Lynch on Jordan

Marc Lynch, who watches Jordan more closely than most of us, has a post called "Jordan: Forever at the Brink," with a rather startling conclusion:

The long history of the regime's surviving such frustrated hopes and failed reforms would suggest that this too shall pass. But Jordan's Palace should not be so confident. The spread of protest into new constituencies, the rising grievances of the south, the intensifying identity politics, the struggling economy, and the pervasive fury at perceived official corruption create a potent brew. The violent dispersal of an attempted Amman sit-in last March shocked activists and broke their momentum, but the protest movement has proven resilient and creative. I would rank Jordan today only below Bahrain as at risk of a sudden escalation of political crisis -- at which point the impossible would in retrospect look inevitable indeed. 

Read the whole thing.