Uncertainty Over Succession Stirs Unease in Jordan

In contrast to most of its Arab neighbors, Jordan was one country where it had been clear for years who would take over when the current ruler departs. That, in turn, had given Jordan rare stability in a volatile region and made the desert kingdom a trustworthy ally for Washington.

King Hussein changed all that this week with a few choice words that have shaken the status quo to the core and stunned both Jordanians and their foreign friends.

Upon his return home after six months of cancer treatment in the United States--and with questions lingering about his health--Hussein indicated that his brother, Hassan, who has been the designated heir to the throne for the last 34 years, will be replaced by one of the king’s own sons. On Friday, unidentified palace sources were quoted widely as saying that Hassan has been officially informed of the decision to remove him as crown prince.

Hussein will not say yet who the successor will be, but all eyes turn to eldest son Abdallah, a 36-year-old army commander by Hussein’s second wife, and to Hamzah, the 18-year-old first son by his current, American-born wife. Both would be less experienced than Hassan.

“I will come to [a decision] at the appropriate time,” Hussein said the day after he arrived in Amman, the capital, this week, speaking in a CNN interview that has been his only extensive public comment since returning. The statements were broadcast live in Jordan and reprinted in government-controlled newspapers.

Although Hussein appeared to criticize his brother for failing to maintain a sufficiently low profile while serving as regent during the king’s cancer treatment, his main motivation is said to be restoring the line of succession to his own direct descendants. He said the revisions to the constitution that made Hassan the heir in 1965 were “not the end of the story” and were made necessary by a lack of options at the time.

More than palace intrigue is at issue.

Having the well-educated, pro-West Hassan on deck ensured stability and continuity in Middle East peace negotiations, Jordanian analysts say, and opened the possibility of domestic reform in a country battered by corruption and high unemployment. Now these and other policies are in question.

Royal infighting and instability would make economic and political reform less likely and leave Jordan vulnerable to predatory neighbors, analysts say.

Although the uncertainty makes many Jordanians nervous, Hussein’s abrupt switching of gears also underscores the greater problem from the perspective of some U.S. officials: Jordan is, after all, a monarchy where one man, for the most part, calls the shots.

Although Hussein usually wins praise for his benevolence, wisdom and deft mediating talents, he heads a tribal-based system that is not democratic and in which institutions, despite small inroads at change, are weak or ignored.

“We love the monarch,” one Washington-based official said. “The problem is the monarchy.”

For these officials, the palace chess game of who will be heir is less important than whether any monarch will modernize the economy, fight corruption, institute fairness in business practices and lift a stifling media censorship that forbids criticism of the king or state.

Many foreign officials believed that Hassan, a brainy technocrat who lacks charisma but has a passion for detail and management, was best equipped to run Jordan.

And many Jordanians simply feel as if the rug has been pulled out from under them.

“Hassan has been a major pillar of the establishment, a very familiar face whose presence gave a sense of security,” said Radwan Abdallah, former chair of the University of Jordan’s political science department. “For most Jordanians he’s been a reassuring, known quantity that is being traded now for something that is unknown. In this very critical stage of our history, with so many critical problems, this is the last thing we need.”

By most accounts, Hassan had won the loyalty of the Jordanian political elite. The reaction to his removal as heir, voiced privately in the salons and parlors of Amman’s posh neighborhoods, has bordered on outrage. Yet it does not seem likely that the outrage will escalate into organized opposition to the Hashemite dynasty.

Hussein named his brother as crown prince and heir designate during a time of regional violence and a string of assassination attempts targeting the king. Son Abdallah was 3 at the time, and second son Faisal 2, too young to be made kings-in-waiting.

Both were born to Hussein’s second wife, the British-born Toni Gardiner, whom he later divorced. A third son, Ali, was born to the next wife, a Palestinian who was killed in a helicopter crash. Hussein later married Queen Noor, the former Lisa Halaby of New York, who bore two more sons, Hamzah and Hashem.

The royal rumor mill speculates that Noor, who appears to have considerable influence with her husband, had been lobbying for Hamzah to replace Hassan as the next in line to the throne.

Hussein singled out Hamzah in remarks at the airport ceremony when he returned home this week. Yet Hussein also gave a nod to Abdallah by appointing him to greet various Gulf princes in attendance, a role that normally is reserved for the crown prince.

Jordan’s allies are worried about whether a successor less experienced than Hassan will have the clout and skill to face down the region’s strongman leaders. Israel, especially, sees a measure of its own security in Jordan’s stability, with Jordan forming a cushion between Israel’s eastern flank and Iraq.

Heirs such as Abdallah or Hamzah “would probably look like children against rivals such as Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, Syrian President Hafez Assad, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein,” Israeli analyst Zeev Schiff wrote Friday.

The younger Hamzah, especially, would have to be coached if he were to assume the monarchy in the near future. With the extent of the 63-year-old king’s recovery unclear, no one can predict how soon a coronation would take place.

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In this and some other stories, King Abdullah II of Jordan is referred to as Crown Prince Abdallah of Jordan.

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