His stomach bloated by the side effects of medication, his left hand gripping a cane, Hussein, 63, tottered onto a plane that would take him back to the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota for emergency cancer treatment–only one week after he had triumphantly returned home, proclaiming himself cured. Before he left, Hussein fired his 51-year-old brother, Hassan, who had served him as crown prince for 34 years. As his new heir, he named his oldest son, Prince Abdullah, 37, a brigadier in the Army. Jordanians were stunned. Abdullah wasn’t even Hussein’s favorite son, and he had shown no talent for running the country.
What saddened many people even more was the letter to Hassan that the king made public at the same time. Handwritten, disjointed and 14 pages long, it accused Hassan of meddling with the Army and government and inspiring ““slandering and falsehoods’’ about the king’s fourth wife, Queen Noor, and their four children. The inner rivalries of the Hashemite dynasty had never been so glaringly exposed. When the letter was read on television, the post-Hussein era got off to an ominous start.
Hassan’s fate was sealed months ago, during the king’s first stint at the Mayo Clinic for chemotherapy and a bone-marrow transplant. The head of Hussein’s intelligence service, among others, gave him regular reports on Hassan’s performance as regent; they made it appear that the prince was a little too eager to become king. And in perhaps the biggest mistake of his career, Hassan never took a few days off from his duties as regent to visit the clinic and report to Hussein in person.
Hussein’s illness robbed him of the time he needed to do what he really wanted. According to several Jordanian sources, the king went home fully intending to name as his heir Noor’s older boy, Prince Hamzah, 18, his favorite and the son thought to embody Hussein’s best traits as a ruler. But after a rain-soaked arrival the king became feverish, and doctors diagnosed a recurrence of his cancer. Facing the possibility that there might not be time to prepare Hamzah for the throne, Hussein chose the more mature Abdullah. His oldest son wanted the job. Last year, when he heard rumors that Hamzah might become king, Abdullah started to assert his own claim–to be either on the throne or the power behind it. If his portly, ponderous Uncle Hassan became king, Abdullah told a few diplomats and friends, he would not support him.
Hassan was appointed crown prince in 1965, when Abdullah was only 3. An Oxford-educated technocrat, Hassan served Hussein loyally, but he utterly lacked charisma and a common touch. In 1989, when the king was out of the country, Hassan hurried to the city of Ma’an to deal with unrest among some of the Bedouin tribes who are the monarchy’s staunchest supporters. Trying to calm them, he was driven out of town by a hail of eggs and tomatoes.
After that, according to sources close to the palace, the king started to rethink his government and his brother’s place in it. Hussein began to muse about a constitutional monarchy in a more democratic system. But to keep the Hashemites on top in a state inhabited mostly by Palestinians, he needed someone who commanded more respect than Hassan. The king was reluctant to dismiss his brother, but he wanted one of his own sons on the throne–if not immediately after him, then as Hassan’s successor. Under the Constitution, however, if Hassan became king, the crown would pass to his own son, Prince Rashid, now 19. Hassan would not agree to a change. Sources say his wife, Princess Sarvath, helped persuade him not to give in. According to the sources, Hassan also thought he was indispensable to his brother and never believed Hussein would remove him as heir apparent.
Last August, when Hussein checked into the Mayo Clinic, he went on Jordanian television to assure his people that ““I am not over and done with.’’ But according to sources close to the king, he privately told his brother that the cancer was very serious. He might not survive. He wanted the information kept confidential, but soon Hassan was acting as though the king were already dead. He started issuing orders to the Army (which reported it to Hussein) and appointed a new cabinet packed with his supporters.
The king was furious. In the middle of his treatment, he left the Mayo Clinic to pinch-hit at the Wye River peace talks in Maryland. There he remarked that ““many in our part of the world [have] written me off.’’ Some of Hussein’s information about Hassan came from his intelligence chief, Samih Battikhi, who made several trips to Minnesota while the king was there. ““Nobody would have dared to watch the crown prince without an OK from the king,’’ says a source in Amman.
Hassan was also undercut, unintentionally, by his unpopular wife, the Pakistani-born Sarvath, who made no secret of her intention to redecorate the palace when her husband became king. ““The king thought Sarvath was acting like a queen,’’ says a former prime minister who supported Hassan. Some of Hassan’s advisers urged him to visit Hussein at the Mayo Clinic, but he never went. By the time the brothers met again, at a stopover in London during Hussein’s trip home, the king had decided to replace the crown prince.
The new heir is largely an unknown quantity, even to Jordanians. The son of Hussein’s second wife, British-born Princess Muna, Abdullah was sketchily educated in Britain and the United States and has spent most of his adult life in the Army, the monarchy’s bedrock. He inherited his father’s taste for beautiful women and fast cars, and skeptics dismiss him as a lightweight who commands little respect, even in the Army. ““I really feel sorry for Abdullah,’’ says a family friend. ““He’s got his father’s common touch, but none of his charisma.’’ By most accounts, Hamzah outshines his half-brother in character and personality and in his command of Arabic. ““But he is just too young,’’ says this source.
In a show of support for Abdullah–and to brief him on Middle East affairs–Secretary of State Madeleine Albright stopped in Amman last week. ““Everybody who has met Abdullah thinks he’s a savvy guy who’s got a lot of leadership skills,’’ a senior administration official said hopefully. Many Jordanians were not so optimistic. ““This happened at the worst time in the last 30 years,’’ said a former palace official. ““The economy is in bad shape, the peace process is faltering and everybody is complaining about corrupt officials. Nobody knows what the outcome will be.’’ For Jordan, the best possible scenario has King Hussein defying death one more time and beating his cancer into lengthy remission. Failing that, it will be up to Abdullah to defend the dynasty that Hussein preserved against so many odds.
PARSING THE POLITICS IN THE PALACE By ousting his brother, Crown Prince Hassan, in favor of his son, Prince Abdullah, the king reordered the royal family’s line of succession.
King Hussein bin Talal Born 1935, crowned 1952 Prince Mohammed Brother, born 1940 Prince Hassan Brother, born 1947 Princess Dina Wife, 1955-56 Princess Alia Born 1956 Crown Prince Abdullah Born 1962 Princess Muna Wife, 1961-72 Prince Feisal Born 1963 Queen Alia Wife, 1972-77 Princess Haya Born 1974 Prince Ali Born 1975 Princess Zein Twin, Born 1968 Princess Aisha Twin, born 1968 Queen Noor Wife, 1978-present Prince Hamzah Born 1980 Prince Hashim Born 1981 Princess Iman Born 1983 Princess Raiyah Born 1986
