I don’t know much about Randa Habib other than what is available online, she obviously seems to have lost favour with King Abdullah and Queen Rania in recent years by writing negative pieces alleging financial impropriety, I suppose we will never get the real truth until Ms Habib or Abdullah leaves Jordan altogether.
While I agree that Hussein’s Jordan was hardly democratic, he did make modest strides in the last decade of his reign to introduce further reforms to increase the appearance of democracy in Jordan, which is more than any other Middle Eastern monarchs did. I think on the whole these have stalled though, this is probably not so much Abdullah’s fault as the fact that the situation is absolutely hopeless.
I agree, I don’t see how Jordan can achieve the kind of democracy the King says he wants. The tribal groups hate the Islamic political parties and vice versa. The Islamic parties are growing in size and becoming more vocal in their criticism of the monarchy and boycotted the last elections. The tribal groups fear the Islamic parties because they often have Palestinian roots; these groups are also much more hostile to Israel and so much of Jordan's trade is now with Israel and/or the US, which is dependant on Jordan's good relationship with Israel.
The King needs to keep the support of the tribal groups as they are the traditional basis of support for the Hashemites. If the Islamic groups come even close to power in Jordan, Israel will lose its mind and America will withdraw/reduce financial support. Once the Hashemites become redundant to Israel and America, then Abdullah better start looking for good schools in London for his kids.
If Abdullah successfully manages to balance their respective needs, then he will have achieved something near impossible. Of course he could adopt the nuclear option of simply allowing completely free elections and trying to pick up the pieces afterwards but that would probably result in civil war and the destruction of Jordan’s carefully established global alliances.
Regarding your Marie Antoinette comment, I think the palace has listened. There seems to have been been a dramatic change in Rania’s role in the last few years. She’s still obviously hobnobbing in the West but not at the same level as the mid 00’s, when it was really getting out of hand. I do think there is an acceptable culture in Jordan that while publicly criticising the King is very controversial, the Queen is a more acceptable target. It was the same with Noor. The fact that Noor is American and Rania is Palestinian probably only exacerbates that, solely from a nationality/background perspective, Hussein and Abdullah probably couldn’t have chosen worse queens!
I agree with your point about continued liberalization of the economy but I read last week that Jordan may be backing out of a major deal to buy Israeli gas as it was proving to be particularly unpopular with Islamic groups, who are growing in popularity. There doesn’t seem to be any financial advantage in development of Jordan’s vast shale deposits in light of what is happening in the global oil industry. I know Jordan has been reliant on cheap oil provided at a loss by Iraq and other oil rich states for decades, how long that can continue in light of the current huge collapse in oil prices is unclear, the length of time those countries can afford to be generous is limited, not to mention of course that Iraq has lost control of some its oil fields to ISIS, limiting its production. I think Jordan’s economy faces a couple of really horrific years. The King’s ability to control that and the West’s willingness to support Jordan financially in the interim is going to be key I think.
It will be interesting to see the long term effects of the Saudi’s current oil policy in the Middle East and of course wider afield. Speaking rather selfishly and as someone who deep down wanted to retain the UK, it’s a bit of a shame the Saudis didn’t act sooner, it would have completely killed the Scottish Referendum and delivered a much more convincing No vote.
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