Free Republic

IS may try to draw in Israel by threatening Amman. Given that the Islamic State is increasingly losing territory, the world’s focus is on the efforts to dislodge the jihadist regime from its capital in Raqqa. Most observers tend to view the anti-IS campaign as a linear process that over time will lead to the destruction of the jihadist entity. But it is dangerous to assume that IS will simply go quietly into the night. Jordan is one place where IS could strike in order to draw in the Israelis and thus complicate and widen the conflict. Israeli daily Haaretz...

Jordan is a more vulnerable target because, unlike the U.S., it can be destabilized. For nearly a century Jordan has been a miracle of stability — an artificial geographic creation led by a British-imposed monarchy, it has enjoyed relative domestic peace and successful political transitions with just four rulers over four generations. Compared to Lebanon, Syria and Iraq, similarly created, Jordan is a wonder. But a fragile one. Its front-line troops and special forces are largely Bedouin. The Bedouin are the backbone of the Hashemite monarchy, but they are a minority. Most of the population is non-indigenous Palestinians, to which...

Palestinian-Jordanian politician Muhammad Bayoudh Al-Tamimi recently defended ISIS, saying that its doctrine "stems from the Quran and the Sunna." The Syrian soldiers recently killed at the Tabqa airbase "deserved to be slaughtered 100,000 times over," said Al-Tamimi, a member of the Jordanian Umma movement. According to Internet reports, the show was not broadcast by the Jordanian ANB TV channel that had produced it, but it was posted on the Internet by ANB TV on August 31, 2014. Interviewer: What is our position, here in Jordan, with regard to ISIS and the ISIS ideology? [...] Muhammad Bayoudh Al-Tamimi: I reject the...