When Military Rank Loses Its Honor

From time to time, voices still emerge speaking on Jordanian affairs with a confidence that matches, neither closely nor remotely, the actual information they possess.

The latest of these voices is retired Iraqi Major General Abdul Karim Khalaf, who appears in the media as a security and military expert, while his recent comments on Al-Ghadeer channel reveal an absence of even the most basic verification standards that should precede military and security claims.

Khalaf appeared puffed up, speaking with the confidence of someone who has operational maps and intelligence reports in front of him, presenting a sensational account claiming there is an American base in Aqaba, to which the United States transferred aircraft and helicopters from the Gulf region, before Iran, according to his account, attacked the base, destroyed the aircraft, and killed a number of American soldiers.

If this information were true, we would not be talking about a small military incident that could be concealed, but a major military operation involving a direct Iranian attack, the destruction of aircraft and helicopters, and fatalities, an extremely dangerous regional development.

Yet Khalaf wants the viewer to believe that an event of this magnitude occurred, and then simply vanished without a trace. Even more ridiculous is the way he tries to lend his account a degree of credibility, claiming that the transfer of American aircraft and helicopters took place quietly, at night, between 3 a.m. and dawn, while people were asleep.

This claim invites laughter. A genuine military expert knows that moving military aircraft does not become secret simply because people are asleep, that aircraft don’t disappear from radar at dawn, that satellites don’t sleep, that surveillance and reconnaissance systems don’t shut their doors at midnight, and that air bases don’t relocate major military assets as if a truck were carrying packages down a side road.

But Khalaf doesn’t stop there. He adds something even more dangerous to his tale, claiming that the intelligence that enabled Iran to carry out the operation came from “Jordanian security sources.” This is an extremely serious accusation touching on state institutions, implying an Iranian infiltration within Jordan’s security apparatus, an accusation that belongs to propaganda aimed at sabotage, not analysis.

Iran has spent decades trying to build cross border networks of influence and has succeeded to varying degrees in numerous Arab arenas, particularly in Iraq, where many rushed to work under the mullahs’ leadership, betraying their own country and people, including this general. But in Jordan, Iran ran into a state that has preserved the cohesion of its institutions, its independent security and political decision making, and the integrity and loyalty of its people, forming a bulwark against Iran’s organized assault on the entire region.

Claims of Iranian security infiltration into Jordan are nothing but wishful fantasies that have danced in the imaginations of the mullahs’ leaders since their late Khomeini, through Qassem Soleimani, before death overcame them and they departed in frustration, while Jordan remained steadfast and impervious to infiltration.

The account Khalaf presented can serve as a model for what happens when satellite channels turn into platforms where anyone can place the label “military expert” next to their name, then say whatever they please without anyone stopping them from spreading garbage and holding people’s intelligence in contempt. The problem is that we are facing an entirely inverted method, where the conclusion is predetermined, and Iran becomes the “boss” who owns an entire farm of slaves it can unleash whenever it wishes, to mindlessly repeat its narrative of supernatural power and imagined victories, leaving the viewer with nothing to do but believe and applaud.

Jordan doesn’t need to engage in argument with every bark and bray of this kind, since grand claims sometimes collapse under the weight of their own absurdity more than through official rebuttals. But it is necessary to expose the method by which these lies are produced, since the danger lies not in Abdul Karim Khalaf alone, but in an entire media industry that uses military ranks and academic titles to dress up propaganda as knowledge.

In this era, when Iran is living through its worst days and nightmares, talk of American bases in Jordan becomes akin to the tales of ghosts and jinn that grandmothers used to tell their grandchildren so they would go to bed trembling, but those of limited intellect, and those struck by humiliation and servitude, don’t hesitate to carry these tales and spread them across satellite platforms, currying favor with their masters.

Khalaf, whose forehead has grown accustomed to bowing beneath the Iranian boot, and in whom servility to the mullahs’ regime has become entrenched, is not ashamed to carry the Iranian side’s story and promote it. And though he claims understanding, possession of information, and analytical ability, he has not looked closely around him, for had he done so, he would have found his own country submerged in Iranian occupation for two decades, and would have seen how Iran waded into Iraqi blood, with the active contribution of himself and those like him among military men who have lost any genuine military honor, and who helped Iran carry out its agenda in their own country.

He would have been better served concerning himself with the question of the scale of Iranian influence inside his own country, which is not some secret tale of aircraft moving while people sleep, but a documented political and security reality that Iraqis themselves have lived through for many long years. The Iraqi state has paid a heavy price for the struggle over influence, for the chaos of weapons and militias that Iran created and funded, and for the Quds Force, which is regarded as the ultimate authority in Iraq. The general was never troubled by his country’s transformation into an arena of Iranian influence and a battleground for settling scores with the region, nor by the political posts and military ranks handed to Iran’s loyalists while dissenters were crushed. It would have been more fitting for someone holding a former Iraqi military rank to be deeply sensitive about the independence of national decision making, rather than turning into a mouthpiece repeating the narrative of a state that occupies his own country, as if defending it were part of his professional and national duty. But that is lost military honor, something no rank, however high, can ever compensate for.