Marc Lynch

Jordanian takes on the Obama peace prize

Just a quick note from the road.  I was in Amman, Jordan when the news of President Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize dropped, and I’ve been talking to people from across the political and social spectrum (I’ll have a lot more to report on the various issues over here when I get back next week, including ...

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Just a quick note from the road.  I was in Amman, Jordan when the news of President Obama's Nobel Peace Prize dropped, and I've been talking to people from across the political and social spectrum (I'll have a lot more to report on the various issues over here when I get back next week, including on the deep Jordanian concerns about the trajectory of the Israeli-Palestinian relationship and the recent events in Jerusalem, and on domestic issues involving the Muslim Brotherhood and democratic reform prospects).   On the Nobel, the response of the Jordanians I've talked with thus far is overwhelmingly one of confusion and bewilderment.  Deeply dissatisfied with the lack of progress on Israeli-Palestinian talks and the failure to secure a freeze on settlements, and hyper-charged by the controversy over the Goldstone report and the growing tensions in Jerusalem, my Jordanian interlocutors were mostly baffled.  Is Guantanamo closed?   Is the US out of Iraq?  Isn't Obama trying to escalate in Afghanistan?  Isn't he going to let Israel attack Iran?  Even the people I've chatted with who really like Obama are shaking their heads about it.     But there is also an undercurrent of pride and hope for change.  A range of Jordanians from across the political spectrum have referred back to the Cairo address in glowing terms, and expressed their hopes that Obama can live up to his words.  Many seem to want him to succeed, even when they fear that he can't.   For all the skepticism and current dismay, they seem to view him as personally sincere and inspirational. Many still see great potential promise and seem to fervently hope that the transformations promised in that speech can be delivered.    The Jordanian reaction to the Nobel peace prize, and to the wider view of the first period of the Obama administration, can only be understood by capturing both of those responses -- the hopes as well as the disappointments, the admiration and the frustration.  Skepticism runs deep here, and anger and fears that the Israeli-Palestinian track is about to jump radically off the tracks ("heading to the abyss" is something I've been hearing often, but I'll have more to say on that soon).   But so does this undercurrent of hope, still there and hopefully strengthened by this vote of international confidence in Obama's efforts. 

Just a quick note from the road.  I was in Amman, Jordan when the news of President Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize dropped, and I’ve been talking to people from across the political and social spectrum (I’ll have a lot more to report on the various issues over here when I get back next week, including on the deep Jordanian concerns about the trajectory of the Israeli-Palestinian relationship and the recent events in Jerusalem, and on domestic issues involving the Muslim Brotherhood and democratic reform prospects). 
 
On the Nobel, the response of the Jordanians I’ve talked with thus far is overwhelmingly one of confusion and bewilderment.  Deeply dissatisfied with the lack of progress on Israeli-Palestinian talks and the failure to secure a freeze on settlements, and hyper-charged by the controversy over the Goldstone report and the growing tensions in Jerusalem, my Jordanian interlocutors were mostly baffled.  Is Guantanamo closed?   Is the US out of Iraq?  Isn’t Obama trying to escalate in Afghanistan?  Isn’t he going to let Israel attack Iran?  Even the people I’ve chatted with who really like Obama are shaking their heads about it. 
 
 But there is also an undercurrent of pride and hope for change.  A range of Jordanians from across the political spectrum have referred back to the Cairo address in glowing terms, and expressed their hopes that Obama can live up to his words.  Many seem to want him to succeed, even when they fear that he can’t.   For all the skepticism and current dismay, they seem to view him as personally sincere and inspirational. Many still see great potential promise and seem to fervently hope that the transformations promised in that speech can be delivered. 
 
The Jordanian reaction to the Nobel peace prize, and to the wider view of the first period of the Obama administration, can only be understood by capturing both of those responses — the hopes as well as the disappointments, the admiration and the frustration.  Skepticism runs deep here, and anger and fears that the Israeli-Palestinian track is about to jump radically off the tracks ("heading to the abyss" is something I’ve been hearing often, but I’ll have more to say on that soon).   But so does this undercurrent of hope, still there and hopefully strengthened by this vote of international confidence in Obama’s efforts. 

Marc Lynch is associate professor of political science and international affairs at George Washington University, where he is the director of the Institute for Middle East Studies and of the Project on Middle East Political Science. He is also a non-resident senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security. He is the author of The Arab Uprising (March 2012, PublicAffairs).

He publishes frequently on the politics of the Middle East, with a particular focus on the Arab media and information technology, Iraq, Jordan, Egypt, and Islamist movements. Twitter: @abuaardvark

Tag: Jordan

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