a note on the jordan piece
ali al-khalayleh called for jordan to help attack iran, then claimed the americans killed at a jordanian air base were picnicking with shepherds.
Yesterday I published a piece on Jordan’s claim that it is neutral in the US-Iran war.
After it went up, a video of Jordanian MP Ali al-Khalayleh appeared on my feed. I had seen a video of him before, and it was part of what made me want to write about Jordan’s role in the war. But once I got deeper into the research, I somehow forgot about the clip and I never saved it.
It appeared on my feed again yesterday. I found and searched his name and found several more videos of him saying dumb things. So I gathered a few of them here as a short addition to the original article.
Al-Khalayleh is a five-term MP. As far as I can tell, he is an established, mid-tier politician who has repeatedly been returned to parliament, so not a nobody. His position does not appear to come from any particular love of the United States, and he is certainly not pro-Israel. He is simply intensely anti-Iranian, to the point that he is willing to welcome almost any foreign power willing to attack it.
The remarks from the video above came on March 2, after the United States and Israel attacked Iran and Tehran retaliated with missiles and drones against targets across the region, including in Jordan. Rather than ask why Jordan had been drawn into the war, al-Khalayleh demanded that the government expel Iran’s chargé d’affaires and open Jordanian airspace to “all friendly countries” so they could attack what he called Iran’s “bloody, corrupt regime.” He did not name Israel or the United States, but there was little ambiguity about which countries possessed both the means and the intention to carry out such strikes.
The following day, speaking to Saraya News, al-Khalayleh doubled down. He called the Jordanians who had criticized him a “fifth column,” “shabiha of the Iranian regime” (Shabiha means “ghosts,” but in modern political usage refers to regime thugs or enforcers, most famously the pro-Assad militias in Syria.) and “remnants of the Majus.” (Majus is an old Arabic term for the Zoroastrians of Persia; here it was being used as a sectarian slur against Iranians and Shias.)
He said anyone who disliked his remarks could “go pave the sea,” (something like that, basically similar to “go pound sand”) an Arabic expression meaning he did not care what they thought. He also called anyone pleased by attacks on Jordan a dayyuth, in English… a cuck. Adding that “a dayyuth knows what that means.” He accused his critics of celebrating Iranian “scrap missiles” that had harmed Jordanians and predicted that the Iranian government would fall within days.
On March 4th, al-Khalayleh again insisted that Jordan should open its airspace for attacks on Iran. He denied that he meant Israel, saying he had never mentioned “the Zionist entity.” Instead, he named Britain and France as friendly, “good” countries that should be allowed to use Jordanian airspace if they needed it, “so that we can rid ourselves of this corrupt regime.” He also, again, declared that Iran was finished and that the remnants of its government would flee to Russia.
After American soldiers were killed in Jordan, al-Khalayleh told reporters at the Jordanian Parliament on July 19 that he had spoken with his colleagues on the Jordanian-American Friendship Committee to convey condolences to the American people. He claimed the soldiers had been on an excursion in the Jordanian desert with shepherds when missile fragments struck them. He then called the Iranian government a “bloody regime” and said that, God willing, it would soon disappear.
CENTCOM itself admitted that the soldiers were killed in action while American and partner forces defended against Iranian missile and drone attacks. The Pentagon confirmed that the attack took place at Muwaffaq Salti Air Base, not somewhere in the desert among shepherds.
Al-Khalayleh’s story was not merely false. It was a stupid lie, so absurd that it showed how little respect he had for the people listening. American soldiers had not wandered into the desert for a picnic with shepherds. They were operating from a Jordanian air base against Iran, and he invented the outing because admitting what they were doing would also mean admitting that Jordan was participating in the war.
The irony is that al-Khalayleh had openly demanded exactly that. He wanted foreign countries to use Jordanian airspace to attack Iran, insulted anyone who objected and dismissed Iranian missiles as scrap. Then those same “scrap” missiles reached Muwaffaq Salti Air Base and killed American soldiers there. Faced with the consequences of the policy he had advocated, he did not defend it. He made up a story about shepherds.
Using his own language, the man is a cuck. He wants stronger countries to use Jordan’s airspace and bases to wage their war while Jordanians absorb the retaliation. Then, when American soldiers are killed at the base they were operating from, he is too cowardly to admit what happened and invents a fairy tale about shepherds. A man who offers his country to foreign powers, begs them to fight from its soil and then lies to his own people when consequences reach Jordan has no standing to lecture anyone about honor.