Slouching towards Teheran

Two weeks ago, Iran scored a massive victory. Jordan, the West’s most stable, loyal ally in Arab world, began slouching towards the Iranian Gomorrah.

Caroline B. Glick
Column One/JPost
24 December '10

Two weeks ago, Iran scored a massive victory. Jordan, the West’s most stable and loyal ally in the Arab world, began slouching towards the Iranian Gomorrah.

On December 12, Ahmadinejad’s chief of staff Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei met with Jordanian King Abdullah II in Amman and extended a formal invitation from Ahmadinejad for him to pay a state visit to Iran. Abdullah accepted.

According to Iran’s ISNA news agency, Mashaei said that Abdullah’s visit will begin a new page in bilateral relations and that “the two countries hold massive potential to work together.”

Mashaei added, “If Islamic states stand united, no country will be threatened.”

Abdullah reportedly said that his country recognizes Iran’s nuclear rights and supports its access to peaceful nuclear technology.

Abdullah was one of the first world leaders to sound the alarm on Iran. In 2004, Abdullah warned of a “Shi’ite crescent” extending from Iran to Iraq, through Syria to Lebanon. His words were well reported at the time. But his warning went unheeded.

In the intervening six years, reality has surpassed Abdullah’s worst fears. Not only Lebanon and Syria have fallen under Iranian control. Iraq, Turkey, Qatar, Gaza and increasingly Oman, Yemen and Afghanistan are also either willing or unwilling members of the axis.

In the face of Iran’s expanding web of influence and the mullahs’ steady progress towards nuclear capability, Washington behaves as though there is no cause for concern. And the likes of Jordan are beside themselves.

In a WikiLeaks leaked cable from April 2009 written by US Ambassador to Jordan R. Stephen Beecroft, Jordan’s frustration and concern over the Obama administration’s incompetence in handling the Iranian threat was clear.

Beecroft wrote, “Jordan’s leaders are careful not to be seen as dictating toward the US, but their comments betray a powerful undercurrent of doubt that the United States knows how to deal effectively with Iran.”

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