Meanwhile, Crown Prince Hassan was trying to demonstrate that he could manage affairs in Hussein’s absence, without appearing to usurp the king’s authority. It was an extremely difficult balancing act. In September, Hassan stepped on the sensibilities of the Jordanian military leadership, questioning their budget submission and raising the issue of whether it would make sense to accelerate senior military retirements and make way for the next generation. Neither was an unreasonable thought—but military affairs were exclusively the king’s preserve, and Hussein was upset when word filtered back to him at Mayo, undoubtedly flavored by the wounded sensitivities of his generals.
I had easy access to senior Jordanians throughout my time in Amman, and there were times when it seemed a little too easy, especially in this early period. On one occasion, Hassan invited me to sit in on an internal briefing from his military leadership in preparation for a forthcoming meeting of the U.S.-Jordanian Joint Military Commission. I did my best to be unobtrusive, but it was an awkward experience. The crown prince was pointed in his commentary, peremptory and a little patronizing in manner, interrupting the briefers repeatedly to question their arguments. His intent was straightforward. He wanted to ensure a tight presentation, and also to demonstrate his understanding of military realities. But it didn’t go down well with the officers in the room. You could see them gritting their teeth—and thinking to themselves that King Hussein would never have treated them that way.
The crown prince stayed in regular contact with the king during his treatment, but chose not to visit him at Mayo. He thought his role was to mind the store in Jordan, and Hussein seemed to agree. But that put Hassan at a considerable tactical disadvantage, as other senior family members and officials, many of whom were not admirers of the crown prince, flew back and forth to see the king in the United States. The army chief, Field Marshal Abdul Hafez Marei Kaabneh, complained directly to the king on one visit that fall about Hassan, alleging that he was telling senior military officers that Hussein’s condition was “irreversible,” and that they would need to prepare for the possibility of a transition. Hassan later denied to me that he had ever said that. But the damage was done, and the king’s irritation grew. Rumors reached Mayo that Princess Sarvath, Hassan’s intelligent but occasionally sharp-elbowed wife, was agitating privately for Hassan to move immediately if he became king to make their son, Rashid, the new crown prince. Queen Noor, not a big fan of either Hassan or Sarvath, was with the king throughout his treatment, and fed his mounting discontent.
At President Clinton’s request, Hussein flew from Mayo to Washington in late October to help prod the Israelis and Palestinians toward compromise at talks taking place at the Wye Plantation, on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. The king had a magnetic effect, and played a valuable role in producing the Wye River Memorandum, in which the Palestinians and Israelis finally settled on implementation of the redeployments and other interim arrangements in the West Bank that had been agreed to several years before. On the day of the White House signing ceremony, Hussein received a number of senior Jordanian visitors in Washington, among them former prime minister Abdul Karim Kabariti. They reinforced the king’s concerns about the crown prince. Hussein told Kabariti that he was considering “major changes” when he returned to Jordan.
I heard versions of all of this from each of the protagonists as they returned to Amman. It was clear that the king’s illness was sharpening his focus on the future, and that changes of some sort were looming. Their pace and scope obviously depended to some extent on his health. While the king was upbeat to Jordanians about his prognosis, the reports we were hearing were much more guarded and uncertain.
Hassan was concerned about his brother’s health, and increasingly anxious about the reports of royal displeasure with his performance. He invited me and my exceptional CIA station chief, Rob Richer, to a private dinner soon after the Wye agreement, and fished politely for information on the king’s health and disposition.6 I was careful; there was no percentage in getting in the middle of what was a thorny royal decision. There had already been erroneous stories in the British press in the fall that the U.S. administration lacked confidence in Hassan. We had quickly knocked them down, and Madeleine Albright had even called Hassan to reassure him. Moreover, I was still not yet entirely convinced that the king would push Hassan aside. It seemed to me that our role in this delicate moment was to make clear our strong and enduring commitment to king and country, steer clear of political infighting, and keep our lines open.7
I had ample support from Washington. In November and December alone, we had visits to Amman from Secretary Albright, Secretary Daley, Secretary of Defense Bill Cohen, and CIA director George Tenet. I pressed the administration to do all we could to invest in our relationship with Jordan now; if Hussein’s health worsened, more tangible backing at this point for Jordan’s economy and security would put us in a stronger position to support the transition than if we had to scramble later to catch up with events.8 The White House began to consider a supplemental assistance package and other contingency steps we might take to shore up the dinar and avoid financial panic.
By early January 1999, the king had completed his treatment at Mayo. It would take a couple weeks to determine whether his bone marrow transplant had cured his cancer, but popular expectations for a full recovery were high. I flew over to see him before he left the United States, just after New Year’s. We met at the house the king had owned for some years in suburban Maryland, on a high wooded bluff overlooking the Potomac. It was a gloomy winter afternoon, with a clear view of the river through the leafless trees. He was weak, shivering beneath his heavy sweater. “I am eager to get home,” he said. “It has been so long, and there is so much to do.”
