ABSTRACT
Within days of Glubb’s departure from Amman, British officials were actively considering ways in which influence with Jordanian political and military elite could be maintained in a more discreet form. Britain’s reaction to the crisis in Jordan was framed within the overall context of its relations with the United States in the Middle East. The Eisenhower administration had watched the British travails in Jordan with interest and concern. Although Washington continued to feel that Jordan was essentially a British responsibility, Anglo-American regional policy began to show a degree of accord over the need to counter the influence of Nasser in the other major Arab states. For London, the lesson of the Templar and Glubb crises was that Britain’s special politico-military relationship with Jordan was highly vulnerable to propaganda from the Egyptian regime and its charismatic leader. The ascendancy of nationalist officers in the Jordanian army after the departure of Glubb also led London to consider how it could maintain its influence given the new realities of its relationship with Amman. However, the British attempt to renew its relationship with the Hashemite monarchy was eventually wrecked by the outcome of the Suez crisis in November 1956. The culmination of the Suez episode exposed the irreconcilable contradictions in Anglo-Jordanian relations.
