Jordan seeks to boost military link with Colo.
Jordan’s rising role as a U.s.-backed pillar in the precarious Middle East, receiving newly re-upped aid of $1.275 billion a year, builds on a unique 15-year partnership with Colorado pilots that officials last week said they want to expand.
The Department of Defense has paired Colorado’s National Guard with Jordan for military support flying F-16 fighter jets and UH-60 Blackhawk helicopters since 2004. A Colorado liaison is posted in Jordan’s capital, Amman. A Colorado pilot is embedded in the Royal Jordanian Air Force. Jordan’s leaders visit Denver.
Prince Feisal bin Al-hussein said Jordan wants to expand
this military partnership to help deal with water scarcity, develop solar and wind energy, and defuse violent extremists.
“We recognize that Colorado is a leader in entrepreneurship,” Al-hussein said in a 30-minute interview with The Denver Post before a talk at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts hosted by Gov. John Hickenlooper. The younger brother of Jordan’s King Abdullah, the 54-year-old Alhussein is a retired pilot who chairs Jordan’s National Policy Council and runs the country as regent when Abdullah is away.
“Not everything in the United States starts and finishes in Washington, D.C., and New York,” he said.
Jordan ranks among the world’s most water-challenged nations and is counting on massive desalination of ocean water, “one of the few mechanisms that will seriously address our water shortage issues.” And because Jordan must import 98 percent of the oil residents use, leaders favor cheaper wind and solar energy to increase security.
Hickenlooper last week issued a statement calling the Colorado-jordan partnership “more important than ever.”
But Jordan’s position is complicated by international bank demands that rulers fix economic problems, in- by 1.4 million Syrian refugees, by imposing painful and potentially disruptive spending cuts. Taxes must go up. Bread subsidies may go down, a hard hit for residents whose average annual income hovers around $4,087. Jordanian intelligence agents have been battling militants after terrorist attacks they attribute to Islamic State sympathizers driven from Syria and Iraq.
“Economic reform and austerity is never a popular thing to do,” Al-hussein said. The U.S. aid deal, finalized in February to give billion over five years, seeks stability. “The United States has … really stood by us in this troubled time,” he said.
Jordan, population 9.5 million, emerged as a key U.S. ally because it sits between Iraq and Syria, north of Saudi Arabia and south of Turkey and Syria. Special Forces operatives use it as a base in countering Islamic State and al-qaeda forces. Strategists also regard Jordan as a bulwark against Iran, which has been active in the region, sending militia units to points within 3 miles of Israel. Predomitensified nantly Sunni nations are worried about an Iranbacked “crescent” of influence through Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen and Somalia. And Russia remains active in war-ravaged Syria, where reconstruction cost estimates top $300 billion.
A promised U.S. peace plan for the Israeli-palestinian conflict remains secret. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a point between the Israelis and the Palestinians where the gap is wider,” said Ambassador Dennis Ross, a Mideast policy adviser to five U.S. presidents, who joined Al-hussein on a pan$6.375 el Tuesday night in the packed Ellie Caulkins Opera House.
President Donald Trump’s declaration last year that the United States will move its embassy in Israel to the contested city of Jerusalem has ignited antigovernment protests in Jordan.
“We expressed our concerns about it. At the end of the day, it is the United States’ decision, and we respect that. The advice we gave, and the concerns, turned out to be true,” Alhussein said.
“We don’t want to see conflict. We don’t want to see lives lost on either side. It has gone on for too long. … The Palestinian-israel track is really important because, we believe, it is at the heart of what a lot of extremists use as a recruiting tool — a sense of injustice and unfairness that this conflict continues to produce.”
“We have serious issues to deal with. Extremism. And how is the Mideast going to evolve in the future? … We are looking at how we can make the Middle East a beacon of hope in an area that has suffered humanitarian catastrophes.”
The panel forum in Denver was staged by the Counterterrorism Education Learning Lab, a local think tank known as the CELL that is devoted to fighting racism and terrorism. On Wednesday, Al-hussein moved on to Washington for meetings with U.S. congressional and military leaders. Jordan has asked for armed drones, which President Barack Obama refused but which Trump administration officials reportedly have said they will reconsider.
The U.s.-jordan alliance has bipartisan support, rare these days, leading to a $275 million per year increase in aid at a time when U.S. officials are cutting assistance to others. The Islamic State and al-qaeda forces in the region draw U.S. military attention.
Yet Jordanian officials indicated they also are interested in civilian approaches to defusing terrorism by addressing the motivations.
”Extremist ideology is something we are looking to deal with. Through our partnership, we have exchanges to have our Muslim religious authorities working with chaplains. We’re looking at building on common ground, at how to try to prevent extremists from hijacking our religion,” Alhussein said.
“There are great opportunities to cooperate,” he said. “There’s a famous quote that all it takes for evil to succeed is for good men to do nothing. I don’t think we’re going to sit back, in the United States or Jordan, to watch it and just complain. That is very much in line with our common values and attitude. The fight isn’t over. … It is going to be a challenge we have to face.”