Our Last Best Chance Part 5

After the event, I waited for my father at our emba.s.sy in Was.h.i.+ngton, where he would soon begin to receive senior members of the Jordanian government who were visiting. Usually he saw such delegations at his house, but by holding the meetings at the emba.s.sy he was making a public statement. He held a series of private meetings with visiting dignitaries, including the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the Armed Forces, a delegation from Crown Prince Ha.s.san's office, and two former prime ministers. All of the visitors were sitting together in the waiting room outside the amba.s.sador's office. My father walked into the waiting room and, in front of everybody, embraced one of the former prime ministers, Abdul Karim Kabariti, who was known to be opposed to Prince Ha.s.san. My father then met with each delegation individually in the amba.s.sador's office. In every meeting, I later learned, he said that he planned to make "major changes" when he returned to Jordan-a message he would reiterate in public for the first time in late November.

That fall, the speculation surrounding the succession intensified, and the gossip was no longer confined to Amman. "Jordan's Feuding Queens Fight Over Succession," proclaimed a headline in the London Sunday Times Sunday Times. "King Hussein Ails; His Brother Waits," said the New York Times New York Times. Papers all over the world joined the game. In Canada the Calgary Herald Calgary Herald ran a story headlined "Princes Jostle for Hussein's Crown," which alleged a feud between Queen Noor and Crown Prince Ha.s.san's wife, Princess Sarvath, accusing both women of trying to manipulate the succession. It was very painful to read all of this in the press and to see details of my father's illness and our family dynamics debated openly in public. I was dismayed to see our private grief splashed over the front pages. ran a story headlined "Princes Jostle for Hussein's Crown," which alleged a feud between Queen Noor and Crown Prince Ha.s.san's wife, Princess Sarvath, accusing both women of trying to manipulate the succession. It was very painful to read all of this in the press and to see details of my father's illness and our family dynamics debated openly in public. I was dismayed to see our private grief splashed over the front pages.

A rare spot of good news came in late November, when we heard that my father had been nominated for the n.o.bel Peace Prize. In a curious anomaly, Egyptian president Anwar Sadat and Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin had received the Peace Prize in 1978 for ending the state of war between Egypt and Israel, and President Ya.s.ser Arafat, Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin, and Israeli foreign minister s.h.i.+mon Peres had shared the prize in 1994 for their work on the peace process. But my father and Yitzhak Rabin would not be similarly honored for signing a peace treaty between Israel and Jordan that same year.

In early January 1999 my father left the United States for London. On January 7, I landed at Heathrow and drove through the freezing rain to his house near Ascot, some fifteen miles southwest of the airport. The house was bustling with family. I could tell he wanted to speak to me privately, but it was hard to find a quiet moment. Every time I went to see him another family member would show up. Even so, we had that comfortable feeling that fathers and sons have when not saying much and just enjoying the closeness of each other's company. On my last day in London I had hoped at last to speak to him privately, but my uncle Crown Prince Ha.s.san paid a surprise visit. He had been facing quite a bit of criticism back home for not visiting my father at the Mayo Clinic. Although my father was still seething about Prince Ha.s.san's army overreach, he managed to hide his anger during the visit. I finally succeeded in finding a few moments alone with him that night. "Stay here for a couple of days," he said. "Sir," I said-I never stopped calling him that-"I have really got to get back to Jordan." I told him that I was in charge of a major element of security for his arrival. He sighed and said we would catch up in Amman.

Back in Jordan I began making arrangements for my father's return. He had been away from the country for almost six months, and hundreds of thousands of Jordanians wanted to welcome him home following what they believed was a successful cancer treatment. The plan was for him to travel by car from the airport through the streets of Amman to his home in the Hummar district, northwest of the city. His house was called Bab Al Salam, which means "gate of peace" in Arabic. It was named after one of the entrances to the Grand Mosque in Mecca, which my family had ruled for many generations, until Abdulaziz bin Abdulrahman Al Saud of the Nejd took over the Hijaz in 1924 and went on to found present-day Saudi Arabia.

Over the next ten days speculation continued to mount that my father had decided to change the line of succession. Several people came up to me and hinted conspiratorially that I was a candidate. I really felt it was none of their business. Over the years I had avoided meddling in politics and had devoted myself to my military career. I was not about to change that now.

On January 19, 1999, my father landed at Marka airport near Amman. He had flown his aircraft, a Gulfstream IV, all the way from London. Dressed in a dark suit and wearing the kouffiyeh, the traditional Jordanian red-checkered head scarf, he stepped out of the plane. The scene on the tarmac was emotional, with hundreds of people gathered to welcome my father and thousands more lining the streets of Amman. The night back in July when he had told me his cancer had recurred, I had a dream that he would return to his country and our people would turn out in the thousands, as they had in 1992 after his first illness. That dream came true, but in real life there would not be a happy ending.

There were tears streaming down my wife Rania's face, and I was trying as best I could to keep my emotions in check. But not all emotions on display that day were genuine, as family members, politicians, and members of the Royal Court lined up to welcome their king home. The way my father handled the welcoming line was a quiet lesson in statecraft. Some people he kissed, some he hugged, some he shook hands with, and some he walked straight past, not even acknowledging. He knew who had been loyal while he was away-and who had not. One family member tried to kiss him as they shook hands, and my father pushed him away. Realizing my father knew of his hypocrisy, the man broke down in tears.

