Editorial: Isis execution turns screws on Jordan

Safi al-Kaseasbeh, left, father of slain Jordanian pilot, Lt. Muath al-Kaseasbeh receives condolences at the Kaseasbeh tribe's gathering divan at their home village of Ai, near Karak, Jordan, Wednesda

Opinion

The Kingdom of Jordan seems to have miscalculated badly in its dealings with Isis (Islamic State) to negotiate the release of its captured pilot. Being strung along by Isis as the world watched was its own humiliation.

The wretched execution of the hostage, burned alive in a cage while the video ran, confirmed Isis was never to be trusted. If, as some allege, the killing happened almost a month before the video emerged, and before talks began, a hideous misjudgment by Jordan is confirmed.

Isis proved it is prepared to escalate its provocations beyond almost anything a nation could contemplate. Jordan had already joined the international fight against Isis, but the killing could unify even the Islamists in its borders against this despicable mob.

The Amman Government's reaction to pilot Muath al-Kasaesbeh's death was to execute two prisoners it held, including the woman Isis had asked for in return. She had been a failed suicide bomber and it is safe to say the eye-for-an-eye execution carried far less impact with her Isis handlers than the national grief Jordan suffered from the manner of al-Kasaesbeh's demise.

King Abdullah vowed strong retaliation against Isis, which he correctly labelled a "criminal organisation that has no ties to our religion". He would have been assured by the declaration by a hardline Jordanian Salafist movement leader that "all of Jordan, Islamists and liberals, East Bank and West Bank - are all united against them".

Jordan was early to join the West and Gulf states in trying to force back Isis as it swept into Syria and Iraq. King Abdullah was seen as standing firmly against Islamic extremism, even where his father King Hussein had reached out to some Islamist elements.

The failed negotiations, and the symbolic tit-for-tat executions, leave Jordan in an unenviable position. While the people are ostensibly united by the horrors of al-Kasaesbeh's death, the havoc across the border with Syria and Jordan's front-and-centre role now as enemy of Isis could have longer term dangers for the regime.

Isis is not weakened by the execution of its female prisoner. Its obsession with global notoriety has been served. Fear reigns, even through the strong talk of the United States and its allies.

While other countries might be emboldened now in committing troops or advisers to the fight against Isis, the unfortunate sight of an Islamic, Arab nation negotiating for its citizen and being treated with contempt by the terror group will give others pause. New Zealand must decide in the next few weeks whether to meet the hint for a 100-strong force from visiting British Foreign Secretary, Philip Hammond.

Prime Minister John Key believes New Zealanders will support a stand against an international menace. Yet the big question is whether limited Western-led 'degrading' of Isis can truly contain a movement born in part of that very form of Western intervention in the past.

Jordan has lived with Islamist agitation for generations yet it flails for an answer to the Isis threat.