By Nigel Chamberlain, NATO Watch
The Operations Chief of Staff at the Jordan Armed Forces (JAF), Major General Awni El-Edwan, held a press conference at the Jordan Special Operations Command Headquarters in Amman on Sunday 9 June to give details of the Eager Lion 2013 multinational military exercises taking place in his country from 9 to 21 June.
Senior US and Jordanian military officials said that the annual exercises, involving over 8,000 troops from 19 nations, are not related to the ongoing conflict in neighbouring Syria. The Major General stressed that Jordan is a neutral country and planning for the Eager Lion began in 2010, prior to the beginning of the Syrian crisis.
The objectives of the exercises are to:
• strengthen the multilateral military relations between participating countries (Bahrain, Canada, Czech Republic, Egypt, France, Italy, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Lebanon, Pakistan, Poland, Qatar, United Kingdom, United States, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates);
• train various military and security units and NGOs to focus on irregular warfare and national security challenges such as counter-insurgency, counter-terrorism, strategic communications and chemical weapons; and
• integrate the work of more than 7,000 civilian personnel from government bodies and NGOs taking part in a wide range of offensive and defensive operations of warfare such as air defence, humanitarian assistance, humanitarian relief, and security challenges.
Eager Lion 2013 training is focused on a joint task force, which will fall under Jordanian leadership, and it also includes a multilateral field training exercise, a table training exercise and various workshops and seminars. The majority of the participants (4,500) are US forces from the Army, Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps working alongside approximately 3,000 participants of the JAF and just 500 from the other participating countries.
El-Edwan stressed that any decision to retain the undisclosed number of US Patriot missile batteries and F-16 fighter jets that have been sent to Jordan recently, or equipment and personnel currently in Jordon for the exercises, would be a political decision to be taken by the Jordanian leadership and Washington.
The Director of Exercises and Training at the US Headquarters Central Command (CENTCOM), Major General Catalanotti, said that an average of “a couple of hundred” US soldiers are currently in Jordan, aside from troops participating in Eager Lion 2013 and confirmed that any request by Jordon for such direct military support would be considered by Washington. He added:
All of this combined training, led by the Jordanian Armed Forces will come together over the next two weeks, strengthening the partnership between 19 countries and increasing the ability of participating nations to operate together during any contingency.
Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE are all CENTCOM ‘Area’s of Responsibility’ countries – as are Syria and Iran.
Canada, the Czech Republic, France, Italy, Poland, Turkey, the United Kingdom and the United States are all Member States of NATO. Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) are all members of NATO’s ‘Istanbul Cooperation Initiative (ICI)’. Egypt and Jordon are part of NATO’s ‘Mediterranean Dialogue’ while Iraq and Pakistan are included in NATO’s ‘Partners across the Globe’ programme. The Lebanon has no formal relationship with NATO but does share a border with Syria. Israel, another member of the Mediterranean Dialogue and also sharing a border with Syria, would not be participating in Eager Lion 2013, according to an official statement for the Jordanian Government but there have been recent, clear indications of closer cooperation between NATO and Israel.
The Saudi Arabian Foreign Affairs Minister, Dr. Nizar Madani, had discussions with NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen in Brussels a year ago (on 18 June 2012) based on the political dialogue and practical cooperation activities of the ICI. Rasmussen said: "Saudi Arabia is a key player in the region and NATO would welcome the opportunity to engage the Kingdom's government as a partner in the ICI". Dr. Madani also had meetings with the Deputy Secretary General and NATO Permanent Representatives and Alliance officials, who provided him with an overview of NATO's outreach and cooperation programmes with partner countries in the Mediterranean and in the Gulf region.
In a Foreign Policy article, John Reid suggests that the link between Eager Lion 2013 and developments in the region may be more closely related than the Pentagon cares to admit. He says that the fighting in Syria has started to spill over into Lebanon and Israel, while the US Congress is pressurising the White House to do something to aid the Syrian rebels in their fight against the Assad regime, which has been helped by a recent influx of fighters from Hezbollah, mainly from the Lebanon.
Reid reports that earlier this year the Pentagon sent several hundred ‘headquarters’ troops to Jordan from the 1st Armoured Division at Fort Bliss, Texas, to assist US and other NATO troops in their efforts to secure the Assad regime's stockpile of chemical and biological weapons, should they fall into the hands of opposition forces. They have been joined by members of the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU), a host of US Navy amphibious warfare ships, Patriot air defence missile batteries from Fort Bliss and F-16 fighter jets from the Colorado Air National Guard. British Royal marines from 4/2 Commando will be under the command of the US Marines according to Colonel St. Clair, Commanding Officer of the 26th MEU commanding officer.
The Pentagon says that the troops are in Jordan to demonstrate US commitment "to the Kingdom of Jordan and regional partners and the combined efforts to sustain regional security and stability” - just what the war in Syria threatens, says Reed. He adds that the Marines are basically a self-contained, seagoing crisis response force equipped with everything from an infantry battalion to MV-22 Osprey tilt-rotors and the F-16s that specialise in keeping enemy aircraft and missiles on the ground. Finally, he quotes Michael Eisenstadt of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy in support of his thesis:
This is the most recent in a series of multinational exercises that started in 2011, and while I believe that a broad range of capabilities are tested during this protracted training exercise, it's hard not to conclude that at least some aspects of the exercise (particular those focusing on humanitarian assistance, chemical warfare mitigation, and missile defence) were written into the script because of ongoing developments in Syria.
Reuters reports that the deployments and exercises in Jordan have drawn condemnation from Russia, as did NATO’s deployment of Patriot batteries on Turkey’s border with Syria last year. Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich said: "We have more than once stated our opinion on this - foreign weapons are being pumped into an explosive region”. Russia and the Syrian Government are concerned that these deployments could be used to enforce a no-fly zone. It was reported at the end of last month that President Obama has directed the US Defense Department to draft plans to establish a no-fly-zone in Syria that would be enforced by NATO members.
Jordanian officials have apparently said, privately, that they have already requested that at least two Patriots are left in the country to guard against any missile attack from Syria and western diplomats have apparently indicated that Washington has favourably responded to the request.