Our Last Best Chance_ The Pursuit of Peace in a Time of Peril - King Abdullah II [56]
My father had been advised that the operation was taking place, but he had not been briefed in detail, so he was quite surprised to see me on the morning news. I was summoned to the palace. When I arrived, my father was standing by the breakfast table, frowning. Picking up a copy of a newspaper and waving it at me, he said, “What on earth were you doing yesterday? You put your life in danger.” I explained that although I had commanded the operation, the media had exaggerated my role. “Jamal and his people went into the house. They’re the ones who took the risks,” I said. “Well,” he said, “don’t let me catch you pulling a stunt like that again!” Although he pretended to be angry, I later learned from family members that he was very proud of my role in the operation.
My military training had prepared me for being shot at. What it had not prepared me for was a life in politics. When people are shooting at you, it is evident who the enemy is. This is not so clear when they are smiling and paying compliments.
PART III
Chapter 12
In the Footsteps of a Legend
As King Hussein’s firstborn son, I started out life as the crown prince, but in 1965, when I was just three, my father decided to remove me from the line of succession. There had already been some eighteen documented assassination attempts on his life, most during the turbulent 1950s, when radical Arab nationalism was on the rise, and it seemed unlikely that he would survive long enough to see me reach adulthood. My father asked parliament to amend the Constitution, and named his brother, Prince Hassan, as his new heir.
As a young man I believed my mission in life was to be a soldier, acting as my father’s shield and sword. But there was one attacker from which I was powerless to protect him. In the summer of 1992 he went to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, and was diagnosed with cancer. He underwent surgery and the operation was successful. The family, and the nation, breathed a sigh of relief. But in July 1998 he again began to feel unwell, and he returned to the United States for medical evaluation.
At the time, I was attending a short course at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California. With me on the course was Abdul Razaq, a Jordanian general who had been my battalion commander in my first army posting. He was a great mentor to a young second lieutenant still trying to learn the ropes. He had heard the news of my father’s return to Mayo, and in a quiet moment between classes he took me aside and said, “Without your father, Jordan will not survive.”
The graduation ceremony was the day after my father’s arrival at Mayo. As soon as it ended, I went straight to Minnesota with Rania and the children to be by his side. My son Hussein was very close to his grandfather. Sharing more than a name, they both had a deep love of aircraft. After work, my father would often stop by our house. He would ask me if Hussein was in the house, and if Hussein was not, he would not even come in. “Okay, bye,” he would say in a rush, before heading off on his way. From the age of two, Hussein began to memorize the names of various types of planes, and my father delighted in showing him small Corgi models and hearing his little voice cry out “Stuka” or “Jumbo.” Once, when we traveled to London, my father flew his TriStar himself and called Hussein, then two and a half, into the cockpit as he landed at Heathrow. To the amazement of the crew and my father’s delight, he correctly identified a Concorde and a Boeing 747 sitting on the tarmac as we came in to land.
After the laughter and joy of our little family reunion in Minnesota, my father asked to speak to me alone. Placing his hand on my arm, he said, “The cancer has come back.” I had never given serious consideration to the possibility that my father might die. I thought he would defeat his cancer, as he had