TAP Glossing Jordan

Matt Yglesias for TAP Online: 

Naturally enough, Jordanians are less than thrilled by this situation, so now and again they venture into the town square to complain. And then they get arrested. The government of the United States, newly recommitted to freedom, had nothing whatsoever to say about this until an intrepid White House reporter asked the president about it on January 26. Bush punted, pleading ignorance of the facts and noting that "His Majesty is making progress" toward democracy. In fact, His Majesty is doing no such thing. Recent years have seen cosmetic proposals put forward while, in practice, Jordan moves backward -- gerrymandering an unrepresentative but compliant parliament; cracking down on the press, professional associations, and other civil-society groups; restricting public assembly; and relying on ad hoc decrees promulgated while the parliament is out of session. There's no indication that Bush decided to familiarize himself with the facts of the case -- or even with the general political situation in Jordan -- as neither he nor any of his subordinates has mentioned it since. Nor has he been asked about it again.

Needless to say, I agree. 
 

It helps to keep pointing it out, if only in the vain hope that pointing out inconsistencies with highly publicized rhetoric might force Bush to live up to the rhetoric, as (I think it was praktike) argued the other day.   

Comments

[praktike]

I think I'm right on the general principle, but not necessarily right on the particular way to go about it in general.

In the case of Noor that's being so ably documented over at the Arabist, it seems that a loud burst from the Prez would rebound poorly onto Hizb al-Ghad by allowing it to be painted as stooges of the Amrikis. With Saad Ibrahim last go-round I believe it was a quiet letter from Bush that did the trick, but until then nothing happeneed.

WRT Ali Hatar, though, the U.S. has a real opportunity for a--waitfor it--Sister Souljah moment. Here you see a leftist guy who doesn't much like U.S. policies, particularly in re: Israel, standing up against one of our pals, and natch everyone expects us to stand with the King here. So there's a real opportunity to play against type. But he and the Jordanian professional syndicates generally are leftist and anti-Israeli in orientation, so the U.S. is wary of giving those types a boost.

Something that struck me as I was reading Graham Fuller's book again the other day was his argument that if you pay attention, a lot of folks in the ME tend to switch ideologies (Arab nationalism, socialism/marxism, Islamism) in the hopes that THIS will be the one that in effective in standing up to the West and its perceived interference in ME politics, society, and natural resources. So I wondered if in order for this whole project to work there has to be a sense that embracing liberal democracy rather than these other ideologies is in the long run the answer to both the problem of the regimes and the West. But right now the liberal democrats are seen as too Western, no?

Which is a slightly different but generally similar point to the one MY is making, I guess.