Is Jordan doomed to the UAE?

Looking at developments in the region and the world from Jordan, where we are for the meeting of the PACE "Committee on Migration, Refugees and Displaced Persons", has a special significance. For Jordan, owing to its geographical position and its dependence on the Gulf countries and on foreign aid, is a country that has developed, throughout history, a distinctive political style in devising ways of survival. As early as the First Gulf War, it managed to turn its own position into a pretext of neutrality with regard to the international coalition that Bush Senior assembled against Iraq, and succeeded in staying out of the war, or more precisely out of the coalition against Saddam. Moreover, it received the compensation arising from the war.

In no regional crisis does it favor rash outbursts; it has always tried to find and follow a path of balance. Although, like all Arab countries, it is hostile to Israel in its official rhetoric, in practice it resorts to no policy that would disturb Israel. On the contrary, under the peace agreement with Israel, it even refrains from using and developing its own natural water and mineral resources.

The British influence, so evident at its founding, continues at the highest level, since King Abdullah's mother was also British. That is, the King's mother tongue is English, and he speaks this language far more fluently, without an accent and quickly, than his Arabic. The British influence on the founding of the Arab states after the First World War and on the formation of their later administrations may not be as visible in the others today, but in Jordan it is felt very clearly. Jordan's caution in its foreign policy can also be explained, to some extent, by the British mind and influence.

The waves of the Arab Spring process, which continued with a domino effect in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Yemen, had reached Jordan as well. In those days there were very serious street demonstrations and protests. But the Jordanian administration's attitude toward the protesters was different from that in Syria, and different from that in Egypt and Libya; with an attitude that met the protesters' anger with understanding and conceded ground, it prevented the events from growing.

By carrying out, in part, a cabinet reshuffle, it had directed all the anger aimed at the regime toward the departing government, which has emerged as the Jordanian way of suppressing opposition up to now. However, in the protests that have begun these days following the lifting of subsidies on bread and basic goods, for the first time the protests target not the governments but the Kingdom itself.

In the Gulf crisis, the biggest regional problem in the Arab world last year, Jordan at first did not want to join the anti-Qatar front formed by the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Bahrain, and later took part timidly under the pressure of this axis. However, it did not go as far in hostility as was expected of it, and kept relations at a level that could be repaired at any moment.

It is well known that this quartet alliance does not leave Jordan alone and wants to see Jordan at its side in all its relations. This axis, headed by the UAE, is determined to destroy any democratic Islamic movement wherever it exists in the world. This alliance, which has devoted its reason for existence to preventing the development of democracy in the Islamic world, does not leave Jordan alone either.

Jordan is one of the rare countries of the region where there are elections of a sort, where the parliament functions, and where governments are formed with the popular vote taken into account. Although the elections are tied to the system with a fine adjustment that guarantees that the Ikhwan in no way come to power, they still do not completely close the way for the Ikhwan to be represented in parliament.

The Ikhwan phobia of the alliance led by the UAE, however much it may wear the mask of moderate Islam, is in plain truth a fear of Islam and democracy. Because the movements this axis supports against the Ikhwan are Salafi and Wahhabi movements. In fact the Ikhwan line is the movement that places the clearest distance between itself and violent movements. The words of Mohamed Badie, the leader of the movement in Egypt, "our peaceful movement is much stronger than their bullets," are the most repeated slogan of the Ikhwan movement, and at the same time set out the movement's principle of action. Even so, fighting the Ikhwan inevitably requires slaughtering democracy as well. Whether for forming an alliance against the Ikhwan or while fighting the Ikhwan, it requires supporting violent movements more, by clearing their way.

Jordan recently suspended the free trade agreement it signed with Turkey in 2011. That it took this decision so as to coincide with the visit to the country of the UAE Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan was perceived as a sign of subordination to this axis.

Of course, the officially announced reason was the protection of "domestic industry." On March 13, in his meeting in Amman with King Abdullah II, Sheikh Abdullah, the UAE Foreign Minister, stated that the UAE was ready to help Jordan overcome its economic difficulties and to support investment projects aimed at development. Naturally, this promise was interpreted as a pledge of economic aid to Jordan in return for suspending free trade with Turkey.

There is that famous saying: if two fish are fighting somewhere, an Englishman must have passed through there a while before. These days we can repeat it by putting the UAE in place of the Englishman. Wherever there is a development against Turkey, the present rulers of the UAE must have passed through there.

Turkey's presence in Jordan has permeated the cultural, historical, geographical and economic depth of society. It is true that the trade deficit is in Turkey's favor, but with which country is this deficit not to that country's disadvantage?

That this issue has become a problem already shows that an intrigue bearing the UAE's signature, directed against Turkey, is being plotted there.