Captain Osama Shakman

On Sept. 9, 2026, geography needed no political analyst to explain the contradiction.

The country Tehran has long described as its greatest enemy was not hiding across an ocean, American forces were present in the waters of the Persian Gulf and around the Strait of Hormuz, close to Iran’s own shores and maritime frontier. At its narrowest point, the strait is only about 21 miles — roughly 34 kilometers — wide, And yet Iranian ballistic missiles traveled hundreds of kilometers and found their way into Jordanian skies.

That is where the issue ceases to be merely political and becomes something more fundamental, If your enemy is at your doorstep, why are your missiles searching for him over our country? Why should Jordan be drawn into a war it did not declare, did not choose and never authorized others to extend into its airspace?

On the evening of Sept. 9, Iran launched ballistic missiles toward a base in Jordan used by American forces. Jordanian authorities said most of the incoming missiles were intercepted.

Tehran may argue that the intended target was American. That argument ends the moment a missile crosses into Jordanian sovereignty, A ballistic missile does not enter another country carrying a diplomatic explanation. It carries explosives. It carries the possibility of death. It carries danger to soldiers and civilians who never chose to become participants in someone else’s war.

Do not tell us that America was the target, Once the missile is above my country, the question becomes Jordanian. If it can fall on a Jordanian town, a Jordanian village or a road traveled by Jordanian families, then the nationality of the intended target becomes secondary. Sovereignty does not recognize rhetorical loopholes. It is either respected or violated.

What makes the episode more troubling is that American naval and military forces were hardly concealed in some unreachable corner of the world. They were operating in the Gulf itself.

So if Iran has chosen confrontation with the United States, why should Jordan become the easier stage on which to demonstrate that confrontation? It is a harsh question, but a necessary one. What kind of power faces an adversary nearby, yet turns another country into the theater of its message? And what kind of resistance requires missiles to pass over the heads of another people in order to prove courage against a third party?

Jordan is not a mailbox between Tehran and Washington. It is not a corridor for the missiles of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, nor a convenient rear stage for wars conceived elsewhere.

Jordanians do not have to admire the United States in order to reject an Iranian missile. Nor do we have to hate Iran in order to defend our skies.

Jordan’s relationship with Washington is a Jordanian matter. Iran’s conflict with Washington is an Iranian matter.

Between the two stands a line that must not be erased. Its name is sovereignty. Iranian policymakers should also remember that nations are not measured by square miles, population or the size of their missile arsenals.

Jordan may be smaller than Iran on a map, but its right to defend its territory, airspace and national decision is no smaller.

I am Jordanian, For that reason, I cannot regard an Iranian missile as merely another headline in a distant regional conflict. When it is flying toward my country, the matter becomes personal, national and moral.

I do not care how many missiles Iran possesses, what they are called or how far they can travel, What matters to me is that my country not become a variable in someone else’s strategic calculations.

There is, after all, a difference between capability and strength. Capability is the ability to launch a missile hundreds of miles. Strength is knowing when not to launch one. Strength is understanding that every line drawn on a map contains a country, a people and a dignity that cannot be dismissed as collateral geography.

That is why Jordan’s message to Tehran should require no diplomatic ambiguity. If your dispute is with the United States, confront the United States, If you choose war, bear responsibility for that choice.

But do not turn Jordanian skies into a road to your enemy, and do not turn Jordanian soil into the stage for your conflict. A government cannot demand that the world respect its sovereignty while sending missiles through the sovereignty of others.

That is not the defense of a principle. It is the contradiction of one. And so the image of Sept. 9 remains more powerful than a thousand political speeches. Your enemy was near your doorstep. Your missiles came to ours.

The question from Jordan is therefore not merely one of anger, It is a defense of the most basic right any nation possesses: What does Jordan have to do with your war?


Capt. Osama Shakman