Our Last Best Chance: The Pursuit of Peace in a Time of Peril

by King Abdullah II

  I used to do a lot of rally driving, including competing in professional events, and my co-driver Ali Bilbeisi and I even managed to take third place in the Jordan International Rally in 1986 and again in 1988. One of my favorite places was Tal Al Rumman, a mountain outside Amman where my father and some of his Lebanese friends in 1962 started a hill climb that is today one of the Middle East’s longest-standing sporting events. I asked Rania if she would like to go for a drive with me, and we drove up to the top of the hill. I had hoped for a much more romantic proposal, but as we stood outside the car talking, I told her I thought our relationship was getting serious, and I could see us getting married. Rania looked back at me, smiled, and said nothing. Taking her silence as assent, I told my father about our conversation, and things began to move quickly after that.

  A couple of weeks later we arranged for my father to visit her parents’ house. I had been traveling on army business, and as I stepped off the plane at Queen Alia International Airport in Amman, I saw my father standing at the gate. It was the first time I remember his meeting me at the airport. I think he just wanted to make sure I didn’t get cold feet! Very much the romantic, he had for many years wanted me to marry and settle down.

  In our culture, when a man wants to ask a woman to marry him, he gets the most powerful and influential members of his family or tribe to assure the intended bride’s family that their daughter will be welcomed and well cared for. What better spokesman could you have to make your case than the King of Jordan? On the way to Rania’s house, my father took a detour to his office, where he had some papers to sign. He kept me waiting for a good forty-five minutes. I was sweating, afraid we would be late.

  When we arrived at the house, Rania’s parents were expecting a casual meeting. They had no idea that my father intended to ask that day for their daughter’s hand in marriage for me. They were gracious hosts, and her mother had prepared cookies, tea, and coffee. When she offered my father a cup of coffee, he took the cup, but did not drink it. In Jordan, when a man intends to ask for a woman’s hand in marriage, it is traditional for the woman’s family to offer a cup of Arabic coffee and for the man’s family to refuse to drink it until the family has accepted the proposal. If her family turns down the marriage proposal, then that slight to the family honor is thought to be matched by the slight of not drinking the coffee. These days this is a ritual that is performed with everyone knowing their role. But in all of the rush, and even though Rania and I had spoken of marriage since I proposed to her, I had forgotten to inform her of the plan.

  When my father refused to drink the coffee, Rania began to realize what was happening. But her poor mother had no idea what was wrong. She began urging my father to eat and drink. Finally, my father turned to Rania’s father and made his case for why Rania and I would be a good match. I was so nervous that I can’t remember much of what he said. But he must have been persuasive. Much to my relief, Rania’s parents agreed, and finally my father drank their coffee. About a week later, on February 22, 1993, Rania and I formally announced our engagement.

  That same month, I moved from commanding a battalion in the Armoured Corps, where I had spent most of my military career, to becoming deputy commander of Special Forces. In common with other elite army regiments like the U.S. Delta Force and the British Special Air Service, the Jordanian Special Forces had responsibility for counterterrorism operations and were trained to operate by land, air, and sea. One personal benefit of the move was that it was a headquarters appointment, so I was able to move from an army base to the family house in Amman. With our wedding fast approaching, I had little time to settle in.

  My father wanted a grand occasion. He went so far as to fly in from London one of the organizers of the Royal Tournament, an annual military pageant that was at that time one of the largest in the world. Rania and I wanted a small wedding, so I began negotiating with my father. He was so excited that I knew I could never dissuade him. In the end, we agreed that he would arrange the formal event in the daytime and we would organize the evening entertainment.

  June 10, 1993, was a sunny day in Amman, and crowds lined the streets, waving and throwing flowers. I wore my black military dress uniform, and Rania was resplendent in a flowing white satin dress with gold embroidery and a white veil. We were married in a simple ceremony in the afternoon at Zahran Palace in downtown Amman in front of family and a few friends. Zahran, which in Arabic means “blooming flower,” was the home of my grandmother Queen Zein.