When he reached me, my father completely ignored me. He did not even look me in the eye. He just shook my hand and walked straight past. Oddly, that was when it hit me. He did not want to focus attention on me because he wanted to make me crown prince. If he had given me a more effusive greeting, the watching courtiers would have taken it as a sign that I had risen in his favor, and would accordingly have begun jostling for influence. And those with ill intentions would have begun working against me.

The next day the crown prince of Dubai, Sheikh Mohammad Bin Ras.h.i.+d Al Maktoum, and the crown prince of Abu Dhabi, Sheikh Mohammed Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, came to pay their respects. My father ordered me to go and meet them at the airport. Normal protocol demanded that the crown prince greet them, but my father said, "I want you to meet these two. They are your friends, and you should bring them in." I welcomed the two guests, drove them to meet my father, and then took them back to the airport.

A few days later, on January 22, my father called the house and said, "I want to see you." I immediately drove out to Hummar, winding up the steep hill that rises above Amman. I found my father waiting in the dining room and shut the door behind me. He looked a lot worse than he had in London. I had heard from the guards that he had had several blood transfusions, and I was scared for him. He took my hand and said, "I want to make you crown prince. This is your right. You are the most capable, and you are the one out of all of them who can take the country forward." I sat in stunned silence. Then, finally, I said, "What about my uncle, Prince Ha.s.san?"

He said that one of the reasons he had chosen me was that I always thought about everybody else, and he knew that I had the ability to lead the country and to keep the family together through this difficult time. At the end of the day, Ha.s.san was still his brother and my uncle. My eyes misted up as I realized that my father was telling me he was dying. He would be heading back to the United States in a few days, he said, to try a bone marrow transplant. It was his last chance. The strength in his eyes seemed to dim a bit with that, and a cold sensation crept into my stomach. I think that was the first instant I truly felt alone. I felt like breaking down in tears and telling him how much he meant to me, but I knew that was not my father's way. The best way I could show my love and affection was to focus on the consequences of his decision and to take my new responsibility seriously. So although it was an emotional conversation, we continued to talk about practical matters.

The most immediate question was whom I should name as crown prince. According to the Const.i.tution, the succession would pa.s.s to my son Hussein, but he was only five. I asked my father for his advice. "It is up to you who you choose as your crown prince," he said. Overtaken by emotion, he paused. At this point, the tone of his voice changed. "For your own safety, I'd advise you to make Hamzah crown prince," he said in a low voice, "but in the end it is up to you. Be very careful." It was then that I realized just how aware my father had been of the political intrigues back in Amman.

After we finished speaking I went home, struggling to control my sadness. When I walked through the front door I found Rania sitting on the floor of the living room surrounded by a pile of photos. We had a cupboard full of family pictures that she had been saying for years needed to be organized, and she had decided to go ahead and get started. I looked down at my wife, surrounded by pictures of happy family moments, and told her my father was making me crown prince. "His health is really, really bad," I said. "I don't think he has long left." She looked at me with an expression of fear and sadness, tinged with foreboding. All too soon we would be thrust into the spotlight in a way neither one of us could ever have imagined. And there were a lot of wolves out there, waiting for us to stumble.

The morning of January 25, I was sitting at home when the phone rang. It was the chief of protocol, who let me know that King Hussein wanted me and my uncle to come to the palace that afternoon at four o'clock. So this was the transition, I thought. It was still early, so I went to my mother's house in the hills outside Amman to wait. I walked across the walled lawn where I had played as a child and where I had watched Israeli jets flying overhead during the 1967 war. Inside the house my family was waiting, gathered to help support each other. My brother Feisal was there, my older half sister Alia, my younger sisters Zein and Aisha, my cousins Talal and Ghazi, and my mother. We talked about happier times, sharing memories of our father. I waited until four o'clock, but just as I was about to leave I was told that there had been a delay. I later learned that my father was struggling to finish the final draft of a letter to Prince Ha.s.san about his decision. Late in the evening, the phone rang again. The chief of protocol asked me to come immediately.

When I arrived at my father's house, Bab Al Salam, I was brought into his office, where my father and Prince Ha.s.san were waiting. My father told Prince Ha.s.san that he had decided to change the line of succession, and that I would now a.s.sume the responsibility of crown prince. Prince Ha.s.san handled the situation with great grace and dignity. He handed me his personal flag, the standard of the crown prince. Pa.s.sing it back to him, I said, "Please, Uncle, keep it. It is your flag." We went outside after that and stood in front of the waiting cameras, the three of us shaking hands, while my father announced the news to the nation.

That same day my father made public a strongly worded letter to Prince Ha.s.san in which he was sharply critical of his brother, and in particular of the political infighting in Jordan, saying: I have lived through many experiences and I noticed at an early age how some climbers climb onto the branch to ruin the relation between brothers and between father and son, and I swore to myself that this would not happen here in my lifetime. But surely, this has become the objective of every declared or hidden enemy, and all of those have used all means at their disposal to weaken confidence between leaders.h.i.+p and people, but they have not succeeded.Their plan at this stage, together with those who want to destroy Jordan, was to instigate infighting in the ranks of the leaders.h.i.+p after they failed to dismantle the base, and they find in my being alive an impediment to all their designs, forgetting that Al Hussein has lived only to gain the blessings of G.o.d, to have a clear conscience and to achieve the best for all his people, regardless of their origins, who cooperate in holding the banner high and carrying the message of Jordan with their heads held high, not bowing except before G.o.d.

My father then referred specifically to Prince Ha.s.san's attempts to interfere with the army, saying, "I have intervened from my sickbed to prevent meddling in the affairs of the Arab Army. This meddling seemed to be meant to settle scores, and included retiring efficient officers known for their allegiance and whose history and bright records are beyond reproach."

