Between the Lines of Al-Rifai’s Discourse
The substantive lecture delivered by Samir Al-Rifai, former Prime Minister, two days ago at the Politics and Society Institute carries significant implications at the level of the Jordanian national context. Notably, it moves beyond the conventional task of reiterating official positions and the defensive rhetoric that often proves counterproductive in shaping both domestic and broader Arab public opinion. Instead, Al-Rifai advances a more analytically grounded framework, seeking to construct a distinctly Jordanian understanding of the ongoing war-one that situates state positions within the broader matrix of international alignments and strategic interests. Central to this framework is his critique of what he terms “regional illusions,” which are sustained more by political propaganda than by empirical realities on the ground. From this vantage point, the lecture progresses toward a set of conclusions concerning Jordan’s strategic positioning and its underlying rationale, while also delineating the national imperatives required to navigate what he characterizes as a critical and transitional phase.
The full lecture is available on the official website of the Politics and Society Institute, where it can be consulted in its entirety. However, the purpose of this article is to highlight a number of key issues raised therein-foremost among them the imperative of developing coherent national Jordanian frameworks capable of addressing urgent and consequential questions at both the regional level and within the domain of Jordan’s national security. These include: What constitute the principal threats to Jordanian national security at the present juncture, particularly in light of anticipated scenarios for the period ahead? How might strategic interests be redefined in response to these profound transformations and shifts? And what should be the hierarchy of national political and economic priorities in navigating this critical phase?
Such questions constitute a critical entry point for engaging with both the present conjuncture and the challenges of the forthcoming phase. In the absence of rigorous, systematically developed frameworks-formulated and refined by political elites and state institutions alike-any discourse on national security or invocations of national slogans risks devolving into reactive emotional mobilization and formulaic rhetoric. Such approaches are ill-suited to the demands of the current moment, where a nuanced understanding of public policy is required, alongside the cultivation of a distinctly Jordanian strategic awareness capable of interpreting the profound political upheavals reshaping the region-upheavals that, in some cases, have led to state collapse and, in others, to the erosion of political stability.
It is true that Jordan has developed substantial political expertise in navigating challenges, sources of threat, and critical historical junctures, demonstrating a sustained capacity for managing political risk. Yet the danger lies in allowing this accumulated experience to shift from a foundation of strategic self-confidence into a posture of complacency or underestimation of emerging threats. Each phase is defined by its own conditions and contextual dynamics, and the strategies and policies that proved effective in enabling Jordan to traverse earlier periods may not necessarily be suitable-or sufficient-for addressing the demands of the present moment and the uncertainties of the foreseeable future.
Al-Rifai also sought to engage directly with the domestic political debate unfolding across social media platforms, where positions and judgments are often advanced without a sufficiently rigorous or nuanced reading of unfolding realities-particularly with regard to Jordan’s stance and its positioning between the two principal poles of the current conflict: Iran on the one hand, and the United States alongside Israel on the other. His intervention aims to redirect this debate onto a more analytically grounded trajectory. As he argues, Iran is not a charitable actor; rather, its engagement with the Palestinian issue must be understood within the framework of national interests, strategic calculations, and geopolitical considerations. At the same time, he rejects the reduction of the conflict to a purely sectarian war-while acknowledging that sectarian, ethnic, and identity-based instruments may be mobilized instrumentally by different actors.
Accordingly, his analysis underscores the necessity of distinguishing between political propaganda and empirical realities. In parallel, he emphasizes that Israel represents no lesser a source of risk within the regional order; indeed, current developments point to the consolidation of increasingly hardline right-wing policies and a potentially expansive regional hegemonic project. From this dual recognition, Al-Rifai advances the argument that any credible formulation of national policy for the forthcoming phase must be grounded in a sober, balanced, and strategically informed assessment of these converging dynamics.
This leads to a significant and cautionary insight embedded in the remarks of Samir Al-Rifai, namely his warning regarding the fragility of internal conditions across a number of Arab states and the potential eruption of societal and political conflicts. Such conflicts, while often originating at the domestic level, carry a high propensity to expand into regional confrontations, thereby drawing the broader region into a dangerous cycle of protracted internal wars of attrition. The implications of this trajectory extend beyond immediate instability, as it threatens not only to reshape the rules governing regional interactions but also to fundamentally reconfigure the geopolitical landscape as a whole.
What remains unspoken in Al-Rifai’s discourse is a question of profound significance: where does Jordan stand, strategically, within the matrix of regional and international projects, interests, and power configurations? Perhaps the question that must now be posed-particularly in the aftermath of Trump’s consequential remarks in Miami-is this: Iran, in all likelihood, will no longer emerge from the current war as an effective regional actor. Even if the present regime endures, it is likely to be preoccupied with restoring and managing internal affairs. On the opposite side, Trump made it unmistakably clear that he seeks to entrench the “Abraham Accords” as the foundation of a new regional order, and that he will exert substantial pressure to impose normalization across the region and integrate Israel’s right-wing government into that order without placing a peaceful resolution to the Palestinian question on the table. Such a trajectory would carry far-reaching and deeply adverse implications for Jordanian national security. The pressing question, then, is how Jordan conceptualizes such a scenario: what strategic vision does it hold, what options remain available, and what course of action is it prepared to pursue?
To watch the full recording of the seminar, click here