Backing between Monarchies

The state crisis that Jordan has experienced has provoked a series of reactions of support and solidarity that are highly appreciable due to the strategic value of this small country of barely 10 million inhabitants for the balance of power in the Middle East. The first and most forceful declaration of support for King Abdullah II by King Mohammed VI of Morocco stands out. A personal phone call to express his full solidarity and total support for the decisions taken by the Jordanian monarch to guarantee the country's security, following the arrests made to prevent an attempted coup d'état. The Alawite monarch's very direct and personal initiative reveals the extent to which monarchies are aware of the need to support each other at a delicate time when conspiracy experts use such popularly powerful tools as social networks, fake news and all kinds of interference in order to favour obscure interests close to populism, nationalism or separatism to weaken countries and their leaders, in this case parliamentary monarchies, including Spain, which has received the hospitality of King Juan Carlos I from the United Arab Emirates. The republican attacks against the Spanish Crown from the Second Vice-Presidency of the Government by the leader of Podemos, Pablo Iglesias, are the focus of a strategy to demolish the Constitution of 1978, which is increasing with the celebration of 14 April with much noise and alarums on social networks and the public media they control, in the face of the passivity of the President of the Government who simply limits himself to supporting the head of state but maintains an unsustainable coalition also due to disagreements on economic, labour, tax and pension issues or policies towards women. 

The evolution of the monarchy in Morocco, with a constitutional reform in 2011 in which it ceded various powers to the government, has consolidated a path of democratic improvement, the current challenge being to change the economic model in order to tackle the major problem of inequality.

From North Africa came the first call of support for the Jordanian king, followed immediately by those of the Gulf monarchies, led by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, with communiqués of support for all the decisions and measures of the Hashemite monarch to protect the security and stability of Jordan and preserve its achievements.

At a time of a momentous geostrategic shift in the Middle East following the Abraham Accords with the understanding between Gulf Arab countries such as the UAE and Bahrain with Israel, and with the possibility of resuming negotiations on the Iran nuclear deal, any option that could favour the interests of radical Islamists is a global threat to the entire region. 

In the case of Jordan and Morocco, they share a number of interests and mutual support, such as that expressed in early March by Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman al-Safadi, during the inauguration in Laayoune of his Consulate General, when he assured that the Jordanian nation has been and will always be on Morocco's side on the Western Sahara issue, and that Jordan's consular representation shows that we are working in accordance with the resolutions of international legality and the autonomy initiative for the Sahara presented by Morocco. In addition to these strategic issues for each country, the support between the Monarchies is usually expressed in political, economic, commercial, social and cultural relations with the aim of ensuring stability in a situation as serious as the one created by the coronavirus pandemic and the economic and employment crisis it is causing around the world. Jordan also received clear and forceful support from other sovereigns such as Spain and several European sovereigns, and from such important republican countries as the United States, France, Germany and Italy, among others. The response from China and Russia remained rather low profile.

The internal problems created by the succession to the throne of King Abdullah II following Prince Hamzah bin Hussein's criticisms and moves that have gone far beyond what is permissible because of his contacts and his video against King Abdullah, were a good breeding ground for those with a vested interest in destabilising the region. The situation in Jordan has always been contingent on agreements with the tribes and the Hashemite crown and conditioned to some extent by the more than two million Palestinian refugees who have lived in the country for many years. At the negotiating table, Israel has long proposed that Jordan become Palestine and thus overcome the more difficult obstacle of accepting the existence of a Palestinian state, but outside its borders and giving fuel to Israeli territorial ambitions in Gaza and the West Bank. And arbitrating a solution to the status of Jerusalem. 

In recent years, the arrival of more than a million Syrian refugees has complicated the country's economic situation, with limited resources to meet the challenge of caring for more than a million people from another country. It is a situation similar to that suffered by Lebanon, whose economy and stability have been damaged by large refugee influxes with no increase in income and resources to meet their needs. The Lebanese political jigsaw puzzle has endured the various onslaughts of radicals, led by Hezbollah, which defends Iranian interests in the area, including Syria and its military bases. 

The crisis in Jordan is a warning to be heeded by the international community in order to provide the Hashemite monarchy with the help it needs to overcome the effects of the serious economic crisis and avoid political conspiracies with perverse intentions for Jordan and for the entire Middle East region, which is experiencing notable progress and modernisation due to innovative plans in innovation, research and digitalisation in the Emirates and Saudi Arabia, with progressive changes regarding the role of women, among others. The role played by parliamentary monarchies in many countries around the world, committed to the Constitution, the rule of law and the market economy, represent a guarantee of stability and security in the face of populism, nationalism and supposedly republican separatism that seek power in order to establish another type of regime that may resemble Venezuela, Cuba or Iran much more than the United States, France, Germany or Mexico. Monarchies are backed and supported by truly democratic republics.

Text published in La Tercera de ABC on July 14, 2021