Many in Jordan were stunned by the letter's tone. But they trusted their king implicitly and knew him as a wise and insightful ruler. If King Hussein had taken the decision to change the line of succession, Jordanians knew there were good reasons. For his part Prince Ha.s.san wrote a letter on January 28, replying to some parts of the king's letter and a.s.serting his unwavering loyalty to his brother and king and his full support and backing for me as the new crown prince.

The next day, Rania and I drove my father to the airport. He was headed back to the Mayo Clinic for further treatment. My father and I sat in the front, with Queen Noor and Rania in the back. My father had bad hiccups as a result of his illness, and was extremely jaundiced so that even his eyes were yellow. I tried to make light conversation but failed dismally. As we drove out of Amman, he stared at the countryside as if for the last time. I placed my hand on top of his, and we drove the rest of the way in silence.

At the airport we found a receiving line of relatives waiting to say farewell. I struggled to keep my composure, and for a brief moment lost control of my emotions. I felt a hand on my arm. "Get a grip on yourself," one of my aunts whispered. "People will be looking at you." It was a sharp reminder of how much my life was about to change. I had never been so miserable or felt so alone in my life. Jordanians do not like to see grown men cry, and from then on my face remained a mask. I walked onto the airplane with my father, doing my best to a.s.sume an air of military correctness, and when he turned around our eyes met in silence. He too was having a hard time controlling his emotions. Before I could hug him good-bye, he gave me a nod, turned, and continued down the aisle into the plane. That was the last time I saw him conscious.

The week after my father's departure was very tense. I had been thrust unexpectedly into the very center of Jordanian politics and had to begin operating in my new role. I had had very few contacts with senior Jordanian political and private-sector figures and was moving into uncharted territory. Some of the existing leaders, including the prime minister and the chief of the Royal Court, had been appointed by Prince Ha.s.san. Others, including the chief of protocol and the chief of royal security, were quite close to Queen Noor. There were a lot of people who hoped I would stumble, so I fell back on those closest to me, my colleagues in the army and in Special Operations.

Prince Ha.s.san had been reaching out to several of his const.i.tuencies, and reports reached me that he had invited many senior political leaders to his house, including some of the senior tribal leaders. Wanting to get a better understanding of the situation, I asked Mohammad Majed, who was my number two in Special Operations, to gather some of my key officers at my house that evening. These were men I trusted implicitly. When the group had a.s.sembled, around 7 p.m., I told them that I had heard reports that Prince Ha.s.san was being very active. I did not want to get blindsided by something stupid, however unlikely. My time in the military had taught me to protect my flanks. It would be prudent, I told them, to put some units on alert, just in case. As I was speaking, some of my commanders began to chuckle. Annoyed and tired, I said that this was serious and asked them what they thought was so funny. They told me that they had placed Special Operations Command on alert days before. They had already been in touch with the 3rd Division, and both the 40th and 60th Brigade commanders and their units were on standby. I looked into the faces of my unit commanders, and for the first time in a week I felt confident that things would turn out well.

Just over a week later we got word that my father's treatment had failed. He would return to Jordan to die in the land he loved. He landed on February 5, 1999, and was brought out of the airplane on a stretcher, unconscious and on life support. The family met him at the airport and accompanied him to the King Hussein Medical Center. Thousands of people from all across the country had gathered outside, praying, crying, and lighting candles. They waited in the street all night, saying their last good-bye. Senior Jordanian officials, old warriors, were weeping, and many were looking to me to see how I would handle it. "We always believed he was bigger than Jordan," one said to me. "We thought he would be here forever." At the hospital we spent the night taking turns standing by my father's bed. Only the immediate family was there: Noor, my mother, my wife, my brothers and sisters, and some of our cousins.

The following evening, with the family still gathered around, one of the doctors asked to speak to me privately. The cancer had spread much more quickly than anybody had expected, and there was nothing further anybody could do for him. For a second I broke down, overcome by grief. Then I walked back into the room and informed the family, and together we said good-bye to a brave man with an extraordinary force of will whom we loved so much. The doctors said the end would come that evening, but he lasted until late the next morning. Everyone had always remarked on what a great heart my father had, and it was the last part of him to give up, still beating strong as the rest of his body failed.

The funeral was the next day, on February 8, 1999. It was an overcast day and a light rain began to fall. People said that even the sky was crying for King Hussein. Most Jordanians had known no other king, so for the country his death was intensely personal, more like losing a member of their family than a head of state. Hundreds of thousands of distraught mourners lined the streets as an armored car carried his coffin, surrounded by flowers and covered by the Jordanian flag, to Raghadan Palace, his final resting place. As the car pa.s.sed by, people surged forward, sobbing and wailing, trying vainly to seize a last glimpse of my father or to touch his coffin. The car was followed by an honor guard and a man leading my father's favorite white horse. Out of respect for my father, the horse, named Amr, would never be ridden again.

