to draw Israel into the regional conflict it would make the region’s strange politics even stranger. In Iraq and Syria, Israel’s arch nemesis, Iran, is fighting ISIS. Israel, on the other hand, has used its air force from time to time to bomb Hezbollah positions in Syria and Lebanon, the Lebanese militia aligned with Iran. If Israel were to fight against ISIS in Jordan, it would become a de facto ally of Iran, a regime dedicated to its destruction.
But Jordan is also an important ally for Israel. It is one of two countries (along with Egypt) to have a peace treaty with the Jewish state. Jordanian security forces help patrol the east bank of the Jordan River that borders Israel and both countries share intelligence about terrorist groups in the region.
For now the one thing Iran and Israel do agree on is that U.S. intervention in Iraq is risky. Khamenei has told Obama to just stay out. Netanyahu was more subtle, warning that Obama should not promise Iran anything in the nuclear negotiations that might entice its cooperation in Iraq. His advice was for Obama to weaken both sides.
But behind the scenes, Israeli diplomats have told their American counterparts that Israel would be prepared to take military action to save the Hashemite Kingdom.
Thomas Sanderson, the co-director for transnational threats at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said Israel and the United States view the survival of the Jordanian monarchy as a paramount national security objective.
“I think Israel and the United States would identify a substantial threat to Jordan as a threat to themselves and would offer all appropriate assets to the Jordanians,” he said.
Turmoil in the Arab World — The JORDAN factor — Middle East News — Medium