I congratulated him again on Wye. He smiled wanly, underscoring his skepticism about both Netanyahu and Arafat, but emphasized how much faith he had in President Clinton. “It will be good to work with you once I’m home,” he continued. “I’ve had a lot of time to think about the future. I don’t know how much time I have left in this world, and there are some things I need to do.” Hussein left it at that, and made it clear that he didn’t want to be drawn out. I returned to Amman convinced that a change in succession was coming.
Hundreds of thousands of Jordanians lined the streets to welcome the king back home on January 19. The next day, Hussein gave an interview to CNN’s Christiane Amanpour, in which he hinted—for the first time in public—of changes to come. The king kept putting off a meeting with Hassan, and the crown prince knew what that meant. I saw him on the afternoon of January 21, and he told me that Princess Basma, the only sister of Hussein and Hassan, had just come over to tell him that he was on his way out. Hassan was in deep distress. “I truly can’t understand why the king is so upset with me,” he said. Nevertheless, he would handle the decision with dignity.
Finally, on the night of January 22, the king told Hassan he had decided to change succession. Earlier that day, he had informed Prince Abdullah that he would become crown prince. The king made his choice public on January 25, publishing an uncharacteristically mean-spirited letter detailing his disappointment in Hassan. His treatment had failed, and he would have to return to Mayo the next day for a last-ditch effort to save his life and a second bone marrow transplant.
At thirty-seven, Abdullah was nearly two decades older than his father had been when he took the throne. Jordan was a far more stable place than it had been then, but there was no shortage of challenges on the horizon, or regional predators. Abdullah knew how much he had to learn, but did not seem intimidated. Secretary Albright made a brief but timely visit to Amman on January 28, reassuring the new crown prince and pledging American support for Jordan. I saw Hassan again a few days later. There were no visitors waiting to see him, and he commented wryly that he didn’t expect many to seek him out. He was clearly hurt by a turn of events that he still didn’t fully comprehend, but he had no interes
t in seeking sympathy. I told him I admired the grace with which he was handling all this, and I meant it. For all his years of service as crown prince, Hassan’s biggest contribution to the future of Jordan may have been the way in which he managed his biggest disappointment.
The king’s second bone marrow transplant failed, and he headed home again one last time. He had lost consciousness by the time his plane landed in Amman on February 4, and his vital organs were beginning to shut down. In one final display of the stubborn courage that had taken him and Jordan so far, Hussein outlived his doctors’ predictions of death for three more days. As I put it in a cable to Washington, “It was almost as if, conscious or unconscious, the King was determined to show that only he—not CNN or anxious foreign audiences or medical experts, or anyone else—would decide when he would make his exit. He lived a life that ran against the odds. John Foster Dulles was just the first in a long line of people to underestimate him, and Jordan. It is worth remembering that as all of us contemplate a future without King Hussein.”9
February 7, the day King Hussein died, was another in the series of cold rainy days that seemed to reflect the Jordanian mood that winter. I made a point of walking around the embassy to talk to all of our Jordanian employees, individually or in groups. This was as wrenching a national moment as they had ever faced. Many had tears streaming down their faces. I wanted them to know that they could count on American friendship. Later that day, I talked again to King Abdullah. He was sad but unflustered as he prepared for what some would later call “the funeral of the century,” which by Islamic tradition had to take place within twenty-four hours of his father’s death.
It was an unforgettable tableau. Seventy-five countries sent representatives. President Clinton flew overnight to attend, along with the First Lady and three former presidents—George H. W. Bush, Jimmy Carter, and Gerald Ford. I couldn’t imagine a more powerful gesture of American respect. The other leaders who came sent a similarly impressive signal. They made an unusual scene at Raghadan Palace, as strange a collection of bedfellows as I had ever witnessed, their tangled and occasionally lethal rivalries on full display.
There in one corner was the Israeli delegation, led by Prime Minister Netanyahu, looking warily across the room at Hafez al-Assad, whose own health was fading but who wanted to come in a curious show of admiration for the Hashemite ruler he had tried so hard to undermine over the years. Standing not far from the Israelis was Khaled Meshal, the Hamas leader whose assassination the Mossad had bungled in downtown Amman a year before. Arafat chatted amiably with Mubarak. Iraqi vice president Taha Mohieddin Maruf scowled from a distance, representing Saddam Hussein, who had only a month before employed his usual tact in referring publicly to King Hussein as a “throne dwarf.” One of Muammar al-Qaddafi’s sons talked with Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, whom his father would shortly plot to murder. Prime Minister Tony Blair and Prince Charles came from London, and President Jacques Chirac from Paris.
Even Boris Yeltsin came, ill and disoriented, and propped up in a corner of the room by two aides—intent upon honoring King Hussein, and upon not missing such a remarkable gathering of his contemporaries. Bill Clinton worked the room as only he could, gripping the arms of his counterparts and consoling Jordanian royal family members. By early evening, the simple burial ceremony completed, Air Force One had departed, and the other delegations had left for home. Jordanians were left to consider the complicated world before them, without the only leader most of them had ever known.