In the palace grounds an extraordinary collection of world leaders had come to pay their respects. Dubbed the "funeral of the century" by one observer, it brought together perhaps one of the most disparate groups of world leaders ever a.s.sembled. Some of the mourners were at war with each other, and one or two had even tried to kill each other in the past. But they were all united by their shared respect and admiration for my father. President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, and President Hafez al-a.s.sad of Syria had come, joined by Crown Prince Mohammed of Morocco, President Ya.s.ser Arafat, and Saif al-Islam, the son of the Libyan leader Muammar Qadhafi. There were President Clinton and three former U.S. presidents, George H. W. Bush, Jimmy Carter, and Gerald Ford. Russian president Boris Yeltsin was there, as were Prince Charles and the British prime minister, Tony Blair. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel had come, as had Khaled Meshaal, a leader of Hamas, whom Netanyahu had tried to a.s.sa.s.sinate the year before. In all, representatives of some seventy-five countries came to Amman to honor my father. Inside the palace, my father lay in state, watched over by the Royal Guard. The Circa.s.sians, a Muslim people from the Caucasus who immigrated to Amman in the nineteenth century, provide the Royal Guard for Jordan's kings. They had served my father loyally for many years. Now they stood by him as he took his final journey.

My brothers and I carried my father's coffin from the Royal Guards Mosque to his grave in the palace burial ground, next to the graves of his father, King Talal, and his grandfather, King Abdullah I. My brothers and I stood at attention while a trumpeter played the last post. The Royal Guard fired a fifteen-gun salute as my father was lowered to his final resting place.

Although it was a day of great sadness, Jordanians felt a sense of pride that the whole world had come to pay its respects to their king. There was also a sense of determination as many realized that they needed to be strong to keep the country together. Many Jordanians fondly referred to their king as Abu Abdullah, "father of Abdullah," as is common in the Arab world. In the weeks and months to come, I would benefit more times than I could count from Jordanians' love for my father and from their determination to help his son succeed.

After the funeral I headed to Parliament, to be sworn in as king. I had asked the chief of protocol to get a portrait of my father for the ceremony. As I walked in, I saw a huge picture of my father on the podium, dominating the room. I stood to attention. I felt his kind gaze looking down on me, and my eyes began to mist. Struggling to keep control, I stood motionless for several seconds, maintaining my salute. Then I went to swear the const.i.tutional oath: "I swear by G.o.d that I will respect the Const.i.tution and remain faithful to the nation." The president of the senate replied, "May G.o.d protect His Majesty King Abdullah and give him success. May Jordan live long, as His Majesty King Hussein intended."

After the ceremony was finished, an aide came up to me and said, "Your Majesty, this way." Out of habit, I looked around for my father, and saw his portrait looking down at me. For nearly half a century my father had ruled Jordan, sometimes fighting wars, sometimes negotiating peace treaties, and always encouraging others to lay down their weapons and place hope above fear. Now it would be my job to manage these conflicts and warring parties on Jordan's borders, and to honor my father's memory by continuing his ceaseless quest for peace.

Chapter 13.

Becoming King The days and weeks after my father's death were an extraordinarily sad time. The nation mourned its king, the only leader most Jordanians had ever known, and I grappled with the loss of my father, who had always been such a firm and guiding presence in my life. But I had little time for personal grief. The night before his funeral I went to bed with a family of four, and I woke up the next morning with a family of five million. If there was one thing that my father had taught me, it was that a king must not command so much as watch over his people.

After being sworn in, one of my first acts as king was to issue a decree naming my brother Hamzah the crown prince. Five years later, I relieved him of this responsibility. Although the months before my father's death had been tense, our family gathered together to support one another, and our shared grief brought many of us closer. I was very grateful for their love and support, but I knew that there were many outside the country, and some inside, who were watching and waiting for me to falter. As the rumors continued to circulate in the salons of West Amman, I heard that some people whom I had thought of as good friends were saying, "He won't last more than three months."

While I was awed by the task before me, it slowly dawned on me that my father had been preparing me for this all along. Although for most of my life I was not the crown prince, my father had taken me along with him on countless state visits, important foreign policy missions, and on trips to every corner of Jordan. Without the public scrutiny of being the heir apparent, I was given a golden opportunity to watch him as he navigated the perilous waters of international diplomacy. Plucked from my army postings for short trips with my father, I sometimes felt that I was present when history was being made.

Just three weeks after my father's funeral, I received one of my first official visitors, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, accompanied by his foreign minister, Ariel Sharon. Interactions between our countries were tense at that time, and this particular prime minister had sometimes stretched the relations.h.i.+p to the breaking point.

In 1996, the year after Yitzhak Rabin's a.s.sa.s.sination, Benjamin Netanyahu was elected prime minister of Israel on the heels of a wave of suicide bombings, believed to be the work of Hamas (the Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement), which killed some sixty Israelis. On September 25 the following year he hit back at a Hamas leader then residing in Jordan.

Hamas had agreed that they would not conduct any political or military activity from Jordan and would only establish a media relations office. Over time, they went back on their commitment. Khaled Meshaal, a senior member of the political wing of Hamas, was walking toward his office in Amman one morning when Israeli intelligence agents leaped out of their car and squirted a mysterious substance into his ear. Meshaal suddenly became deathly ill. Two of the Mossad agents were chased across Amman by one of Meshaal's bodyguards and eventually captured by police. Four other members of the a.s.sa.s.sination squad made a dash for the Israeli emba.s.sy, while two others hid out at the InterContinental Hotel.

At this point Netanyahu called my father to say, "We have a problem." He sent his chief of intelligence, Danni Yatom, to explain what had happened and to ask that the Mossad agents be released. Although Yatom did not say so, we later learned that the a.s.sa.s.sination attempt had been personally approved by Netanyahu. In a deja vu, a Hamas leader was a.s.sa.s.sinated in Dubai in January 2010, in what is believed to have been a Mossad operation that involved agents traveling with fake pa.s.sports. And Netanyahu is again prime minister of Israel.

