Israel fears Iranian plans to make Kingdom of Jordan its new tentacle after losing Syria

Against the backdrop of the unclear situation in Syria and fears that the Iranian regime will now turn its gaze on Jordan after suffering defeats in several other arenas, high-ranking Jordanian and Israeli officials reportedly met for secret talks last Friday to discuss the next steps.

Rulers across the region fear that the Islamist success in deposing the Assad regime in Syria could inspire others to follow their example, similar to the start of the Arab Spring in 2011.

Fearing such an uprising, last week, Palestinian Authority’s aging dictator, Mahmoud Abbas, ordered his security forces to conduct the first large-scale military operation against Iran-linked terrorists in years, if not decades.

Meanwhile, on the east bank of the Jordan River, King Abdullah II also fears a rebellion among his Palestinian subjects, who grow increasingly angry at his open security cooperation with Israel.

The cooperation so far hasn’t been impacted by the Gaza War, despite officials attacking Israel to placate the public.

According to Ynet News and three Israeli officials who spoke with the Axios news outlet, a rare, high-level meeting took place in Jordan last Friday.

Ronen Bar, director of the Israeli Shin Bet intelligence agency, Maj.-Gen. Shlomi Binder, head of the IDF Intelligence Branch, and senior officers reportedly traveled to Jordan to meet with the director of the Jordanian general intelligence service, Ahmad Husni, and senior Jordanian military commanders.

Among the topics of discussion were the situation in Syria, where Iranian forces were driven out by the onslaught of Islamist rebels, as well as Jordan’s and Israel’s contacts with the groups that now lead the new temporary government there.

According to Axios, the officials also talked about the growing Iranian effort to smuggle ever more potent weapons through Jordan to groups in Judea and Samaria.

Iran facilitates the smuggling and to make up for the loss of Syria, Iran has also escalated its operation to destabilize Jordan, with the ultimate goal of installing a proxy militia that could eventually take over the state, as it has done in Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen and Syria.

“Iran lost its significant hold on Syria and Lebanon,” Eyal Pinko, a retired Israeli Navy commander and senior researcher at Bar-Ilan University, told Jewish Insider.

“Iran has had a strategic ambition since 1979 to be the reigning power of the Middle East … They have to revive their power through proxies.”

“Now Iran is aiming at two countries in a shaky situation: Iraq, where they back 134 different militias, and Jordan, a great way, in Iran’s view, to surround Israel,” he added.

According to Pinko, “Iran launched an influence campaign in Jordan to try to rile up the Palestinian public over the past two years. It can be significant, and they will continue doing it to undermine the regime.”

“Iranian intervention and inspiration from Syria could lead Palestinians to rise up against the rulers in Jordan,” he noted.

Underscoring this danger, the Muslim Brotherhood’s radical Islamist political party, known as the Islamic Action Front, emerged as the largest party in the country in September, winning 31 of the 138 seats in the parliament.

Despite deep enmity between Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and its Islamist allies who now rule in Syria, and the Iranian regime, whose puppet regime the rebels have expelled, the threats against Jordan from Syria and Iran are linked.

In recent years, Iran has successfully leveraged its pro-Palestinian and anti-Israeli stance into growing support among Jordanian Islamists, despite Jordan having a Sunni majority population, while the Iranian regime is Shia.

Undeterred by historic religious enmity, Iran has, in the past, even collaborated with representatives of Sunni al-Qaeda jihadists to further their common goals of fighting against the West and trying to destroy Israel.

Similarly, while following the Sunni Islamist ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas found itself in the Iranian camp despite initially supporting their Islamist brothers rebelling against the Assad regime.

The election of Yahya Sinwar as Hamas chief in Gaza, and the elevation of several key pro-Iranian leaders like Saleh al-Arouri, finally caused Hamas to switch alliances and become allies of Iran’s “Axis of Resistance,” which in the end, spelled its doom.

So, Iran has proven it can work with Sunni Islamists, and several indications in the past months show that it has been successfully improving its image in Jordan.

“Jordanians marched in the capital of Amman last week, holding aloft portraits of the late secretary general of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah. The streets echoed with chants of ‘Labayk ya Nasrallah’ (‘We are here, oh Nasrallah’), a Shia chorus of devotion rarely heard in Jordan, which is almost entirely Sunni,” Ahmad Sharawi, research analyst at the Foundation for Freedom of Democracies, wrote in October.

“Since October 7, it is not just support for Hamas that is rising, but also for other groups within the so-called ‘axis of resistance’ led by Tehran,” he added.

“By portraying their military activities as part of a larger mission to confront Israel and liberate the Palestinians, Iran, and its proxies have helped to reverse negative sentiments towards Tehran and its partners that prevailed less than a decade ago… When Hezbollah entered the conflict in solidarity with Hamas on October 8, its popularity in Jordan began to grow, especially among those of Palestinian descent. Nasrallah’s death led to another visible increase in support.”

The growing self-assurance of Iranian proxies regarding Jordan was also demonstrated by the Iraqi Kataib Hezbollah, which boasted in April it could arm 12,000 Jordanians to attack Israel “to defend our Palestinian brothers.”

Investigations by Israeli and Jordanian authorities in recent months uncovered numerous Iranian smuggling networks using Jordan as a corridor for transporting weapons from Syria and Iraq into Judea and Samaria.

The Israeli army had already announced in August 2023 that it would strengthen the border barrier with Jordan, and has since reported the creation of a new IDF brigade to secure the border.