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PRESIDENT CLINTON TOOK me aside at one point on the dreary day of King Hussein’s funeral, as we were walking across the tarmac to Air Force One and his return flight to Washington. “The next few months are going to be all about reassurance,” he said. “I’m counting on you to help support these people. Just let us know what you need.” The president was as good as his word, and over the next two years the United States paid careful attention to Jordan’s well-being. I drew on everything I had learned over the years and every connection I had in the executive branch and Congress to drum up and sustain interest in supporting the Jordanians at this crucial moment. I was careful not to oversell the risks King Abdullah faced, but determined to exhaust every possibility to show American reliability.
I believed it was profoundly in our interest to do so. As I wrote in a cable soon after King Abdullah’s accession, “We have a strong and continuing stake in a stable Jordanian partner at the geographic and political center of the Middle East. If we didn’t have such a partner, we’d have to invent one.”10
The day before the funeral, President Clinton issued a public statement stressing his confidence in the Jordanian economy, and confirming that he would ask Congress for $300 million in supplemental military and economic aid. He pledged to work with G-7 and Gulf Arab partners to mobilize more support, including steps to ease Jordan’s $7 billion external debt burden. He said he would work with the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund to marshal additional help. The president’s vote of confidence helped stave off the run on the Jordanian dinar that officials in Amman had feared, and give the new king a little economic breathing space.
In succeeding months, the administration increased concessional wheat shipments to Jordan. It also expanded the Qualifying Industrial Zones (QIZ) program, which allowed duty-free access into the American market for goods produced in Jordan, so long as they had 8 percent Israeli content (one example was a luggage line manufactured at a QIZ in northern Jordan, in which Israeli-produced plastic handles accounted for the required percentage). By 2000, some forty thousand new jobs were created in Jordanian QIZs. More ambitiously, we provided enthusiastic support for Jordan’s bid to join the World Trade Organization, which was accomplished in the spring of 2000. That was the essential first step in negotiating a bilateral free trade agreement, the first with an Arab country and only the fourth such U.S. agreement anywhere in the world.
When President Clinton and King Abdullah finally signed the free trade agreement in October 2000, it sent a signal of confidence in Jordan that was as much political as it was economic. Other than the precedential effect of the terms of the agreement, and making sure that American businesses could compete on a fair playing field in Jordan, there was relatively little consequence for the infinitely larger American economy. By contrast, it was an enormous psychological and practical boost for Jordan. Thanks to both the FTA and the QIZs, Jordan’s exports to the United States shot up from barely $9 million in 1998 to over $1 billion by 2004. Annual U.S. assistance levels rose dramatically as well, from $7 million in 1996 to $950 million in 2003, as Jordan became the third-largest recipient of American aid in the world.
Meanwhile, King Abdullah plunged into his new role with considerable energy and drive. He quickly overcame doubts about his inexperience, and showed a flair for leadership at home and selling Jordan’s case abroad. He understood that the outpouring of international and regional goodwill that followed his father’s death would not last long. Without the baggage of the Gulf War and his father’s refusal to join the Desert Storm coalition, Abdullah rebuilt bridges to the Saudis and Kuwaitis, and connected easily with next-generation leaders in Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates. Without the competitive tensions that had shaped his father’s relationships with leaders like Hafez al-Assad, he solidified ties with Syria and other Arab neighbors. In his first year on the throne, he visited all of the G-7 capitals, including two productive trips to Washington, where he demonstrated even greater finesse than Hussein in cultivating Congress, and even less hesitation in asking for assistance.
At home, Abdullah built an appealing persona, exhibiting common sense and natural strengths as a unifier. Personable and practical, he got off to a good start with most of the sometimes cranky leaders of the East Bank establishment, and impressed many of the rising figures in Jordan’s tiny and often inert and risk-averse private sector with his moderni
zing instincts. Abdullah could count on the loyalty of the military in which he had served for more than two decades. He tried to project a populist air, dressing in disguise as an elderly local and observing the bureaucracy at its plodding pace in Zarqa and other poorer parts of the country.
Prince Hassan kept his disappointment largely to himself, and his dignity intact. Samieh Battikhi remained at GID, watching the king’s back but more and more prone to self-aggrandizement. A sturdy East Bank warhorse, Abdul Raouf Rawabdeh, a former mayor of Amman, became prime minister. Not exactly a poster child for reform, but good at soothing establishment sensibilities, the conservative Rawabdeh was balanced by the more risk-taking Abdul Karim Kabariti, now chief of the royal court. Kabariti reinforced the king’s reformist impulses, and together they drove a fair amount of change: privatization of the telecommunications sector and several significant companies; legislation to protect intellectual property rights; a new economic consultative council; and a major initiative to attract investment in the information technology sector. The king himself didn’t hesitate in that early era to roll up his sleeves and hold his ministers to timetables and action plans—a novel experience for most of them.
The king was easy to talk to, and we usually saw each other several times a week, whether at his office at the palace, at home in Amman or Aqaba, or at events around Jordan. I was always careful not to waste his time or abuse my access. I was equally careful to balance my relationships with the royal family and senior government officials with a range of other Jordanians, and to keep a sharp-eyed perspective on what was going right in this complicated transition and what challenges loomed.
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