My father was livid. He had been working night and day to try to advance the cause of peace in the region. The previous January he had played an important role in facilitating the Hebron agreement, whereby Israel agreed to redeploy its soldiers from the city of Hebron in implementation of the Oslo process. A few days before the a.s.sa.s.sination attempt, he had discreetly pa.s.sed to the Israelis a proposal from Hamas for a thirty-year cease-fire. And here Netanyahu was trying to a.s.sa.s.sinate one of Hamas's leaders on the streets of our capital!

Jordanian doctors struggled to save Meshaal's life. They were fighting a losing battle, because they could not identify the poison that had been used. My father demanded that the Israelis identify the poison at once and provide its antidote.

Yatom said Meshaal had been injected with a complex chemical compound, and that he would die within twenty-four hours. My father told him that if Meshaal died, he would cancel the peace treaty and break off diplomatic relations with Israel. Finally, after stepping out of the meeting to call Netanyahu, Yatom told my father that there was another member of the Mossad team, a female doctor, staying at the InterContinental Hotel, and she had the antidote with her.

The Jordanian and Palestinian people were outraged at Israel's brazen act. Even if we managed to save Meshaal's life, we still had the dilemma of what to do about the two detained Mossad agents and those holed up in the Israeli emba.s.sy in Amman. All had entered our country using fake Canadian pa.s.sports and had been involved in an a.s.sa.s.sination attempt. They did not have diplomatic immunity, but the Israelis refused to turn over the four accomplices who had sought refuge in the emba.s.sy. Jordanian security forces surrounded the emba.s.sy to make sure that they did not slip away. At the time, I was commander of Special Operations, and I can say it was a very tense period.

That evening, Meshaal, whose medical condition was rapidly deteriorating, was taken to King Hussein Medical Center and tended to in the Queen Alia Heart Inst.i.tute, one of the country's leading medical facilities. The Mossad doctor, who had by then moved to another hotel, was found and brought to the hospital, carrying a vial of the antidote with her. But senior members of Hamas were suspicious and refused to let anyone inject anything further into the sleeping Meshaal without knowing what it was. They demanded the chemical formula for the antidote.

My father called President Clinton, urgently seeking his help. He asked Clinton to demand that America's close ally undo the damage it had done. Clinton complied, and finally Netanyahu relented and told us that the antidote was naloxone, a drug used to counter the effects of an opiate overdose.

We later learned that the poison was a chemically enhanced version of the painkiller fentanyl, which would kill without a trace in forty-eight hours. It had been hidden in a modified camera that had a long, retractable needle instead of a lens, which one of the a.s.sa.s.sins had jabbed into Meshaal's ear. Once they knew the antidote, a team of Jordanian doctors was able to administer it and save his life.

Khaled Meshaal's life was spared, but relations between Jordan and Israel were in critical condition. My father insisted that the Israelis pay a high political price for their actions, and that they release from jail Sheikh Ahmed Ya.s.sin, the blind and wheelchair-bound spiritual leader of Hamas, who was one of the organization's founders. Ya.s.sin had served eight years of a life sentence for allegedly conspiring to kidnap Israeli soldiers. Eventually, a negotiated solution was reached: the Mossad agents were allowed to leave the country in exchange for the release of scores of Palestinians held in Israeli jails-including Sheikh Ya.s.sin. At 1:30 a.m. on September 29, 1997, as part of the agreement, Israeli prime minister Netanyahu flew to Amman to make a formal public apology.

Fast forward two years. I unexpectedly find myself as my father's successor, the new King of Jordan. Benjamin Netanyahu is still prime minister of Israel, and Khaled Meshaal, now fully recovered, has broken his agreement to restrict Hamas's activities in Jordan to media outreach. In the last year of his life, my father told me that he was very unhappy with Meshaal's continued political activity in Jordan-trying to smuggle weapons across the border into the West Bank and interfering in Jordanian politics. He felt that Meshaal, and the rest of the Hamas leaders in Amman, were taking advantage of Jordan's hospitality.

In countless negotiations and meetings Meshaal and other Hamas leaders residing in Jordan were repeatedly asked to stop activities that violated the conditions they had accepted for their stay in the country. But to no avail. They were obstinate, and wanted to operate with impunity. The government finally asked Meshaal to leave Jordan in August 1999. The Qatari government stepped forward and seemed eager to host him, so Meshaal and other Hamas leaders left for Doha.

A few days before our scheduled meeting, Benjamin Netanyahu made an inflammatory speech at Bar-Ilan University, near Tel Aviv. In his remarks he accused my father of siding with Iraq in the 1991 Gulf War, implied that Jordan might ally with Saddam Hussein in the future, and conjured the image of the Iraqi menace reaching the Israeli border through Jordan.

The speech was widely criticized in the region, and even inside Israel. Ehud Barak, the Israeli opposition leader, said, "There is no pit into which the prime minister has not fallen. The problem is he drags along the entire country into the pit with him. Even during the mourning period for King Hussein, Netanyahu found it fitting to endanger the few achievements of peace left."

Our meeting was not memorable. In a two-hour session over lunch we discussed the peace process and water rights. But Netanyahu's mischaracterization of my father's role in the Gulf War in order to score a few political points had left a bad taste in my mouth. My father did not side with Saddam-he tried to prevent a war that he saw as serving no one's interests. I came away from the meeting with the sense that getting the peace process back on track was going to be a long, hard slog.

