Targeting Jordan
By Aaron Mannes
An important detail of the December 30 attack on the CIA Camp Chapman is that the Jordanian intelligence officer killed, Ali bin Zaid, was a relative to Jordanian King Abdullah II. It cannot be a coincidence that a cousin of the king was personally in charge of this highly sensitive portfolio. This illustrates broad points about how much of Middle Eastern politics is in fact a “family affair,” but it also has specific implications for the Kingdom of Jordan.
Clan Tectonics
Much of what passes for politics in the greater Middle East are in fact driven by family, clan, and tribal interests. There is a famous Arabic expression:
I against my brother;
I and my brothers against my cousins;
I and my brothers and my cousins against the world.
In other words, my family against another family, my clan against another clan, my tribe against another tribe and so forth. This is a fundamental organizing principle in the societies of the greater Middle East. (It has also existed in the West – consider
Romeo and Juliet, the Guelphs and the Ghibellines, and the Hatfields and McCoys – but has been ameliorated by competing values and institutions.) Religious and political splits (such as the Sunni-Shia) are often based heavily on clan affairs – the real tectonic forces of the region.
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