Aaron Magid, a former Amman-based journalist and author of The Most American King: Abdullah of Jordan, spoke to a July 28 Middle East Forum Podcast (video). The following summarizes his comments:
For more than two decades, King Abdullah has ruled Jordan while maintaining a strong relationship with the U.S. Jordan is the largest recipient of U.S. aid “of any Arab country in the world,” receiving close to $1.5 billion annually. In addition to Amman’s reliance on Washington’s largesse, King Abdullah’s personal ties to the U.S. are strong, as he was educated at an American middle school, high school, and university. He also trained with the U.S. military in Kentucky. Politically, security cooperation between the kingdom and U.S. intelligence agencies has enjoyed bipartisan support. Moreover, thousands of U.S. troops have been stationed in Jordan under both Democratic and Republican administrations.
Jordan is the largest recipient of U.S. aid “of any Arab country in the world,” receiving close to $1.5 billion annually.
Abdullah’s close ties to the West have “provoked some criticism in the Hashemite Kingdom.” His criticism of the U.S. during the 2003 Iraq War resulted in a significant drop in U.S. aid; he has since tread carefully to nurture a “productive relationship” with America. In 2014, Jordan allied with the U.S. against ISIS. Abdullah also acceded to pressure from the Obama administration to enter into an energy accord with Israel, despite the objections of many Jordanians to the billions of dollars in gas revenue going to the Jewish state. These objections were in response to the Jordanian people’s discontent over Israel’s policies regarding “Palestinian territories in the West Bank and Gaza.” Abdullah persisted because “he thought it was in his country’s national interest, both to maintain strong relations with the United States, but also for important energy needs.”
Abdullah’s steps “to increase and deepen his relationship with the United States” have been met with public disapproval, and the fact that the kingdom’s economy is struggling has further reduced his popularity. Despite having little oil and an unemployment rate over 20 percent, King Abdullah retains his hold on power. He owes this to a variety of reasons, the first of which is that regionally, “monarchies have done better than presidencies” in garnering support from their populations.
Even though Jordan is unable to provide the kind of wealth for its citizens that the oil-rich monarchies in the Gulf provide, the king enjoys the loyalty and support of Jordan’s security forces. Abdullah learned a lesson from the 1970 Black September revolt against the monarchy by Palestinian Arab militants. To ensure loyalty, senior staffers in the kingdom’s security forces comprise for the most part East Bank Arabs, rather than Jordanian citizens of Palestinian descent. This prudent decision appeared to be borne out after October 7, when amid stormy demonstrations over 1,500 protesters were arrested for criticizing the king over his gas deal with Israel and objecting to “Israel’s policy in Gaza.”
Security forces have complete control over Jordanian territory, as evidenced by their “crackdown against the Muslim Brotherhood” and suppression of the group’s threats against the regime. Even more than the security force’s loyalty, the critical difference for the kingdom’s stability has been Washington’s financial support, advanced military equipment, military training, and intelligence cooperation. Then-U.S. president Obama had called for Hosni Mubarak, Egypt’s corrupt authoritarian leader, to step down after the “Arab Spring” protests in Egypt. Obama did not take a similar step with Abdullah, noting that in Jordan, the king takes a more nuanced approach to dissent. Although he controls all key decisions, Abdullah is careful when quashing dissent among his people “to ensure that anger is not built up against the regime and against him personally.” His “balancing act is across multiple fronts,” given that at least one-half of Jordan’s population is Palestinian—the largest proportion “out of any Arab country outside the West Bank and Gaza.”
The looming challenge ahead that could pose “the most significant long-term threat” for Abdullah’s successor, Crown Prince Hussein, is Jordan’s high unemployment rate.
Abdullah has refused to cancel either Jordan’s “multi-billion dollar gas deal” or its 1994 peace treaty with Israel. In turn, Israel provides Jordan with a “significant amount of water” and has “significant security cooperation” with it in their joint fight against ISIS and at times Hezbollah. They have also coordinated efforts to thwart weapons and drug smuggling into the kingdom. Heightened tensions since October 7 have caused a decline in cooperation between the two countries. Once the Gaza war is concluded, the pre-October 7 bilateral relationship will likely be restored.
Jordan has long had tense relations with Iran, which it accuses of smuggling weapons and drugs from Iran-backed militias across Syria’s border into Jordan. Abdullah “has no patience for Iran intervening in domestic Jordanian affairs, or smuggling weapons into Jordan or, using Jordan as a corridor into the West Bank, or even firing drones or missiles into the Hashemite Kingdom.”
In the rounds of fighting between Israel and Iran in 2024 and 2025, Jordan’s military shot down Iranian missiles and drones en route to Israel, justifying the action as necessary to protect the country’s sovereignty. Abdullah is loath to get involved in regional conflicts because he “doesn’t want [Jordan] to turn into another Iraq.” Consequently, Jordan is unlikely to clash militarily with Iran.
The looming challenge ahead that could pose “the most significant long-term threat” for Abdullah’s successor, Crown Prince Hussein, is Jordan’s high unemployment rate. With few economic opportunities at home, young graduates leave for the Gulf. As for King Abdullah, “he’s been adopting a delicate balancing act on democracy issues and political reform, and that has also ensured that he stayed in power for over two decades.” He understands his political survival requires that he “adopt a cautious approach towards a policy” because “if he goes too far to either extreme, he’s going to lose support.”
