Hmm:
Jordan and Turkey are bolstering ties in a bid to unify positions toward regional challenges where the two countries share mutual interests, including the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the Syrian crisis. King Abdullah II hosted Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu and Gen. Hulusi Akar, the commander of the Turkish Armed Forces, on separate visits to Amman over the course of two days, Feb. 19 and 20, respectively.
Turkey gets to gain influence in their former imperial holdings.
Jordan hosts American forces that support anti-Assad rebels in southern Syria. What do closer ties with Turkey mean for that?
Jordan has been usually friendly to America. But they bent toward Saddam when he was powerful. Yet by 2003 America staged part of the invasion out of Jordan--air and special forces plus National Guard battalions used to garrison captured air bases in western Iraq.
If there is an Israel-Hezbollah war in Lebanon, does this mean that Jordan won't quietly back the move; or does it mean Jordan will back the move but seeks to mute Turkish actions in a bad Turkish reaction--although Turkey should want Iran's power in Syria to be taken down a peg, even if by Israel.
Of course, given the importance of Turkish trade, internal economic reforms could be driving this rather than regional challenges:
Jordan’s prime minister, Hani al-Mulki, reshuffled his Cabinet on Sunday, making changes in several key and telling portfolios, including the ministries of economy, labor and interior. The shakeup comes amid a period of public uneasiness over the direction of the country’s economy and who should bear the burden resulting from years of economic mismanagement by largely unaccountable policymakers.
Not that both can't be a factor, of course.
In some ways, Jordan merely put off the reckoning of the 2011 Arab Spring by spending money they don't have. Now Jordan has to adjust to reality.
Which is unfortunate timing if a new Arab Spring is building out of the frustration that is again building (including in non-Arab Iran). Tunisia is the only relative success, while Egypt returned to autocracy, Libya is in near-chaos, and Syria is still in their bloody multi-war from the last wave of discontent that swept the region.
Turkey is formally a NATO ally but these days I think of them as neither an ally nor an enemy, but as a power that seeks to be a great power in their region even if that power comes at America's expense.
