Congress and select parts of the USA are not the only interested listeners to the SOTU speech. So is the Kingdom of Jordan, as AL Monitor‘s Aaron Magid reports:
Addressing members of Congress that evening, Obama emphasized, “As we focus on destroying [IS], over-the-top claims that this is World War III just play into their hands.” The American leader’s assertion that such dire warnings about IS are misguided directly contradict one of [King of Jordan] Abdullah’s main talking points when traveling overseas.
Over and over — whether at the United Nations General Assembly podium, during an interview with PBS’ Charlie Rose or even in Kosovo — the Jordanian monarch has declared that the battle against IS is “a third world war, and I believe we must respond with equal intensity.” …
Obama’s minimizing of the IS campaign speaks to a fundamental divergence with Abdullah and has led many leading thinkers in Amman to question America’s determination and willingness to, in the president’s own words, “degrade and ultimately destroy [IS].” If the world’s strongest and most advanced military cannot defeat a far inferior and less organized group, what are Obama’s true intentions?
Which speaks to different viewpoints: for the United States, IS is a danger when abroad, and a danger to allies – but for the United States mainland, terror attacks, no matter how horrifying, are not a real threat.
But, for Jordan, they are an existential threat, particularly as IS attempts to don the mantle of fundamentalist Islam, declaring all other sects to be heretic. They exhibit recruiting success, millitary success, they put into place new governmental systems (lost my reference there, but I know I’ve written about that) … Abdullah has good reason for being quite nervous.
In addition to the battle against IS, nearly five years of fighting in Syria have dramatically impacted next-door Jordan. Jordan has absorbed over 630,000 Syrian refugees, according to the United Nations (one diplomat estimates that Syrians represent about 20% of Jordan’s population), and Abdullah has repeatedly called for decisive action to end the conflict. Yet, in Obama’s brief mentioning of the bloody crisis that has killed some 250,000 people, the US president appeared satisfied with US policy. Obama cites Syria as an example of the “smarter approach, a patient and disciplined strategy that uses every element of our national power” by partnering with local forces — despite the fact that the conflict’s violence has only been spreading.
This might be more serious, yet it’s hard to say what else can be done in Syria in view of our already extensive activities, as this DOD report makes clear:
As of Dec. 15, 2015, the total cost of operations related to ISIL since kinetic operations started on Aug. 8, 2014, is $5.53 billion and the average daily cost is $11 million for 495 days of operations. A further breakdown of cost associated with the operations is here.
In the end, a speech must have a focus, and Obama chose to focus on the United States – not the MidEast. No doubt, Jordan, the recipient of a multitude of refugees from Palestine (border on the west) and now Syria (border on the north), has good reason to be frustrated. But this speech was not the place to look for succor.