  After the ceremony we drove through the streets of Amman in an open-top cream 1961 Lincoln convertible bedecked with white flowers, waving to the crowds. We drove slowly through town to Raghadan Palace, seat of the Royal Court, where my father had arranged the formal reception. Built by my great-grandfather King Abdullah I, the founder of modern Jordan, on a hill overlooking Amman, Raghadan contains the throne room and is often used for formal state occasions.

  That afternoon the atmosphere was anything but formal as around two thousand festive guests spilled out of the palace and into the tree-lined grounds. As well as friends and family from Jordan, we had invited friends from overseas, including Gig Faux, Perry Vella, and several others from Deerfield. Some of my Deerfield teachers came too, including Jim Smith, and one of my old bodyguards. There were friends from Sandhurst, other friends from England, and Rania’s friends and family came from Kuwait and from Cairo. The Crown Prince of Morocco was there, as was General Joseph Hoar, the head of U.S. Central Command. Queen Sofia of Spain also came, as my father was very close to the Spanish royal family. (This connection had developed in a roundabout way. One of my father’s classmates at Victoria College in Egypt was the exiled King Simeon II of Bulgaria, who introduced him to other European royal families, including the Spanish. In a quirk of fate, King Simeon returned to Bulgaria after the collapse of the communist government, formed a new political party, won a majority in the 2001 Bulgarian elections, and was sworn in as prime minister.)

  The highlight of the reception was the surprise arrival of my old jumpmaster, Samih Janakat. As befits a Special Forces officer, he arrived by parachute, jumping into the palace grounds after dusk. Managing to avoid the nearby trees, buildings, and fountain, he landed perfectly in front of the assembled guests and presented Rania and me with a sword that we used to cut the wedding cake.

  After the formal reception in the palace grounds, family and close friends retired for dinner at my mother’s house in the hills above Amman, where we ate, talked, and danced next to a swimming pool. Finally, at around two in the morning, Rania and I said good night. The next morning we set out for America on our honeymoon, eager to begin our new life together.

  As a wedding gift, my father paid for a first-class flight via London to San Francisco, but once we were there we bought a Visit USA Air Pass, which allowed us a month of unlimited economy-class travel. Rania had visited the United States a few times before, but I was eager to show her more. We flew first to Hawaii, detoured to Tahiti and Bora Bora, and then traveled to the East Coast, visiting New York and Washington, D.C. Occasionally, when they heard we were honeymooners, the check-in staff would upgrade us to business class.

  After we returned from America, Rania and I were looking for a house to buy together when my father said he would give us a place on the outskirts of Amman that he had bought previously and intended to renovate. The renovations were fairly extensive and took us about a year. In the meantime, we lived in a small guesthouse, part of my father’s house that he would use to accommodate visitors. Living next door to my father meant that we saw him a lot, and allowed Rania and him to get to know one another better. We would often sit together for breakfast, or watch television together in the evenings. This time also served as Rania’s introduction to the other side of royalty. Such proximity to the king caused some people to become envious, and she had to be extremely diplomatic. I commuted from Amman to the Special Forces headquarters in Zarqa, about an hour away. For the first time in many years I was not livin
g on an army base. Our home was far from a palace—just a living room, dining room, and two bedrooms—but we were very, very happy. Our happiness was made even greater by the constant presence of my father in our lives. In later years we would look back and realize just how precious that time was.

  Rania had left her job at Apple. Initially we had thought that she would get our household set up and spend some time getting accustomed to being a member of the royal family. But she was a career woman and had far too much energy to sit around at home all day. Being a housewife was not the future that she had envisioned for herself. Our relationship had always been an equal partnership. I could tell that she wanted to return to work, but as part of the royal family, it would not have been appropriate for her to go back to her old job at Apple, or to work for another commercial enterprise. We decided together that the ideal way for her to use her vision, talent, and intelligence would be within the public sector. I went to my father and asked him if he could suggest a suitable role for Rania. Knowing of her background in the commercial sector, he suggested that she work at the Jordan Export Development and Commercial Centers Corporation, helping to promote Jordanian companies in foreign markets.