In a country like Jordan, outside pressures force you to focus on foreign policy, but I had some critical domestic issues on my plate. One of my first decisions as king was whether to appoint a new prime minister. Jordan has a parliamentary system of government with a hereditary monarchy. Under the Const.i.tution, Parliament's upper house, the Senate, is appointed by the king and made up of Jordanians who have distinguished themselves through public service, such as former prime ministers, amba.s.sadors, and senior military officers. The lower house, the Chamber of Deputies, is chosen by a general election every four years. The king, as head of state, appoints the prime minister, who then selects cabinet ministers to form a government. Cabinet ministers could be selected from among members of Parliament or from outside it. This government must then win a vote of confidence in the Chamber of Deputies. If it does not, the government is disbanded and the process begins again.

Separate from the parliamentary system is the Royal Court, or Diwan. Every Jordanian citizen has the right to pet.i.tion the king directly, on any matter of concern, and these pet.i.tions are presented to the Diwan, which people refer to as "the house for all Jordanians."

A pet.i.tion can be on any topic, ranging from "I'm broke" or "I have a loan I can't pay" to "I can't educate my children," "I have a health issue," or "I can't find a job." Part of the role of the chief of the Royal Court is to meet everyone, listen to their pet.i.tions, and transmit their requests to the king. This system, based on tradition, was created when Jordan was a much smaller country. Now, with a population of nearly six million, it is not possible for the chief of the Royal Court to meet everybody personally, so various departments have been set up to address different topics. People of prominence, however, still see the chief of the Royal Court in person. And when I visit rural areas of the country, people will frequently come up to me directly and hand me a piece of paper with their pet.i.tion written on it.

Although it is not formally called for in the Const.i.tution, in Jordan it is traditional for the existing government to resign following the proclamation of a new king. Of course, this tradition had not been exercised in some time, since my father had ruled for nearly half a century. In my early dealings with government officials, they would tell me of their grand plans for improvements. But when I asked the simple question "When?" I rarely got a satisfactory answer. This was my first indication that a government does not run like an army.

When changes are made at a high level, Jordanians often a.s.sume that it is personal and that the official being replaced somehow got into my bad books. But that has never been the case. What I look for in all my advisers is the ability to implement my program and to get things done expeditiously. If the advisers do not get results, they will be replaced. In the end, we are all working for the people of Jordan, and they deserve the very best.

In early March 1999, I requested and received the existing government's resignation and asked Abdul Raouf Rawabdeh, an experienced parliamentarian and administrator, to be the new prime minister, and Abdul Karim Kabariti, a loyal confidant of my father's who had been prime minister from 1996 to 1997, to be the new chief of the Royal Court. That first decision, to change the government, was one of the most stressful that I have ever had to make. It does not really get any easier, but the first time was particularly difficult. I remember being in Basman Palace, in the Royal Court compound, preparing to retire the old government and to bring the new one in, wondering whether I was doing the right thing. Abdul Raouf was not somebody widely expected to be nominated as prime minister, and I knew I would come in for criticism whatever decision I made.

I was standing in a room off the main hall in the Diwan, when, deep in thought, I glanced up and saw a picture of my father in military uniform, looking down at me and smiling. I took that as a sign that I was doing the right thing. My father trusted me enough to make me king; now I had to trust my own instincts. I announced the changes and held my breath.

A couple of weeks later, as the forty-day mourning period for my father came to an end, I had to make another sensitive decision. I knew that Jordan would benefit from my wife's energy, intelligence, and compa.s.sion, and so I decided to give her the t.i.tle of queen. But I was also sensitive to the impact that this might have on Noor, my father's widow, who had been queen for two decades. So I went to meet with her in private. She was understanding, and said that it was time for a new generation to take over. She also said that, although he may have been reserved at times, my father would constantly tell her how much he loved me, how proud he was of my achievements in the army, and how he thought that I would be the best person to lead the country when he was gone. I thanked her for her kindness and said I appreciated her support.

On March 21, 1999, Rania was proclaimed queen. I sent her a public letter announcing that fact, saying, "Over the past years, you shared with me the blessings bestowed upon us under the great father, my father, and the father of all Jordanians. . . . Now that I have been destined by G.o.d to shoulder the number one responsibility in Jordan, I decided, especially since you are my life companion and mother of Hussein, that you will become Her Majesty Queen Rania Al Abdullah as of today." As we were all still mourning the loss of my father, we postponed the formal enthronement ceremony, which took place a few months later. The following day, Queen Noor was heading to the United States with her children Has.h.i.+m, Iman, and Raiyah to take them back to school in America. Rania and I offered to drive her to the airport. In the days following my father's death, our relations.h.i.+p had been stronger than ever, but as we drove I could sense that something had changed. Noor was polite but very formal and reserved, and it was an uncomfortable trip. Our relations.h.i.+p has been cold since then.

One of my top priorities was to carry out a broad program of social reforms, and in particular to provide more support for the weakest members of our society. My new government and I began to look at ways of protecting women and children, and to talk publicly about topics that had previously been taboo, such as domestic violence and child abuse.

One of the biggest taboos was the issue of so-called honor killings, which I had first encountered as a young officer in the army. Women are sometimes murdered by members of their own family, frequently fathers or brothers, when these men feel that they have dishonored the family by indulging in inappropriate relations.h.i.+ps. One of my men had killed his female cousin with a knife, and then turned himself over to me as his superior officer. His family had gathered together and debated the issue, and he had been selected to carry out the murder. This soldier was one of my best tank commanders, and he was pressured to fulfill a distorted concept of "honor" that robbed a young woman of her life. I handed him over to the military police, regretting this terrible loss of two young lives, and he was subsequently convicted of murder and sent to prison.

