Amman: Jet Set Watering-Hole?

Jordan's a great place, home to many a geological splendor (the Dead Sea, Wadi Rum) and archeological wonder (Petra, Jerash). But is it me or does this recent article in the New York Times Real Estate section go a little far in promoting Amman as an oasis of stability for sophisticated expatriates?

A few jarring passages (NY Times text in italics):

1) “It's a very livable city,” said Robert Pingeon, a New Yorker who moved to Amman in 2006 with his wife, Emily Lodge. ..."It's also a great place to get to other places — Beirut, Damascus, Jerusalem, Tel Aviv — they're all only a short distance away.”

This is what people say when they live somewhere boring. Delaware: It's halfway between New York and Washington!

Also, it's perhaps not so wise for an American to talk publicly about going both to Tel Aviv and Damascus. Hope Mr. Pingeon doesn't have any Israeli stamps on his passport next time he goes to Syria.

2) “If someone asked me about moving to Amman, I'd say don't hesitate.... It's a place that gives you a beautiful blend of tradition and more liberal cosmopolitanism.” [According to Adnan Habboo, an Iraqi American who moved to Amman.]

Actually, the blend between tradition and modernity is not always so smooth in Amman. Try eating food in public during Ramadan. And though I can't vouch for their experience, single female foreign friends tell me they get harassed all the time in Jordan, much more so than in Lebanon or even Syria.

3) Both of them [Haboo and his wife] are staunch supporters of monarchy, the Jordanian form of government. “It gives the country an extra degree of political stability,” Mr. Habboo said.

Ah yes, the firm hand of authoritarianism. Does wonders for maintaining home prices.

4) In addition, Amman's reputation as a safe haven is attracting many Palestinian, and now Iraqi, refugees.

A tidal wave of refugees? The word is out. Go buy that second home before Amman goes the way of the Hamptons.

5) With Iraq to the east, Syria to the north, Israel to the west and Saudi Arabia to the south, Jordan is in the eye of the Middle Eastern storm. Despite its proximity to conflict, Amman, the capital, is a very peaceful place where people come to do business, leaving their disputes at the border.

Yes, Jordan is one of the calmest countries in the Middle East. And yes, outsiders tend to have an exaggerated notion of the risks of living in the Middle East. But Jordan isn't merely surrounded by the conflicts of the Middle East, it is inextricably linked to them. Which is why there are perhaps as many Iraqi and Palestinian refugees in Jordan as their are original Jordanians.

Though those conflicts have temporarily stabilized -- with the Hamas truce and Israeli-Palestinain peace talks on the on hand, and the Iraq surge on the other -- Jordan is on a knife's edge. If Iraq falls apart when the surge ends, and if peace talks fail for good, those disasters won't stop at the border.

--Andrew Lee Butters/Beirut