  Although he could be conservative about some things, my father believed women should play a public role, which was unusual for a man of his generation in the region. In the 1970s, at a time when the wives of many Arab leaders were rarely seen in public, my father insisted that his wife, Queen Alia, accompany him to public functions and meetings with heads of state, both in the region and overseas. He was also very supportive of my sister Aisha’s desire to go into the military.

  Always a bit of a tomboy, Aisha was very tough, as we found out when we were children. If Feisal or I ever tried to tease her, she would give as good as she got. Aisha left for the United States at the age of eight, where she attended school in Washington before moving to Dana Hall High School in Wellesley, Massachusetts. One summer, when she was back in Amman on holiday, she asked me if I would take her parachute jumping. I said I would, but we would have to keep it secret from my father, who was not very keen on the idea. She was not yet sixteen and so light that we had to put weights and rocks in her webbing. I landed first, and because of her weight, she drifted away from the landing zone and ended up in a nearby field. I sprinted across the rocky ground, and as I drew near I found her lying on the ground, not moving. Alarmed, I ran up alongside her. Flat on her back, she was singing with happiness! That summer I took her up several more times, and she became the first woman in Jordan to complete five parachute jumps and receive her wings.

  At this point, we decided we would have to let my father know. He was traveling, so I called him up and said, “By the way, Father, I have Aisha next to me, and I wanted to say congratulations. Your daughter has earned her jump wings.” There was a moment of stunned silence on the other end, and then my father proceeded to ask me exactly what I thought I was doing. He pretended to be angry, but we all knew that once he had recovered from the shock he would be tremendously proud. Coming from a military family herself, my mother was also extremely supportive of Aisha’s interest in the armed forces. Their pride grew even greater when in 1987 Aisha became the first woman from the Middle East to graduate from Sandhurst. She is currently a brigadier general and is serving as a military attaché to the Jordanian embassy in Washington, D.C., the first female officer ever to hold such a post. She believes that women should play a greater role in the armed forces and is a powerful advocate on the subject.

  It is women like Aisha, with her active role in the armed forces, and Rania, with her leadership positions in philanthropic and charitable organizations, who are showing that the potential for women in our country is unlimited.

  In the summer of 2009, I was on holiday in Arizona with my son Hussein and Aisha’s son, Aoun, when we went to a flight school and the boys asked if they could go parachute jumping. “Please don’t let my mother know,” Aoun said to me. “She’d kill you!” Knowing my sister, this was no idle threat. After the boys jumped, I called Aisha and said, “I have your son standing next to me, and I just wanted to say congratulations, he’s done his first parachute jump.”

  I have always loved parachuting, and when Rania and I were newly married I would get up before dawn two or three times a week to go and jump. The thrill of jumping from a plane thousands of feet in the air, feeling the wind rushing past my face, and seeing the ground below rushing up would keep me on a high for days afterward. For Rania, who had very little previous interaction with the military, this took a bit of getting used to. She would insist that each time I jumped, somebody phone to tell her I had landed safely. No matter how early I left, she would stay awake by the phone until she had received that call. As I progressed through the army, my other responsibilities began to increase and I had fewer and fewer opportunities to go parachuting. My father began to ask me to travel more, representing Jordan internationally, conducting informal diplomacy, and assessing foreign military equipment. I accepted gladly, as I wanted our Special Forces to have the best, most advanced equipment and training available anywhere. And at times he would ask me to go to some very out-of-the way places.

