NEARLY two decades before the Middle East completely lost its romantic Lawrence of Arabia aura and became a brutal battlefield, two young cousins sat on neighboring thrones: Feisal II in Iraq, Hussein in Jordan. Handsome, carefree, gallant, the two young Kings were installed on the same day in 1953. Their dual reigns were a spectacular achievement for the ancient Hashemite dynasty.
In the summer of 1958, the spectacle ended. Feisal, then 23, was murdered in his Baghdad palace by a clique of revolutionary army officers whose political passions had been aroused by the antiroyalist...
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