At the time, I had thought it was a senseless waste. Now that I was in a position to influence public policy, I was determined to act. I could not change people's mindset overnight, but I could do something about how these crimes were investigated and prosecuted, and how they would be treated by society.

I attacked on several fronts. We began an awareness campaign, stressing that such murders were morally wrong and went against the teachings of Islam, and tackled the penal code and judiciary. Rania was an outspoken critic of "honor" killings, and she joined a demonstration march to Parliament against them. We began to provide inst.i.tutional support to women suffering from domestic violence, and set up shelters for battered women.

One of our biggest problems was that the victim's family would often not come forward and press charges. Added to that, many judges treated "honor" killings as crimes of pa.s.sion rather than murders, and the typical sentence handed down was between six months and two years. Now all such crimes are considered murders; special courts have been set up to address these cases and they are taking a harsher view. The penal code was amended to ensure that the perpetrators receive no leniency.

Over time, our efforts began to show fruit. Sentences became harsher, and cases became less frequent. The number of "honor" crimes dropped from thirteen in 2008 to ten in 2009. The murderers whose trials ended in 2009 were sentenced to ten years in prison, compared to sentences that ranged between six months' to two years' imprisonment before the law was amended. But to my mind, even one such killing is a stain on the honor of all Jordanians, and I will not rest until such a barbaric view of justice no longer has a place in our country.

One of the more frustrating misconceptions in the West is that all Arab women are oppressed, illiterate, kept at home to look after children, and forced to wear the veil when they venture out of the house. Many women across Jordan and the Arab world, like my wife, go to university and then achieve great things in their professional careers. Statistics for the school system in Jordan show that every single year the highest grades in high school exams are achieved by girls. Our modern, educated, successful professional women have more in common with professional women in London, New York, or Paris than with the oppressed prisoners of Western imagination. Some of these women choose to cover their hair with a head scarf, while others, like Rania, do not. But this tells you nothing about their abilities or professional achievements. The traditionally dressed Jordanian woman wearing a head scarf may have a PhD from MIT or Harvard. As Rania likes to say, "We should judge women according to what's going on in their heads rather than what's on top of their heads."

But it is a sad fact that there is more than a grain of truth to the stereotype. Many Arab men are extremely prejudiced and believe that women should either stay at home and raise children or be restricted to certain professions. Even in my own family, some of my brothers and cousins were against my sisters, Aisha and Iman, going to Sandhurst-although no one dared to try to stop them. Somewhere along the line you need more women like them to stand up and say, "Let me lead my life as I want to lead it!"

Rania has worked hard to address misperceptions about women in Arab societies. She has been an outspoken champion of women's rights, and in recent years she has adopted the most modern communications tools-such as YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter-to make her case. She quickly realized that, in a globally connected world, the Internet allows us Jordanians to speak beyond our borders, making our country's small size and lack of resources irrelevant. By going online, she could be heard around the world.

Technology is in many ways an equalizer, and it means that the first lady of even a small country like Jordan can have a prominent voice on the international stage. But the question then is, how do you make sure that what you have to say is interesting? How do you make sure that you use this tool in the most effective, creative, fun way that will just keep people engaged to hear your message? And it is here that Rania has done some terrific work, using technology to communicate her messages on the importance of education and to challenge misconceptions about Islam and the Arab world. Her most important work has been improving the educational standards for children across Jordan.

In April 2008, Rania launched the Madrasati ("My School") initiative, a groundbreaking program to improve the quality of education in five hundred disadvantaged public schools throughout the Kingdom. At the heart of Madrasati is a simple concept: we all share responsibility for our children's education. Madrasati brings together businesses, nongovernmental organizations, communities, and the Ministry of Education with parents, teachers, and pupils in pursuit of one common goal: rejuvenating schools in need. Since its 2008 launch, over three hundred public schools have been revitalized, lifting the lives of more than 110,000 students. The initiative has significantly enhanced the infrastructure of those schools and has introduced a series of programs that improve the educational experience, such as health awareness, access to technology and medical services, and teacher training.

Alarmed by the deteriorating conditions of schools in East Jerusalem and the dangerous implications of the increasing school dropout rate for a population that not only prizes education but needs it for its survival, Rania launched Madrasati Palestine in 2010. The initiative will build on the experience in Jordan while trying to address the specific needs of the 94,000 school-aged Palestinian children in East Jerusalem. It hopes to reintegrate some of the 10,000 children who are now out of school in the city, and to improve graduation rates, especially among boys, who are now dropping out at a rate of over 50 percent.

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In early March 1999 we restored diplomatic relations with Kuwait, suspended since the first Gulf War. Feelings among Kuwaitis had been raw, because some people mistakenly believed that my father's attempts to prevent the war meant that he had sided with Saddam. That Rania had grown up in Kuwait proved helpful in putting all of that baggage behind us. Later that month, I met with Ya.s.ser Arafat, chairman of the PLO and then president of the Palestinian National Authority, who visited me in Amman for the first time since I had become king. We discussed the lack of progress in the peace process and Arafat's upcoming visit to Was.h.i.+ngton. Although Arafat had a long history of jousting with my father, I sensed that he respected him. He had been quite emotional when he bowed before my father's coffin at the funeral. I was prepared to listen to him and to help where I could.

