(Page 19 of 30) - Jordan and the Gulf Wars: Determining Hashemite Foreign Policy in 1990-91 and 2003 authored by Shulman, Debra.

Jordan. This mass expulsion of Palestinians to the Jordanian East Bank could be the basis of an
Israeli strategy to satisfy the desire for a Palestinian state by creating such an entity out of Jordan
itself. In an interview with Kuwait’s Al-Watan newspaper, King Hussein expressed concern with
the influx of Soviet Jewish immigration to Israel. He questioned, “Where will all those
thousands of people settle when they come and at whose expense? Who will leave so these
people can come and in what direction? . . . All the possibilities are very threatening indeed.”

In this vein, some Jordanians were concerned that Israel would use Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait as
a pretext for occupying Jordan on the way to invading Iraq (Lynch 1999, 144). In this context, it
is possible that Jordan might have chosen to balance with Iraq against the perceived threat from
Israel. Saddam’s threat to “burn half of Israel” in a speech on 2 April 1990 may have given
Jordanians hope that Baghdad had the capability and intention to be their savior against an Israeli
threat.

By 2003, Iraq had become much weaker and less able to project its power abroad, while

Israel remained at least as powerful as it had been in the first Gulf war. There was little question
this time as to which side would win a war between Iraq and a coalition led by the United States.
It is possible, therefore, that Jordan could be seen to be bandwagoning with Israel and with its
patron, the US, by discreetly supporting the US-led war on Iraq.

At the theoretical level, neo-realism suffers from two main deficiencies. First, neo-

realism’s reliance on power comes at the exclusion of other salient factors, such as leaders’
intentions and regime security. Jepperson, Wendt, and Katzenstein cite the example of Canada
and Cuba, which had similar amounts of material power relative to the United States. The fact
that the US perceives one as an ally and the other as a threat, they posit, results from ideational
factors which have led American leaders to identify with the former, while viewing the latter as
dangerous to Washington’s self-defined interests (Jepperson, Wendt, and Katzenstein 1996, 34).
Responding to some of the pitfalls identified with neo-realism, some reformers have attempted to
refine the theory. Walt’s move to suggest that states balance against threat, rather than against
power, was a major such innovation (Walt 1987). Another reformer of balance-of-power theory
is Steven David, who has put forth a theory of “omnibalancing,” which he claims is particularly
relevant in understanding alliance dynamics in the so-called Third World. “Whereas balance of
power focuses on the state’s need to counter threats from other states,” notes David,
“omnibalancing considers internal and external threats to the leadership” (David 1991, 233).
With their concern to do whatever is necessary to maintain their grip on power, leaders will often
ally with secondary adversaries so that they can focus their energies on combating their primary
enemies, who, more often than not, are located inside the state itself. For deviating from the neo-
realist view of the world which is based on material factors and the structure of the international
system, theorists like Walt and David have been criticized as contributing to the decline of this
theoretical paradigm (Legro and Moravcsik 1999). These theorists point to the need to examine
factors external to the neo-realist paradigm, such as domestic opposition movements and
intentions of state actors, in order to keep neo-realism afloat.
.

In addition, many authors have noted the indeterminacy of balance-of-power, and even of

balance-of-threat theory (Brand 1994; Gause 1999; Lynch 1999). Walt provides little guidance
by way of suggesting how leaders determine which state is the most “threatening,” especially
within a multipolar environment. Gause (1999, 4) provides the following example: