Hussein and Abdullah: Inside the Jordanian Royal Family (review)

Randa Habib is one of the Middle East's most diligent and well-connected journalists. Over the years, she has maintained especially strong contacts in Jordan, where a 1973 interview with King Hussein helped her begin a promising journalism career that has blossomed over time. This encounter also began her long-term association with the Jordanian monarch who was frequently one of her key sources, and was also most certainly a warm-hearted and paternalistic friend. Yet, Habib's skills as a journalist go beyond the ability to gain access to key policy-makers. She has also played a leading role in uncovering a number of major stories. One of the most notable of examples of her skill at investigative journalism occurred when she helped expose the unsuccessful September 1997 attempt by Israeli intelligence to assassinate Hamas leader Khalid Mishal in the streets of Amman. Her involvement in this crisis is well chronicled in Paul McGeough's Kill Khalid: The Failed Mossad Assassination of Khalid Mishal and the Rise of Hamas.

Habib is exceptionally qualified to write about Jordan's Royal Family and the country's two most recent kings. Many of the historical events that she recounts are already well known to scholars of Middle East studies, but she also includes various subtle insights and interesting anecdotes that breathe new life into familiar history. Many of her anecdotes are interesting, and some are funny, but most are meant to illustrate larger points about King Hussein and his son, King Abdullah. She also discusses a number of extremely sensitive matters with considerable fine-grained detail. Most notable here is the discussion of the events leading up to the February 1999 assumption of leadership by King Abdullah after his father's death. She also writes quite a bit about her own life, weaving her interactions with key leaders into the narrative of the book. The book is especially kind to King Hussein, perhaps less so to King Abdullah.

King Hussein could not have asked for a more sympathetic biographer, and he appears as a compassionate, courageous, and brilliant leader. This portrayal is hardly surprising since Habib was close to King Hussein, but also because he actually was a truly exceptional leader. One particularly funny incident related by Habib involves a late night attempt by King Hussein to take a taxi to an Amman hospital where he needed to check on the health of a critically ill Yasir 'Arafat. The taxi driver quickly recognized his royal passenger and demanded to know where his bodyguards were. When the king assured him that they were on the way, he was told that this was not an acceptable solution, and the two men waited for the guards. Upon departing the taxi, the driver implored King Hussein to be more careful about his personal security, and the monarch dutifully promised to do so.

Jordanian relations with neighboring states are a special focus of the book, including Amman's interactions with Iraq, Syria, and Israel, as well as the Palestinian leadership. Habib refers to the Jordanian relationship with Syria as an "armed friendship" and states that King Hussein and Syrian President Hafez Assad were such different personality types that they could never be friends. She also relates an amusing incident where the king desperately sought a cigarette from his bodyguards following a meeting with Assad. The king's health problems were well known by this time, and the guards resisted his efforts. King Hussein maintained that after six hours of one-on-one talks with the Syrian leader he really needed it. The difficulties King Hussein faced with his sometimes ally Saddam Hussein are also discussed in some depth, as is his distrustful ties with 'Arafat. The warm relations King Hussein maintained with Israeli leader Yitzhak Rabin and their partnership in establishing the Israeli-Jordanian Peace treaty stand in stark contrast to Jordanian ties with most Arab leaders. Neither Hussein nor his son would ever establish such a...