By Nicola Nasser*
Located at the crossroads of several regional crises,
including the Palestinian -- Israeli and Iraqi conflicts, Jordan has been in the
eye of the Syrian storm for more than thirty months, and managed to navigate
safely so far, but the reportedly imminent US strike is pressuring the country
between the rock and the hard place of the antagonists of the war on Syria.
Heavily burdened by the pressure of its strategic allies
and financers in the US and
the GCC Arab states, who have been leading an unwavering bloody campaign for a
"regime change" in Damascus,
Jordan could
not but yield to their demands for logistical facilities in the country,
consequently shooting its self-proclaimed neutrality in the legs.
Thus, grudgingly or otherwise, Jordan
has in practice invited potential US targets for Syrian retaliation
on its territory if and when the Syrian government perceives that those
facilities are used in any US-led strike, now expected.
Anthony
Cordesman, an analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, on
August 29, interviewed by abcnews online, said that
"Jordanian targets" could be targeted by Syria
or by a Syrian allied "third party," a possible development that could embroil
the US
in defense.
Should such a scenario develop, Jordan
will evolve unwillingly into a war zone, to regret yielding to the prerogatives
of its strategic alliance with the United States regardless of who
emerges winner or loser in the war.
US Targets Invited
When the Eager Lion 2013 exercise ended
in June this year, Jordan,
inviting a US target for
Syrian retaliation, asked the US
military to leave behind some equipment, including some F-16s and a Patriot missile defense system.
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*Nicola Nasser is a veteran Arab journalist in Kuwait, Jordan, UAE and Palestine. He is based in Ramallah, West Bank of the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories.
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