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Ammon News - AMMONNEWS - Jordan has been revising its strategy amid Al Qaida’s takeover of much of neighboring Iraq, a report said.

The Al Quds Center for Political Studies asserted that the Hashemite kingdom has been forced to draft a new regional strategy in wake of the takeover of northern Iraq by Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. In a report, the center said ISIL has now formed one of the largest and richest oil states in the Middle East.

“Jordan, which is observing these developments with great caution and much concern is finding itself forced to adopt new, more calibrated, and more long-term approaches in dealing with the crises that are taking its two neighboring countries by storm, especially Syria,” the report, titled “Traversing Sykes-Picot,” said.

The report, one of two issued by the center in June 2014, said Jordan faced an ISIL state that spanned the kingdom’s two neighbors — Iraq and Syria. Center director Oraib Al Rantawi said Jordan must respond quickly to the ISIL threat with an independent strategy.

“As for us in Jordan, we no longer have the luxury of waiting and observing,” Al Rantawi said. “The threat is drawing close to our bedrooms.

It has now assumed strategic form after it has moved beyond a security threat posed by cells and groups.”

“What some have described as a jihadi crescent surrounding Jordan from three sides, has now become a reality that needs to be studied carefully and considered,” Al Rantawi said.

The reports were issued as ISIL threatened to invade Jordan and kill its king. Media forums used by Al Qaida have discussed the prospect of an ISIL option of sending fighters to the Hashemite kingdom.

Al Rantawi, regarded as close to the monarchy, suggested that Jordan would have to break from its traditional allies, particularly the United States, to defend its interests. He did not elaborate.

“We do not have the luxury of appeasing any regional or international party, or of taking their calculations and priorities into consideration,” the second report, titled “In Control of Western Iraq,” said. “I suppose we now have to think outside the box and bypass the considerations and calculations that led us to pursue the ‘diplomacy of finding our way in the midst of a minefield,’ as we have previously described it.”

The report blamed the United States for ISIL’s victory in Iraq. Al Rantawi, who did not rule out air strikes on Iraq and Syria, said the administration of President Barack Obama provided “blind support” of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki, deemed a client of Iran.

“The U.S. still deals with ISIS as if it were the creation of the Syrian regime,” the report said. “That is a foolish approach that cannot stand its ground in the face of the signs that point to the origins of this organization/state, or the aims of its war that shifts back and forth between the two largest Arab countries in the Mashriq.”

Instead, Al Rantawi envisioned Jordanian cooperation with both Iraq and Syria against ISIL. He dismissed the option of a continued alliance between Amman, which hosts up to 10,000 Islamist fighters, and pro-Western Syrian rebels.

“Part of this rethinking must include the possibility of intensifying the pace of coordination and cooperation with the Baghdad and Damascus regimes so as to contain the expanding onslaught of the forces of extremism and terrorism,” Al Rantawi said. “We should not wait for the antidote to come from ‘the moderate opposition’ in Syria, or the ‘Sunni constituent’ in Iraq.”

Al Rantawi said ISIL captured northern Iraq with help from within the Baghdad regime. He said ISIL was expected to transform from an insurgency movement into a state that would break Iran’s so-called Shi’ite crescent, which extends to Lebanon.

“We have many questions and very few answers,” Al Rantawi said. “What happened took us by surprise and almost took our reason away.”

*World Tribune