"We're in dire straits." So spoke Jordan's King Abdullah a half-year ago. A just-completed week of intensive travels and discussions throughout Jordan finds no one disagreeing with that assessment. Jordan may no longer be hyper-vulnerable and under siege, as it was in decades past; but it does face possibly unprecedented problems.
Created out of thin air by Colonial Secretary Winston Churchill in 1921 to accommodate British imperial interests, the Emirate of Transjordan, now the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, for almost a century has led a precarious existence.
Particularly dangerous moments came in 1967, when Pan-Arabist pressures led King Hussein to make war on Israel and lose the West Bank; in 1970, when a Palestinian revolt nearly toppled him; and 1990-1991, when pro-Saddam Hussein sentiment pushed him to join a hopeless and evil cause.