Jordan, a key Middle Eastern partner of the United States, is increasingly affected by the ongoing war between the United States and Iran. Six months into the conflict, Tehran is ramping up attacks on U.S. military assets in the Arab country led by King Abdullah II. The political impact of this reality is testing the U.S.-Jordanian alliance, which found its roots during the Cold War and has survived since.
Since the February 28 U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran, which started the war, dozens of Jordanian civilians have been injured by falling missile debris. The country has regularly faced nationwide warning sirens as Iranian missiles enter its airspace. Many homes and public spaces have been damaged. Jordan’s economically critical tourism industry, fueled by the ancient city of Petra, the red sand of Wadi Rum Desert, and the mineral-rich Dead Sea, has been all but decimated.
Some fear Jordan could be en route to more direct involvement in the war, particularly if Iranian strikes don’t cease. During a September 3 press conference in Austria, Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi blasted the attacks, while further accusing Iranian leaders of “meddling in internal [Jordanian] affairs” and supporting drug and weapon trafficking into the country. Iran had struck Jordan that day, and attacked the country again less than a week later, on September 9, in retaliation for U.S. strikes on Iranian oil tankers. Safadi reiterated his condemnations of the attacks during a September 24 meeting with the Iranian foreign minister at the United Nations General Assembly meeting.
Safadi also downplayed claims that Jordan was hosting foreign military bases. “There are no American, independent bases in Jordan,” he argued, claiming that the American troops were merely “embedded in Jordanian bases” as a relic of the joint U.S.-Jordanian operation against ISIS in 2015. He did not mention the comprehensive 2021 U.S.-Jordanian defense deal that granted the United States access to 12 military installations in the country. While opinion polls on U.S. troops are difficult to obtain due to the tightly controlled political environment, the government may fear rising anti-American sentiment amidst the U.S.-Iran war.
Back in late July, in an open letter addressed to the Jordanian government, hundreds of prominent Jordanians called for U.S. troops to leave the country. The extent to which they have faced consequences is unclear at this time.
Furthermore, the Jordanian government has faced domestic criticism for intercepting waves of Iranian missiles headed towards Israel starting in 2024, when Tehran retaliated after Israeli jets struck the Iranian embassy in Damascus. While Amman has argued its policy of intercepting Iranian missiles is in the interest of preventing its skies from becoming a war zone, many citizens, over half of whom are estimated to be of Palestinian origin, view the policy as protecting Israel.
Nonetheless, despite public knowledge of Washington’s position as Israel’s primary international backer, Amman remains hesitant to cut or even scale back its partnership with the United States. Jordan’s reluctance to distance itself from its U.S. partner is rooted in a relationship that goes back decades.
In the 1950s, the United States took an interest in Jordan due to the Cold War. Fearing supposed communist influence led globally by the Soviet Union and regionally by Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser, Washington began fostering relationships with Arab monarchies like Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq. In 1957, after then-Jordanian King Hussein was confronted by the growing influence of Nasserist Arab-nationalist forces, Washington began providing the monarchy military aid.
U.S. policy was complicated by Washington’s growing alliance with Israel in the 1960s. In 1948, Israel had fought Jordan and a coalition of Arab countries, after which Jordan controlled East Jerusalem and the West Bank. In 1967, Jordan was brought into another war with Israel alongside Egypt and Syria, which the Arab coalition decisively lost. Among Israel’s gains were East Jerusalem and the West Bank from Jordan, which it has occupied ever since.
Despite Israel and Jordan’s recurring conflicts, the United States was able to preserve both strategic relationships. It was becoming increasingly clear to Jordanian leaders that continued hostilities with Israel and the resulting influx of Palestinian refugees were detrimental to their power.
After the 1967 war, the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) and its guerrilla forces relocated to Jordan, launching attacks on Israel and the now Israeli-occupied West Bank. Factions of the PLO began calling for the overthrow of King Hussein, prompting the Jordanian military to act. In 1970, thousands were killed in what is known in Jordan as Black September, and the PLO was forcefully relocated to Lebanon. The United States again moved to defend the monarchy, with then-National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger later taking credit for coordinating with Israel to deter further Syrian incursions on the side of the Palestinian guerrillas. U.S. support of Jordan and Israel was increasingly complementary rather than contradictory.
In the 1973 Arab-Israeli War, when Egypt and Syria attacked to regain lost land but were repelled, Jordan refrained from opening a front, merely sending a brigade to Syria. In 1978, Israel agreed to return the Sinai Peninsula to Egypt in exchange for a U.S. mediated peace deal, the first between Israel and an Arab country. Disputes over Jerusalem and the West Bank, however, prevented Jordan from publicly engaging in serious talks until the 1990s.
After the first Palestinian Intifada (1987-1993), the 1991 Madrid conference, and the following Oslo negotiations between Israel and the PLO, Jordan was politically enabled to make a public deal with Israel. In 1994, also mediated by the United States, Jordan became the second Arab country to sign a formal peace agreement with Israel. To bolster the deal, the Clinton administration forgave $700 million of Jordan’s debt. To this day, the United States gives Jordan $1.72 billion a year in economic and strategic assistance.
During the post-September 11 War on Terror, Jordan was an indispensable ally of the United States. The wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria strengthened this relationship, according to a 2017 report by the Center for American Progress. In the mid-2010s fight against ISIS, the U.S.-Jordanian partnership and counterterrorism coordination reached its height.
By the time U.S. assets in Jordan became an Iranian target, the alliance with Washington was beyond a mere diplomatic alignment that Jordan could easily reevaluate. U.S. aid, intelligence sharing, military training, and counterterrorism cooperation have embedded the United States within Jordan’s security apparatus. Removing the U.S. footprint would be a substantial strategic shift that Jordan’s leadership may not be ready to risk, despite the mounting costs. The Iranian attacks have brought the contradiction of Amman’s collaboration to the forefront. This strategic partnership makes Jordan a target and raises national questions as to the long-term benefit of being a partner of the United States, especially as Washington and its Israeli ally contribute to instability in the region.