ISIS kan ikke knekke Jordan. Men kan Jordan knekke ISIS?

ISIS can't crack Jordan.

But can Jordan crack ISIS?

Most countries would be tense

if they were surrounded by civil wars,

had to take in

hundreds of thousands of refugees

and were being threatened

by a savage terrorist organization.

But not Jordan.

We had many problems before.

Throughout...

Since the inception of Jordan.

And we have managed

to come out of it.

The headline threat for Jordan

is that it borders with Iraq and Syria,

countries where ISIS has made

significant gains, despite air strikes,

in which Jordan has participated.

Our borders, I strongly believe

that they are in perfect hands.

There have even been

specific ISIS threats

that Jordan is their next target.

Is Jordan under threat from ISIS?

I think every single

nation in the region

who is a moderate nation,

is threatened.

And this time of day shows

Jordan doing what it does best:

being open,

moderate and full of choice.

And that's exactly the kind of thing

that ISIS doesn’t want to see.

People feel confident

that on the military front

Jordan has what it needs

to defend itself.

We don't feel any threats from ISIS

for so many reasons.

But the biggest reason is that

we have the best army in the region.

In fact, the government

appears more interested

in seeking a solution

of tackling the environment

that leads to groups

like ISIS appearing attractive,

rather than the military

threat they pose.

Because by force you can

eliminate 80 per cent, 90 per cent

of these poor souls,

misguided poor souls,

but then, whatever

produced these 15,000, or 20,000,

what's going to stop it

from producing more?

Tackling the ways ISIS recruits,

is also a concern,

particularly as Jordan hosts

over 2 million refugees

who have fled from Palestine,

but also from Iraq and Syria.

Some of these have been

targeted by ISIS on social media.

There are a lot of fake profiles, so you

think a lot of people support them.

You start reading more about it,

being more interested

and some people might follow.

They can attack us

through the network also

by sending fake e-mails

or attracting weak-hearted people.

And Jordan has other problems

which are more pressing.

Its economy has suffered

due to changes caused

by major regional upheavals,

such as the Arab Spring

and the Syrian civil war.

Our energy bill skyrocketed.

We used to get gas from Egypt.

That stopped.

That consumes

about 20 per cent of our budget.

All economic indicators

have gone down.

This is a country

that the West can do business with.

Quite literally, there are hundreds

of western companies here in Amman

and they are drawn

by political stability,

by the investment environment

and also there is

a major privatization programme.

But the economy

had suffered quite a lot

during the years of the Arab Spring,

bringing extra costs.

And so today, as Jordan faces

the threats of ISIS and others,

what it needs is

not just strong security,

but also a strong economy behind it.

One sign of Jordan's stability

is the high number

of tourists that visit the country

for the Dead Sea, the biblical ruins

or even for health tourism.

Tourism is a sector

that is fundamental for the economy.

It brings in billions of dollars a year.

But the tourists come because of

the stability, amongst other reasons.

You take that away, you get

less tourists and less revenue.

Take the year after the Arab Spring.

The disruptions in that year

led to less tourists

and a reduction in revenue

of over one billion dollars.

The rising numbers of refugees

have also placed extra strain

on Jordan's existing security

worries, such as water reserves.

Water is a problem.

We are the fourth poorest country

in the world

as far as water resources.

Jordan faces its challenges

with characteristic calm

because it's not the first time that it

has heard people predict the worst

and those people before

were also wrong.

Strategic studies were done

on the effects of the Arab Spring.

Jordan was rated to be

a country that was very susceptible

to internal disorder and descent.

And the most stable

were predicted to be Iraq...

Iraq, Syria and Libya.

But the truth that has now evolved

is that it is the other way around.