Two weeks later, to mark the end of the forty-day mourning period for my father, some of my advisers suggested that we grant amnesty for certain prisoners, as was the tradition with the accession of a new ruler. I agreed, on condition that we not release anyone accused of a very serious crime, such as murder or rape. My advisers came up with a list of seven hundred people who, they said, had been very carefully vetted, and I gave my approval for their release. Both houses of Parliament voted to approve the amnesty, and a few days later the first of the prisoners walked free. One of them, Ahmed Fadil Khalayleh, a man now notoriously known as Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, should never have been allowed out of jail. I would later bitterly regret that his name was on the list.

Some leaders, such as Netanyahu and Arafat, had come to visit me. But others were waiting for me to visit them. It was a delicate time. My fellow Arab rulers had all known my father and my uncle, in many cases for decades, and I would have to work hard to earn their respect as a peer. Some had fought with my father, and even tried to kill him. In those instances, I could use the fact that I was new to the job to start over with a clean slate.

Chapter 14.

Friends and Neighbors One thing that is not well understood in the West is the diversity of the Middle East. Even though the countries of Europe share a common religion and political structure, there are tremendous cultural and social differences between a Swede and a Greek, a German and a Spaniard. Even European countries that speak the same language, such as Ireland, England, Scotland, and Wales, have fiercely defended their cultural and historical ident.i.ties. So it makes little sense to talk about a "European"; most citizens of Europe will define themselves by their national ident.i.ty.

There is a similar level of diversity in the Middle East. A Moroccan is quite different from a Jordanian or a Yemeni. Even though most Arab countries share a common religion, Islam, and a common language, Arabic, there are important cultural and historical differences between them, and they are also home to significant religious minorities. The Egyptians trace their history back to the ancient civilization of the Pharaohs, while the Gulf states have a bedouin desert tradition. Turks and Iranians speak different languages and have their own histories and cultures. So it makes as little sense to make sweeping generalizations about all "Arabs" as it does with all "Europeans."

Even though I had met my counterparts around the region with my father, no one was going to go easy on me just because I was my father's son. I live in a tough neighborhood. And as the new King of Jordan, I was about to find out just how tough it really was. To the west were Palestine as well as Israel, the region's only nuclear power. To the east was Baathist Iraq, ruled by Saddam Hussein, who had fought wars with two of his other neighbors and had a million men under arms. To the north was Syria, ruled by Hafez al-a.s.sad, an astute leader who had been in office for around three decades. And to the south was Saudi Arabia, home to the holy cities of Mecca and Medina, where Crown Prince Abdullah bin Abdulaziz was a.s.suming wider responsibilities due to the illness of his brother, King Fahd. Just over the horizon in Egypt was Hosni Mubarak, an experienced leader with whom my father had developed a strong friends.h.i.+p. And farther afield were Libya, the Gulf states-Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, and Oman-and, across the Arabian Gulf, Iran. Many leaders of those countries had been in power for decades and would likely remain there for years to come. The presidents were often in office longer than the kings.

My father had known all of these leaders personally and, as one of the world's longest-serving heads of state, many of their predecessors too. He had taught me that Jordan had to maintain a delicate balance in regional politics. Relations with our neighbors had sometimes been turbulent. A few of them during the 1950s and 1960s, when Arab nationalism was pervasive, had even tried to overthrow or a.s.sa.s.sinate my father. But all had come to pay their respects at his funeral and mourned his pa.s.sing. Now I would have to form my own relations.h.i.+ps with them. And from my father's experience I knew it would be hard to predict when they would be supportive and when they would not.

One leader I knew I would not be too close to was Saddam Hussein. Once I became king, I had very little direct contact with him. I chose not to visit Baghdad, but Iraq was not so easily avoided. It continued to be a source of concern, as many in the international community were worried about the possibility that Iraq would again attack one of its neighbors and suspected that Saddam had restarted his biological and nuclear weapons programs.

Tensions between Baghdad and the United States had been building steadily in the last year of my father's life. In September 1998 the Iraq Liberation Act was introduced in the U.S. Congress, stipulating, "It should be the policy of the United States to support efforts to remove the regime headed by Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq and to promote the emergence of a democratic government to replace that regime." President Clinton signed the act into law on October 31, 1998, at which point "regime change" became official U.S. policy. The next day, Saddam threw the UN weapons inspectors out of the country. Six weeks later, Clinton launched four days of air strikes against Iraqi weapons facilities from carriers in the Arabian Gulf, with British forces also joining in the attack.

This was a period of intense domestic pressure for Clinton. Throughout 1998 his affair with a White House intern had been under investigation, and the president had been forced to testify before a grand jury. On the last day of the air strikes, December 19, he was impeached by the U.S. House of Representatives for perjury. He was acquitted by the Senate the following February, but that did not signal the end of his woes.

The relentless legal a.s.sault on the U.S. president made my father furious. Whatever Clinton's personal failings, my father knew him as a firm friend of Jordan and a strong supporter of the peace process, and it was his nature to always come to the defense of friends. My father was a great admirer of America's democratic traditions, but on occasion he believed things could go too far. He thought the whole investigation into Clinton's personal life was like a soap opera, and he was really upset that people were attacking the president in such a vicious way. I remember watching television with him at the Mayo Clinic when Ken Starr, who was leading the investigation, came on the news. My father blew up and forcefully expressed his disapproval of how Starr was handling the investigation. "If I ever met that man, I would give him a piece of my mind," he burst out-and that was not all he said. I left Mayo that night pleased that his morale was high and he still had his fighting spirit.