Breaking Ranks – Jordan in Support of U.S.-Israel-Turkey Naval Exercise

In a major break with prevailing Arab attitudes, Commander of the Royal Jordanian Navy, Adm. Hussein Ali Mahmut El-Hasawneh, said that Jordan is pleased with the trilateral U.S.-Israel-Turkey search and rescue exercise being carried out this week in the Mediterranean. He was quoted by the Turkish newspaper Cumhuriyet on Wednesday, January 7 as saying that it is a very useful operation. “This is not directed against anyone,” said Adm. El-Hasawneh, standing on the bridge of the 3,000-ton Turkish frigate Yavuz.

In a major break with prevailing Arab attitudes, Commander of the Royal Jordanian Navy, Adm. Hussein Ali Mahmut El-Hasawneh, said that Jordan is pleased with the trilateral U.S.-Israel-Turkey search and rescue exercise being carried out this week in the Mediterranean. He was quoted by the Turkish newspaper Cumhuriyet on Wednesday, January 7 as saying that it is a very useful operation. “This is not directed against anyone,” said Adm. El-Hasawneh, standing on the bridge of the 3,000-ton Turkish frigate Yavuz. “It is a pure search and rescue operation.” Many Arab states, led by Egypt, Syria and Iraq were hostile to the humanitarian exercise, portraying it as an alliance against them. Other Arab states, like most of the Gulf states, were quiet, expressing neither support nor anger. Iran, too, was stridently opposed to the cooperation.

The question to be asked is whether we might be witnessing the seeds of an emerging pro-Western alliance in the region. Such an alliance would include Israel and Turkey, along with Jordan. Many analysts also believe that the emerging alliance could eventually include pro-Western governments in Iran, after the end of the mullahs regime, and in Iraq, post Saddam Hussein’s dictatorial system.

The exercise on Wednesday involved the rescue of ships in distress. The Associated Press reported how a Turkish helicopter hovered above a small yacht off Israel’s Mediterranean coast Wednesday, dropping white smoke to mark the location of a simulated disaster at sea. Lookouts on American,Turkish and Israeli ships reported over radios that they had found similar boats in distress in the choppy winter seas. “Proceeding at maximum speed to the scene,” an American voice said.

The ships had sailed to a rendezvous off the Israeli coast where they received “distress signals” from three yachts. An Israeli commander on a missile boat dispatched ships from each country to the rescue, and frogmen pulled life-size mannequins out of the water.

The exercise, named Reliant Mermaid, drew angry protests from Iran and many Arab states. The growing Turkish-Israeli military relationship has unnerved regimes in Iran, Syria and Iraq. Officials of the participating countries stressed that Wednesday’s operation – involving five ships and more than 1,000 sailors – was only a humanitarian exercise. Jordan took part as an official observer, a role Egypt had rejected.Col. Husnu Dag, a representative of the Turkish General Staff, said the maneuver was necessary because dense sea traffic in the eastern Mediterranean “creates the need to respond to civilian emergencies.” Reliant Mermaid will “promote peace and stability in the region,” he said. Wednesday’s exercise lasted just four hours. Five Turkish, Israeli and American warships took part, along with naval reconnaissance aircraft and helicopters of the three countries. In JINSA Report #62, we reported that the U.S. government delayed the start of Reliant Mermaid because of Arab state opposition. This is not true,according to the Pentagon. In a note to JINSA, a Defense Department official said that after the concept of the exercise was agreed to in principle, it took considerable amount of time for the parties to fix a date in November. The U.S. did ask both participants to consider an alternate date because of conflicts with ongoing U.S. military operations. [The Department of Defense was], however, willing to stick with the original November date if necessary. The Turks decided on January and did not want to revert to the November date because they didn’t want the exercise to occur too near to the OIC (Organization of Islamic Countries) summit in Tehran.