The possibility of closing the Bab el-Mandeb Strait or disrupting its navigation is economically costly, but as experience has proven, relations with the Syrians open up another route for Jordan that can help maintain strategic supply chains, especially since the Syrian route remained for many years outside Jordanian calculations or operated within narrow limits, while recent developments have restored the possibility of using it more effectively in the movement of goods coming into Jordan or transiting through it.
Once again, Jordan manages to pass a test related to supply chains, and it appears that decisions made in policies related to food security and the management of strategic reserves of essential commodities have enhanced Jordan's resilience in facing regional fluctuations, especially since the Kingdom has experienced in recent years more than one crisis that could have directly affected the availability of essential goods. Thus, the existence of sufficient reserves and multiple routes for their arrival has become a matter of national and economic security that goes beyond commercial calculations.
This does not mean that the crisis will pass without a cost, and the Jordanian consumer may bear a part of it, but a big difference remains between an increase in the cost of some goods and the disruption of their arrival or shortage in the markets. Therefore, the real test lies in the government's ability to prevent regional turmoil from spilling over into a state of domestic anxiety or unjustified price hikes.
This requires further attention to enhancing appropriate support mechanisms, especially with the recent expansion of the roles played by the military and civil consumer corporations. They can play a larger role in maintaining the stability of prices for a range of essential goods, alongside the need for awareness campaigns and instilling reassurance regarding the availability of materials and Jordan's experience in crisis management at various stages of its history.
Jordan is a country with limited resources surrounded by a region whose crises have not stopped for decades, and it cannot choose every time the crisis that will occur or the road that will be disrupted, but it can keep as many roads as possible open before it, and enter the next crisis with more options than those it had in the previous crisis.
The relationship with Syria in this case is not about an abstract political stance; the land route that remained closed or used to a limited extent for many years is returning today to offer Jordan an additional option at a time when other routes could be threatened, which confirms that good relations with neighboring countries are not a political luxury as much as they represent an investment whose true value appears when crises begin.
