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Jordan Plays It Safe
(Economist-UK) Rich Iraqis who decamped to Amman, Jordan's capital, after the American invasion of 2003, have helped turn it into one of the region's fastest-growing cities. Living in mansions, Sunni tribal sheikhs exiled from Anbar, Iraq's western province, broadcast appeals on their satellite networks to establish an autonomous region for Sunni Arabs, as the Kurds have done. Connected to Jordan, together they would build a Sunni bulwark against Iran's advance west. A bilateral agreement to build a pipeline from Basra's oilfields in Iraq to Jordan's port of Aqaba promises to turn the kingdom into an energy hub. King Abdullah is most cautious on the Palestinians. Palestinian nationalists shot his grandfather dead in 1948. His father, Hussein, only just survived a Palestinian revolt in September 1970. Abdullah prefers to keep out of the fray. Jordan First, he tells the Palestinians who make up most of his population.