  Chapter 10

  Lessons in Diplomacy

  In late 1993 my father was scheduled to travel to Asia for a visit to Singapore, Japan, China, and North Korea. At that time, the United States was engaged in a political confrontation with North Korea, which had recently successfully tested a Nodong-1 ballistic missile in the Sea of Japan and had threatened to pull out of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). My father felt that a formal visit to North Korea from a head of state might be perceived by the United States as undermining its efforts at tough diplomacy, so he canceled his trip and asked me to go in his place. He asked me to apologize to President Kim Il-sung, whom Koreans called “the Great Leader,” that he could not come in person.

  At the end of November I set out for Singapore, where I met with senior leaders and bought some light weapons. I continued on to Japan, where we discussed assistance to the Jordanian police, as the Japanese were then helping us with training in bomb disposal. After Tokyo I went to China, where I met with senior members of the People’s Liberation Army in China. The meetings went well, and my delegation and I prepared to travel on to Pyongyang. But getting there would prove to be an adventure in itself.

  One of the world’s least modern airlines, Air Koryo, the North Korean state airline, is currently banned from operating in the European Union due to its poor safety record. The plane looked like a Russian copy of a Boeing 727, and inside the “first class” section, rather than rows of seats we found a couple of couches. To reach the bathroom you would have to make your way past boxes and crates stuffed into the back of the plane. We landed at Sunan International Airport late in the evening and taxied along the runway in the dark for what felt like half an hour. The airport was blacked out, perhaps because the North Korean authorities feared an escalation in the standoff with the United States.

  Finally the plane came to a stop and my delegation and I headed down the steps and onto the tarmac. We were met by a group of soldiers, one of whom said something in Korean, which I believe meant “Welcome.” We were escorted to the side of the tarmac and lined up against a wall when suddenly a bright spotlight came on. While blinking in the sudden glare, I thought, “Oh no, we’re going to be shot!”

  As it turned out, our hosts were filming our arrival. They showed us to an official guesthouse and led us into a large dining room with 1970s décor where some twenty generals, marshals, and assorted army officers were waiting. The dinner was very stiff and formal, and near the end of the meal one of the officers leaned over to me and asked, “What gifts are you going to give the Great Leader?”

  I said, “I have brought a clock, a traditional Jordanian dagger, and a gift box from my wedding.” The general nodded his approval. We finished the meal and then headed to our guesthouse.

  Not long after midnight, as I was about to fal
l asleep, there was a knock on my door. I got up from bed and found my protocol officer, Faisal Fayez, at the door. Faisal said the generals were outside and they wanted an explanation of the significance of my gifts. I headed back to the dining room and found the twenty officers waiting for me, all in full uniform, holding notepads. The lead general asked me what the meaning of my gifts was, and I replied that they were gifts of friendship. He was not satisfied and pressed for more detail on each specific present.

  “What is the meaning of the clock?” the general continued. I was stumped. But as it was nearly one in the morning and I was keen to get to bed, I remembered one of the basic rules of international diplomacy and started making stuff up.

  “The clock,” I said, “signifies the precious time my father and the Great Leader spent together at Tito’s funeral, and the time that has passed since then.” The generals nodded in unison and began scribbling furiously in their notebooks. Getting into the spirit, I continued, “The dagger is a gift from one warrior to another.”

  The general asked, “And the wedding box?” I said, “I look on the Great Leader as a father, and so this is a gift from my recent wedding, from a grateful son.” The generals nodded and continued writing. After they had finished, Faisal and I retired, eager to get some rest.

  The next day we were taken to see the village where the North Korean president had lived as a young man, then on to lunch with the Great Leader himself. Kim Il-sung was dressed in a two-piece safari outfit and greeted us warmly. He was in good spirits, and his view on the mounting crisis between North Korea and the United States was that it was not too serious. In common with isolated dictators across the world, Kim Il-sung had an unrealistic belief in the strength of his own military and a lack of understanding of the power and technological prowess of Western forces. “I’ve beaten the Americans once and I can do it again!” he said in an apparent reference to the Korean War, when he was prime minister. His rhetoric reminded me of the language used by Saddam’s sons, Uday and Qusay, before the Gulf War in 1991.