Is Jordan the Next Domino in Iran’s Regional Game?

As instability deepens across the Middle East in 2025, Jordan—long regarded as a bastion of pragmatic statecraft and relative calm—is edging toward a critical breaking point. Escalating violence in Gaza and the West Bank, Iranian proxy activity along its northern border, and mounting domestic unrest are converging in ways that threaten to undo decades of geopolitical balancing. The Hashemite monarchy, once adept at navigating crises by walking a tightrope between competing constituencies and regional powers, is now running out of slack.

The Erosion of Domestic Stability

The war in Gaza has amplified existing societal fault lines within Jordan, particularly among its substantial population of Palestinian origin. Protests have erupted across major urban centers, including Amman, Zarqa and Irbid, reflecting both solidarity with Gaza and broader disillusionment. The grievances extend well beyond foreign policy: economic hardship, political exclusion, and pervasive corruption are now at the center of popular discontent.

Rather than adapt to the shifting landscape, the Jordanian government has responded with a familiar toolkit: detentions, restrictions on media, and rhetorical appeals to national unity. These tactics, once effective in managing dissent, are showing diminishing returns. The 2024 parliamentary elections underscored this changing political mood. The Islamic Action Front (IAF), the political arm of the Muslim Brotherhood, won approximately 20 percent of the vote—its strongest showing in a decade—drawing significant support from constituencies angered by the Gaza war and the government’s handling of the economy.

The regime’s decision in early 2025 to ban the Muslim Brotherhood, citing involvement in a sabotage plot and connections to weapons stockpiles, marks a dramatic escalation. Government sources claim the group was coordinating with foreign actors to incite unrest, but critics argue that this move reflects a deeper anxiety within the state over its waning legitimacy.

A Fragile Economic Foundation

Beneath the political crisis lies a long-festering economic malaise. Youth unemployment stands above 40 percent. Public debt has surpassed 110 percent of GDP. IMF-driven reforms, while fiscally necessary, have translated into fuel and food subsidy cuts and higher taxes—painful measures in a country with limited natural resources and weak social safety nets.

Though Amman has launched programs to encourage foreign investment and foster a digital economy, implementation is stymied by institutional inertia, regulatory opacity, and a perception that benefits flow disproportionately to entrenched elites. In rural areas and poorer urban districts, frustration is compounded by what many see as an increasingly absent state. East Bank tribal communities, traditionally the monarchy’s political backbone, are growing vocal in their dissatisfaction, feeling marginalized economically and politically.

The regime’s historical legitimacy rested on a tacit social contract: stability and access in exchange for loyalty. That contract is fraying. Economic pressures are producing generational resentment, and political stagnation has closed off avenues for peaceful dissent. These dynamics are eroding the foundations of Hashemite rule from below.

Iran’s Quiet Encirclement Strategy

Compounding Jordan’s internal fragility is a rapidly deteriorating external security environment. Intelligence officials report that Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) is stepping up efforts to destabilize Jordan via proxy networks, particularly along its porous border with Syria. Iran-linked groups, including Kataib Hezbollah and local affiliates, have reportedly smuggled arms and trained operatives to carry out asymmetric attacks.

Two recent incidents—the Allenby Bridge shooting in late 2024 and the armed infiltration near Neot HaKikar—have been linked to a clandestine network calling itself the “Islamic Resistance in Jordan.” Authorities believe this group maintains encrypted communications with IRGC personnel in Iraq and Syria and has received logistical support for operations designed to provoke instability and challenge Jordan’s pro-Western alignment.

Tehran’s calculus does not appear to be regime change. Instead, its objective is to exploit Jordan’s vulnerabilities and undermine its role as a strategic partner of the United States, Israel, and moderate Arab states. Jordan’s cooperative security ties with the West and its peace treaty with Israel make it an obvious target in Iran’s regional playbook. What’s emerging is a low-intensity contest over the kingdom’s political trajectory, fought through infiltration, influence, and strategic disruption.

The Strategic Stakes

The ramifications of Jordan’s potential destabilization go far beyond its borders. The kingdom remains a central node in US-led counterterrorism architecture in the Levant. It serves as a containment buffer between Israel and hostile actors in Syria and Iraq, and it hosts millions of refugees, including sizable Palestinian and Syrian populations. A serious breakdown in internal security would not only threaten regional coordination on extremism but could also prompt new refugee flows, stoke unrest in the West Bank, and create openings for jihadist resurgence.

Despite its strategic importance, Jordan has long suffered from benign neglect by its allies. US support has remained steady but relatively modest, predicated on the assumption that the kingdom can muddle through without intensive engagement. That assumption no longer holds. A passive approach will not suffice in the current climate.

What’s needed is a shift in posture—from transactional support to strategic partnership. This includes increased economic aid tied to credible governance and anti-corruption benchmarks, as well as deeper intelligence-sharing and border security cooperation. Israel, too, has a vested interest in this equation, even as domestic politics on both sides complicate bilateral engagement.

A Precipice Moment

Jordan has weathered many storms over the past century, from wars and refugee influxes to political uprisings. But the confluence of pressures it now faces—economic exhaustion, political fragmentation, and regional subversion—has brought it to a uniquely dangerous moment. The monarchy still commands institutional resilience, but its margin for error is narrowing.

Whether Jordan emerges from this crisis intact depends not only on the adaptability of its rulers, but on the willingness of its allies to treat its stability as a strategic priority rather than an afterthought. The kingdom’s unraveling would be neither sudden nor headline-grabbing—but it would be consequential.

The question now is not whether Jordan can survive. It’s whether it can do so without dragging the region into a deeper spiral of volatility.