Long Live The King

Succession plots are brewing inside Jordan's Hashemite dynasty. Reversing a deathbed wish of the late King Hussein, King Abdullah II stunned his subjects last week by summoning Crown Prince Hamzah — his half brother — from a holiday and abruptly sacking him as heir to the throne. "It was a complete surprise," said Mustafa Hamarneh, a prominent Jordanian political analyst.

Hamzah, eldest son of the late King Hussein and American-born Queen Noor, nearly succeeded Hussein in 1999 when the monarch, dying of cancer, dismissed his brother, longtime Crown Prince Hassan. So close was Hamzah to his father that...

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